Ali, Pele, Lillee and Me: A Personal Odyssey Through the Sporting Seventies

by Brian Viner (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  'For lovers of sport, there has never been a better decade to be alive, and in front of the telly, than the 1970s.' Brian Viner's boyhood coincided with an era that was to him, and many others, a golden age of sport. It was the decade of the Rumble in the Jungle, and of Kevin Keegan falling off his bike on Superstars. Red Rum won three Grand Nationals and Bjorn Borg five consecutive Wimbledons. Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson joined forces in the Australian cricket team and together became the formidable Lilian Thomson, mother of all fast-bowling partnerships. In rugby union, to this day, there has been no finer try than the one scored by Gareth Edwards, for the Barbarians against the mighty All Blacks, at Cardiff Arms Park in 1973. Nor, for as long as football has been played, wherever it has been played, has there been a finer team than the 1970 Brazilians. But were all these heroes truly heroic? What became of them in later years? Comparing his childhood adulation with his adult experiences of meeting many of these icons in the course of his work as a sports journalist, Brian Viner discovers some surprising truths about the dreams and realities of sport as both player and spectator. Revealing and very funny, this is an essential read for anyone who has played football in satin shorts or secretly blubbed at a video of Botham's Ashes.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $3.40

  Brian Viner's formative years as a sports nut coincided with what he argues was the best sporting decade of all time. The 1970s gave us the greatest football team in the history of the game. Muhammad Ali in his pomp. Red Rum. Gareth Edwards and rugby union's finest try. And, of course, Kevin Keegan falling off his bike on Superstars. When the decade ended, Viner was in his last year as a teenager. If he wasn't watching or playing sport during the ten years before that, then he was either at school or asleep. Or both, if it was one of Mr Ashworth's physics lessons. Hilarious and highly engaging, Viner's memoir also sheds light on some of his boyhood heroes through his adult encounters with them as a sports journalist, and is a must-read for sports fans of all ages.