BOOK REVIEW
Legacy: Gangsters, Corruption And The London Olympics by Michael Gillard (Sportsbookofthemonth.com price: £12.88, saving £4.11 on rrp)
FOR many readers of Legacy, a superbly well-researched book, the tales of industrial-scale corruption, indiscriminate violence and truly stunning examples of greed, much of which predated the 2012 London Olympics, will probably come as little surprise. It is, however, the sheer scale of wrongdoing that takes the breath away.
Legacy could never be called a sports book in the accepted sense (it reads more like an outstanding crime thriller), yet every instance recounted here is absolutely accurate and many of them revolve around sport.
Gillard’s absorbing narrative makes you wonder, for example, why the official figures showing the final cost of London’s Olympics have never been published. It also highlights the scandalous use of public money since 2012; the outrageous decision to lease the London Stadium to West Ham United for a pittance; all this and more set against London’s Tammany Hall political scene.
At the book’s heart is David ‘The Longfella’ Hunt, a villain whose fearsome reputation makes the fictional Tony Soprano look like Julie Andrews.
Despite multiple attempts, the police singularly failed to find credible evidence to convict Hunt or members of his gang, the Snipers, ostensibly because prospective witnesses and others feared the consequences. In 2013, when Gillard and the Sunday Times defended themselves against Hunt in a libel case, a leading security firm refused to protect witnesses giving evidence on Gillard’s behalf because it was too dangerous.
The author was then given a formal ‘Osman warning’, issued by the National Crime Agency, who informed him of a threat to his life. Nevertheless, Gillard still won the case.
Legacy has been called “One of greatest British true crimes books of the last 50 years… both for its revelations charting the wider story of East End crime over [many] decades and exposing rottenness at the core of Scotland Yard.” Sport plays a peripheral role in this story, but such is the money swilling around many sports nowadays that Michael Gillard will have you wondering whether it could become more central. No-one would bet against it.
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