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    Quote Sport Unquote
    Quote Sport Unquote
    Quote Sport Unquote
    Ebook68 pages36 minutes

    Quote Sport Unquote

    By John Barber

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    About this ebook

    ‘Football’s a funny old game Brian’ –Jimmy Greaves, footballer (Chelsea, AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham and England –goal machine!).

    To some people Cricket, Golf, Tennis, Baseball and Snooker is just as funny. Not to mention Lawn Mower Racing, Tiddleywinks, Croquet and many others.

    They are all mentioned in this book of sporting quotes along with the sportsmen and sportswomen who play them. As well as officials, spectators and the press. They can all be relied upon to offer some useful pointers along with often embarrassing insights into their profession.

    This is a collection of sporting gems; some to make you laugh, some to ponder on the player’s expertise and other quotes best kept private and not spoken in public. The latter has given rise to what the American’s know as bloopers and what the British affectionately call ‘Colemanballs’ after that doyen of the BBC microphone David Coleman; and there are plenty of them in this book.

    It is perhaps not a book to read cover to cover but dipped in to. Sports are listed alphabetically and include poetry, literature and newspaper reviews. There are serious musings on sport as well but as Bill Shankly, legendary manager of Liverpool FC once remarked: ‘Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure them it is much more serious than that’, usually misquoted as 'football is more serious than life and death'.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Barber
    Release dateJul 15, 2011
    ISBN9781466196414
    Quote Sport Unquote
    Author

    John Barber

    John Barber was born in London at the height of the UK Post War baby boom. The Education Act of 1944 saw great changes in the way the nation was taught; the main one being that all children stayed at school until the age of 15 (later increased to 16). For the first time working class children were able to reach higher levels of academic study and the opportunity to gain further educational qualifications at University.This explosion in education brought forth a new aspirational middle class; others remained true to their working class roots. The author belongs somewhere between the two. Many of the author’s main characters have their genesis in this educational revolution. Their dialogue though idiosyncratic can normally be understood but like all working class speech it is liberally sprinkled with strange boyhood phrases and a passing nod to cockney rhyming slang.John Barber’s novels are set in fictional English towns where sexual intrigue and political in-fighting is rife beneath a pleasant, small town veneer of respectability.They fall within the cozy, traditional British detective sections of mystery fiction.He has been writing professionally since 1996 when he began to contribute articles to magazines on social and local history. His first published book in 2002 was a non-fiction work entitled The Camden Town Murder which investigated a famous murder mystery of 1907 and names the killer. This is still available in softback and as an ebook, although not available from SmashwordsJohn Barber had careers in Advertising, International Banking and the Wine Industry before becoming Town Centre Manager in his home town of Hertford. He is now retired and lives with his wife and two cats on an island in the middle of Hertford and spends his time between local community projects and writing further novels.

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      Book preview

      Quote Sport Unquote - John Barber

      Introduction

      This book is an offshoot of a similar book which is a collection of insults. Quite a few of the quotes came from the world of sport so it seemed a logical step to widen the scope.

      Both books had their origin in a project about Great Britain during the 1980’s, so many of the quotes are rooted in that decade and are predominantly from British sportsmen and women. I have also drawn on letters written to the national press, occasional news items and some literary verses all with a strong British bias.

      This wasn’t how I intended the book to be but I found that any sport played outside of these islands was a completely different ball game.

      I suppose that is how others see us. What has emerged is a sort of snapshot of Britain viewed from the perspective of its sporting heroes. But more often than not, its failures.

      It also became very apparent that other nations especially the Americans, see sport as completely different from the British.

      The Americans use terms that are very aggressive whereas the British see playing sport, any sport, as being life itself – played to the rules.

      The quotes are listed alphabetically by author in each section (with some editorial exceptions) but it is more of a book to pop into now and then rather than read from starting line to final whistle.

      American Football

      American Football is not a contact sport. Dancing is a contact sport, football’s a collision sport.

      Mike Ditka, Chicago Bears coach

      Winning isn’t everything - it’s the only thing.

      Vince Lombardi, coach Green Bay Packers

      I resigned because of illness and fatigue. The fans were sick and tired of me.

      John Ralston, Coach, Denver Broncos

      They don’t take the Marines and train them on the beach with ice cream in their hands and then tell them to fight. We’re preparing these guys for eleven individual wars. That’s what it amounts to.

      Dick Vernell, coach Philadelphia Eagles

      Athletics

      You can’t train the way I do and go out with girls.

      Joaquim Cruz, churchgoing Baptist, teetotaller and Brazil’s Olympic 800 metre gold medallist

      Apart from becoming sweaty and uncomfortable, trainers are not designed for long periods of wear. The sole and midsole wear out too quickly. After about a month you might as well be wearing plimsolls.

      Vivian Grisogono, chartered physiotherapist

      I don’t have a Daley Thompson complex. Someday I’ll beat him, I’m sure. Of course I may be 80 by then

      Jurgen Hingsen

      The Americans should be ashamed of themselves, letting negroes win their medals for them. Do you really think that I will allow myself to be photographed shaking hands with a negro?

      Adolf Hitler on Jesse Owens

      The French cannot produce great track and field teams like it can produce great wines for probably that very reason. The winemakers got in first.

      Michel Lourie, French national coach

      There was so much barging and shoving; it was like trying to get into a Glasgow pub on a Saturday night.

      Tom McKean

      I don't really see the hurdles. I sense them like a memory.

      Ed Moses

      I went through a stage of feeling awful to one of feeling terrible. Once I started to feel terrible I was OK.

      Steve Ovett on the California Mile

      In my first marathon I got excited, even euphoric. It was a feeling I never had on the track. On the road competitors hand around sponges. In a 5,000 all they give you are elbows.

      Dick Quax

      Running doesn't make anyone immortal. It doesn't bestow or confirm identity. And it can't infuse meaning and purpose into lives that are otherwise unfulfilled.

      Dr Richard Restak, neurologist, speaking after the death of Jim Fixx, credited with popularising jogging

      Stella was a very nice person, very quiet. But I only saw her on the mount, never in the changing rooms or in our hotel in Los Angeles.

      Hilda Sisson on Stella Walsh who was discovered to have no female sex organs after a post mortem which was conducted when she was shot dead outside a store in Cleveland. Sisson was beaten into second place by Walsh who won

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