The Times - UK (2021-12-18)

18 1GS Saturday December 18 2021 | the times

Sport Sports books for Christmas

Azeem Rafiq. It is important to note

that Holding has said often that he

did not experience racism in county

dressing rooms nor on the field of

play, yet, since then, and at the time

of writing, more than 2,000 calls

had been received by the unit set up

by the ECB to investigate cases of

discrimination.

So Holding’s book has been

timely. Only a fool would not stop to

think about actions, thoughts, words

and potential biases, after its

publication.

This month the book won the

William Hill, the sports equivalent

of the Booker, first prize of £30,000,

which is at least some recompense

for all the bad bets Holding has

made down the years, as a student of

the form. Success, though, will come

with a different kind of return. As he

said to me shortly after publication:

“If people start having conversations

about what they’ve learnt in this

book, I’ll be happy. I’m hoping to

change people’s minds and attitudes.

It’s not sport that needs fixing, it’s

society and that is what the book is

trying to do, to teach society what is

wrong with itself.”

Mike Atherton

Chief Cricket Correspondent

the same, Holding thought he’d

better crank into action.

Henry is one of a number of high-

profile black sporting figures who

have contributed to the book,

detailing their experiences. Henry

gives an account of how, in New

York, a taxi driver snubbed him

when the colour of his skin became

clear. Usain Bolt tells of being

followed around shops suspiciously.

Makhaya Ntini, the former South

Africa fast bowler, recalls his

loneliness in the national team and

his hurt at being described as a

quota pick, despite a record in the

game that stands with the best.

Nevertheless it is Holding’s voice

that shines through: like his

commentary, his voice is

uncompromising, honest and direct.

Months in the writing, the book was

a lifetime in the making. It is not an

easy read, especially if you are

white. There are chapters on slavery

and lynching, chapters that his

sisters found so hard to read that

they eventually asked him to stop

sending the rough drafts.

Since the book was published,

English cricket has undergone a

reckoning, after the allegations of

racism levelled against Yorkshire by

WHY WE KNEEL,

HOW WE RISE

by Michael Holding

Publisher, Simon &

Schuster; 320pp; £20

A

t the end of the summer,

with his usual modesty

and humility, Michael

Holding stepped away

from the commentary

box. There was no public

announcement, no grandstanding,

nothing except an acknowledgment

to close friends and colleagues that

his time had come.

Many years before, he had retired

from playing in the same low-key

fashion. Now his long association

with the game had come to an end

at the age of 67.

He has enjoyed a distinguished

career as an undeniably great fast

bowler, as a commentator of

honesty, directness and

unimpeachable integrity and,

latterly, as a distinctive voice on the

problems of racism in society as a

Holding’s humility, Lions levity

From the West Indies great’s unflinching look at slavery and lynching to lighter tales of a rugby player

taking out his frustrations on an imitation hedgehog, Times writers select a feast of literary treats...

Deep reflection needed after confronting racism’s raw truths

whole, as well as cricket. It may be,

in time, that he is remembered as

much for his interventions on race

as the other aspects of his career —

which is not to play down his

achievements as a fast bowler, which

place him in the highest rank.

In a defining monologue on Sky

Sports, before the opening Test of

the 2020 summer and in the

aftermath of the death of George

Floyd in the United States, Holding

spoke in a way he had never spoken

before about race. With rain

pushing what was a planned

lunchtime slot to the morning and

bad weather allowing for more

conversation time than can often be

the case on television, Holding

spoke passionately and angrily and

emotionally.

Holding has been an ever present

on our screens since Sky’s

involvement with the game, but this

was a different person speaking. The

eventual result of his monologue

was the book Why We Kneel, How

We Rise, published in June this year.

After his initial intervention,

colleagues asked him what he was

going to do next, and when Thierry

Henry, the former Arsenal and

France striker, got in touch to ask

A searingly

good read

THE HOT HAND: THE

MYSTERY AND

SCIENCE OF

STREAKS

by Ben Cohen

HarperCollins; 352pp;

£11.99

T

his offbeat and highly

original book by the Wall

Street Journal sportswriter

Ben Cohen is an

entertaining amalgam of

sports theory and popular science.

The title refers to an almost mythical

New twist on an old legend

Bromfield’s moving memoir tells

how Clough first invited these two

“rag-tags” in for breakfast in

Sunderland, then gave them an

escape from an abusive home. Two

stepbrothers became almost adopted

children in the Clough family. They

would stay in the Clough residence,

travel on the team bus, help out in the

changing room, even sit on the bench.

When Aaron went off to join the

army, Craig stayed with Clough, who

would drive him around in his

Mercedes listening to Frank Sinatra

and dispensing life lessons. He helped

to arrange a job in a newsagent’s

owned by the family, which is where

the story becomes more

complicated. It is a book of

love for Clough that

turns into a heartfelt

apology too.

It is a story that

shows Clough to be

even more complex,

contradictory and

fascinating than we

knew. He was a

deeply generous man

who could also be a

crook; a rare life force

who, in part, extinguished

his own through drink; a man

of the people who also made some

deeply offensive remarks about the

Hillsborough tragedy. Bromfield

captures intimate moments that show

the humanity beneath the bombast.

There was so much to Clough and

Bromfield gives us a unique, and

affecting, perspective on how his own

journey from a depressed estate

became entwined with the life of one

of football’s most towering figures.

Matt Dickinson, Senior Sports Writer

BE GOOD, LOVE

BRIAN: GROWING UP

WITH BRIAN

CLOUGH

by Craig Bromfield

Harper Collins; 320pp;

£16.99

I

n late October 1984, two

impoverished children from

Sunderland waited outside the

Seaburn Hotel trying to collect a

penny for the guy. Their luck was

in, and in ways that make for one of

the most remarkable football

stories I have read.

One man gave them

not only a penny but a

£5 note. He was

Kenny Swain, of

Nottingham Forest,

and he told the

boys, Craig and

Aaron, that if they

came back the next

day they could see

the rest of the players.

They returned in the

hope of autographs and

more cash but, in meeting

Brian Clough, the legendary Forest

manager, they received more than

they (or we) could ever have

imagined. Lives were transformed.

There are more than half a dozen

books about Clough on my shelf

written by that extraordinary football

man, or about him. I was not sure

there was room for another one until

Craig Bromfield produced a tale so

unexpected that I double-checked

that it was true.

The pinnacle of rugby writing

The skill of the authors is twofold.

One: their contacts books were so

good that they tracked down every

leading (living) character in the

series. Two: they got almost all of

them to open up. It’s not as though

there are astonishing revelations

here, more that the players are fine

storytellers. The book is therefore

an oral history with the authors

stitching it together so smoothly you

hardly see the joins.

There is all sorts in here, like John

Bentley, below, on his length-of-the-

field try (“The try changed my life.

My wife says: ‘You went on tour,

scored one try and you’ve got one

speech. Get over yourself.’ I

scored seven actually.”)

Or Doddie Weir’s

early departure, after

Marius Bosman

stamped on his

knee. (“Kathy and

I got married later

that summer and

somebody gave us

a boot cleaner in

the shape of a

hedgehog that we

kept outside the front

door. We called it Marius

and I liked to give it a good

kicking.”)

Or the drama around Jim Telfer’s

Everest speech, after which this

book is named. Or the narrative of

how that magical series played out.

It is no surprise this book works

because the authors have already

done a similar job on the 1971 Lions,

When Lions Roared. Indeed, you can

segue from Everest to 1971 and make

yourself doubly happy.

Owen Slot, Senior Sports Writer

THIS IS YOUR

EVEREST: THE LIONS,

THE SPRINGBOKS

AND THE EPIC TOUR

OF 1997

by Peter Barnes and

Tom English

Polaris; 320pp; £17.99

Y

ou may consider it

something of a cop-out

that the authors have

hardly contributed any of

the words themselves, but

actually it shows wise restraint on

their part because they don’t

need to. The dramatis

personae are so strong

and the detail, passion

and humour in their

recollections are so

sharp that, if

anything, you

would want to tell

the authors to pipe

down.

The subject is the

1997 British & Irish

Lions tour to South

Africa. It was an immense

time and this book only

contributes to the stature of those

players. The book was a timely piece

of publishing, coming before the

2021 Lions tour to South Africa, but

now that has been and gone, it’s not

as though the book’s moment has

passed. Quite the opposite, the 2021

tour was such a deflating

experience, for so many reasons, I

would recommend diving back into

Everest just as a reminder of how

great the Lions can be.

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