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Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the bad old days of Australian cricket
Shedding new light on the 'club' of Lillee, Marsh and the Chappells, Golden Boy examines the most tumultuous era of Australian cricket through the lens of the story of flawed genius, Kim Hughes.
460 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 3, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 15, 2021
'To create some memories for myself and for other people’—that was always the boy’s first aim.
Kimberley John Hughes was an Australian cricketer and captain who played international cricket from 1977 to 1984. I knew he had scored a double hundred against India sometime in 80s. Moreover, I also knew that Allan Border inherited a horrible team and how he and other players built up a great Australian culture which made them almost invincible during the 1990s and subsequently in 2000s. That's it I knew about Kim Hughes. However, reading this book had totally catapulted me to Australia in 1970s and 80s and I felt that I know Kim Hughes closely. Such has been the magic of this wonderful book.
I wasn't sure I would have agreed Wisden's choice earlier but Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew changed the game for me. Sometimes, most of the cricket books are judgemental. Take any autobiography or a biography of recent times. Most of them are vendetta driven in the veil of tell-all book. What I loved the most about this book is the way Christian Ryan presented both sides of the coin without passing any moral judgement on either the big three - Chappell, Lillee, Marsh and our protagonist Kim Hughes.
Moreover, I had liked the way Ryan had built up the complete story from the period before even Kim was born, Kim's childhood, his brothers and the grade cricket of Western Australia. Ryan takes us on a journey mixed with patches of brilliance and several moments of frustration through Kim's cricket. Moreover, there were detailed stories about other cricketers who weren't a part of Kerry Packer Cricket as well as the others who decided to tour the apartheid filled South Africa. And the epilogues almost brought tears to my eyes.
My wife's cousin who is almost a decade younger than me once asked me, "How can so many books are written on cricket?" Someday I will show him this beautiful piece of brilliance -
I should get up and applaud Christian Ryan for the sheer fact that neither the protagonist or theantagonists other players had authorized or contributed much to clear their point of view. One of the greatest cricket books I have ever read!
Kimberley John Hughes was an Australian cricketer and captain who played international cricket from 1977 to 1984. I knew he had scored a double hundred against India sometime in 80s. Moreover, I also knew that Allan Border inherited a horrible team and how he and other players built up a great Australian culture which made them almost invincible during the 1990s and subsequently in 2000s. That's it I knew about Kim Hughes. However, reading this book had totally catapulted me to Australia in 1970s and 80s and I felt that I know Kim Hughes closely. Such has been the magic of this wonderful book.
I wasn't sure I would have agreed Wisden's choice earlier but Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew changed the game for me. Sometimes, most of the cricket books are judgemental. Take any autobiography or a biography of recent times. Most of them are vendetta driven in the veil of tell-all book. What I loved the most about this book is the way Christian Ryan presented both sides of the coin without passing any moral judgement on either the big three - Chappell, Lillee, Marsh and our protagonist Kim Hughes.
"But hey, that was Kim the man. Take that away and you take a lot of his batting force away. He had this attitude that some bowlers couldn’t bowl and no matter what they threw up he was going to dispatch it. That’s probably what alienated him at the start against some senior figures. People objected to the brashness they saw—that brashness as a person which manifested itself in his batting."
Moreover, I had liked the way Ryan had built up the complete story from the period before even Kim was born, Kim's childhood, his brothers and the grade cricket of Western Australia. Ryan takes us on a journey mixed with patches of brilliance and several moments of frustration through Kim's cricket. Moreover, there were detailed stories about other cricketers who weren't a part of Kerry Packer Cricket as well as the others who decided to tour the apartheid filled South Africa. And the epilogues almost brought tears to my eyes.
My wife's cousin who is almost a decade younger than me once asked me, "How can so many books are written on cricket?" Someday I will show him this beautiful piece of brilliance -
"Doshi bowled gorgeous, looping left-armers in whites crisply ironed, sleeves buttoned to the wrist and thick square glasses that he fingered before gliding in. Upon getting thumped he never seemed cross, merely puzzled, as if it did not compute."
I should get up and applaud Christian Ryan for the sheer fact that neither the protagonist or the
September 1, 2019
It must be appreciated that this review is written by an Englishman, born in 1976. As such, my earliest cricketing memory was Headingley, 1981. I knew something amazing was happening because of the delirious nature of my parents towards the game that they normally fell asleep watching. As such I had no appreciation of what Messrs. Botham and Willis were doing, I could only assume that it was worth being awake for.
Alan Border was the first Australian cricket captain that I can remember, a harbinger of endless English misery. My knowledge of Australian cricket prior to Allan Border is Don Bradman, so there’s quite a chunk to be filled in, and this book really helped to do that.
When it comes to making a balls up of things, I always thought that the ECB stood head and shoulders above any other cricketing authority. Much of Ryan’s narrative manages to reappraise this thought as it would be fair to say that the ACB weren’t without their buffoonery. Ryan highlights their biggest problem of greed. Greed that would contribute to players going on rebel tours of South Africa. Greed that would influence the selection process insofar as appointing a captain that would ‘tow the line’. Golden Boy is fantastic at detailing the farcical nature of Australian cricket administration between the 1970’s and 1990’s. But, as the title suggests, this book is essentially about just one man, Kim Hughes.
Being English, being born in 1976, I knew very little about Kim Hughes. Ryan paints a portrait of a man who’s part P. T. Barnum, part Frank Spencer. A sort of cricketing hybrid of Mariah Carey and Mr. Bean. Just like Barnum and Carey, Hughes was phenomenally talented, and just like Barnum and Carey, Hughes wanted to entertain. Unfortunately, just like Spencer and Bean, Hughes’ demonstrated complete ignorance of his incompetence. His attempts to entertain were often as memorable for their failures as their successes. Because of this, the book can be a little uncomfortable to read at times, as Hughes goes from one escapade to another, shooting himself in one foot then the other. Ryan depicts a character that you can feel genuine warmth towards one minute, turn the page and then be considering him a complete dick.
Hughes isn’t the only one to be cast in a harsh light. Lille and Marsh appear as selfish and egotistical opportunists. The fact that all three shared the prima donna, diva nature of Mariah Carey meant that the WACA must have been an entertainment paradise throughout much of the 70’s
Ryan’s biography is a brilliant, and thorough examination of not just a cricketer, but the human psyche in general. There’s something perversely entertaining about watching a man’s mind slowly unravel as you turn the pages of a book.
Alan Border was the first Australian cricket captain that I can remember, a harbinger of endless English misery. My knowledge of Australian cricket prior to Allan Border is Don Bradman, so there’s quite a chunk to be filled in, and this book really helped to do that.
When it comes to making a balls up of things, I always thought that the ECB stood head and shoulders above any other cricketing authority. Much of Ryan’s narrative manages to reappraise this thought as it would be fair to say that the ACB weren’t without their buffoonery. Ryan highlights their biggest problem of greed. Greed that would contribute to players going on rebel tours of South Africa. Greed that would influence the selection process insofar as appointing a captain that would ‘tow the line’. Golden Boy is fantastic at detailing the farcical nature of Australian cricket administration between the 1970’s and 1990’s. But, as the title suggests, this book is essentially about just one man, Kim Hughes.
Being English, being born in 1976, I knew very little about Kim Hughes. Ryan paints a portrait of a man who’s part P. T. Barnum, part Frank Spencer. A sort of cricketing hybrid of Mariah Carey and Mr. Bean. Just like Barnum and Carey, Hughes was phenomenally talented, and just like Barnum and Carey, Hughes wanted to entertain. Unfortunately, just like Spencer and Bean, Hughes’ demonstrated complete ignorance of his incompetence. His attempts to entertain were often as memorable for their failures as their successes. Because of this, the book can be a little uncomfortable to read at times, as Hughes goes from one escapade to another, shooting himself in one foot then the other. Ryan depicts a character that you can feel genuine warmth towards one minute, turn the page and then be considering him a complete dick.
Hughes isn’t the only one to be cast in a harsh light. Lille and Marsh appear as selfish and egotistical opportunists. The fact that all three shared the prima donna, diva nature of Mariah Carey meant that the WACA must have been an entertainment paradise throughout much of the 70’s
Ryan’s biography is a brilliant, and thorough examination of not just a cricketer, but the human psyche in general. There’s something perversely entertaining about watching a man’s mind slowly unravel as you turn the pages of a book.
October 20, 2019
I came across this book on Twitter from an online quiz conducted by a sports twitter handle, where one of the questions was - Which book was adjudged as the best ever cricket book recently by Wisden? Pleasantly surprised and quite oblivious to the presence of such a book, it piqued my curiousity and so I picked up this book. Anyone who knows a bit of cricket history of the 80s has heard of Kim Hughes - the Aussie bloke who cried and resigned as the skipper of the team in a press conference. But beyond that, there is very little that I had heard of a man who apparently was a prodigious player who was expected to leapfrog into one of the finest batsmen Down Under but sunk gradually into an abyss of under performances before finally fading out of everyone's consciousness.
Kim Hughes burst into the Australian team during one of the most tumultous phases that they were going through - the Packer era - and faced innumerable challenges on and off the field and it took a toll on him till he finally called it quits. The Packer era ensured the team was abandoned by most seniors for the World Series Games adorned by top players across the world, leaving a bare bones team fighting against the rest of the opposition. And when they returned, he apparently fell out of favour with the Big Three of Aussie cricket in that era - Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh, which ensured that he could never control the team that he was asked to lead. Strong oppositions, lack of proper management, poor support from the team mates and frequent critcism from the media got to him. Finally, after being dropped from the national team, an ill-fated tour to to play the banned South African team in apartheid ridden country ensured that his career soon come to an end.
While the word world is in awe of the cricketing exploits of Waugh's and Ponting's teams, the gross mismanagement, lack of professionalism (no coach, lack of permanent managers, poor media handling) and struggle of the team in the 80s is quite an eye opener. But anyone who follows the game also knows too well that this was not something limited to the Aussie team; remember the Indian team virtually revolting against the poor remunerations they had! Team conflicts are par for course in all sports but situations where the lead bowler repeatedly tries to bounce off the captain in the nets, player (Rodney Hogg) punches the captain, the seniors of the team become extremely non-cooperative with the young captain because of personal ambitions (Rodney Marsh wanted to be the leader but young Kim was given the mantle) is shocking to say the least.
However, while Christian is clearly sympathetic to the subject of his book, he also makes it a point to showcase Kim's glaring weaknesses. His penchant to play to entertain instead of focussing on the win ensured that he let the team down on many occasions and Chrisitan reiterates this many a time. Kim appears to be over confident about his skills and pretty vocal about his captaincy ambitions which made many uncomfortable around him. He was candid about what he wanted but in a team moulded by Ian Chappell's style of playing it hard and giving it to the opposition (remember Steve Waugh's theory of 'mental disintegration'), he was a loner and not the quintessential Australian cricketer.
The main downer in this book for me was that if you do not follow cricket, you might not really enjoy it. Lot of references come in from here and there and a non-follower of the game might feel lost without sufficient explanations. Also, the fact that a lot of events do not follow chronology and keep moving across time, which kind of makes it difficult to link incidents and situations. It also takes a little while to get into the feel of the book with all the details on domestic cricket, after which you cannot put it down.
Kim was a dazzling strokemaker, with the audacity to come down to the pitch to fast bowlers and play ferocious cuts and hooks but maybe without the burden of captaincy, he could have been a great Aussie batsmen but alas that was not to be. 'Golden Boy' is not a typical biography because most cricketers’ biographies are about success, while the Kim Hughes story is about suffering and the fragility of talent...
Kim Hughes burst into the Australian team during one of the most tumultous phases that they were going through - the Packer era - and faced innumerable challenges on and off the field and it took a toll on him till he finally called it quits. The Packer era ensured the team was abandoned by most seniors for the World Series Games adorned by top players across the world, leaving a bare bones team fighting against the rest of the opposition. And when they returned, he apparently fell out of favour with the Big Three of Aussie cricket in that era - Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh, which ensured that he could never control the team that he was asked to lead. Strong oppositions, lack of proper management, poor support from the team mates and frequent critcism from the media got to him. Finally, after being dropped from the national team, an ill-fated tour to to play the banned South African team in apartheid ridden country ensured that his career soon come to an end.
While the word world is in awe of the cricketing exploits of Waugh's and Ponting's teams, the gross mismanagement, lack of professionalism (no coach, lack of permanent managers, poor media handling) and struggle of the team in the 80s is quite an eye opener. But anyone who follows the game also knows too well that this was not something limited to the Aussie team; remember the Indian team virtually revolting against the poor remunerations they had! Team conflicts are par for course in all sports but situations where the lead bowler repeatedly tries to bounce off the captain in the nets, player (Rodney Hogg) punches the captain, the seniors of the team become extremely non-cooperative with the young captain because of personal ambitions (Rodney Marsh wanted to be the leader but young Kim was given the mantle) is shocking to say the least.
However, while Christian is clearly sympathetic to the subject of his book, he also makes it a point to showcase Kim's glaring weaknesses. His penchant to play to entertain instead of focussing on the win ensured that he let the team down on many occasions and Chrisitan reiterates this many a time. Kim appears to be over confident about his skills and pretty vocal about his captaincy ambitions which made many uncomfortable around him. He was candid about what he wanted but in a team moulded by Ian Chappell's style of playing it hard and giving it to the opposition (remember Steve Waugh's theory of 'mental disintegration'), he was a loner and not the quintessential Australian cricketer.
The main downer in this book for me was that if you do not follow cricket, you might not really enjoy it. Lot of references come in from here and there and a non-follower of the game might feel lost without sufficient explanations. Also, the fact that a lot of events do not follow chronology and keep moving across time, which kind of makes it difficult to link incidents and situations. It also takes a little while to get into the feel of the book with all the details on domestic cricket, after which you cannot put it down.
Kim was a dazzling strokemaker, with the audacity to come down to the pitch to fast bowlers and play ferocious cuts and hooks but maybe without the burden of captaincy, he could have been a great Aussie batsmen but alas that was not to be. 'Golden Boy' is not a typical biography because most cricketers’ biographies are about success, while the Kim Hughes story is about suffering and the fragility of talent...
January 16, 2024
From the age of ten to around twenty years of age my sporting obession was cricket. I would spend hours in the back yard pretending to be Ashley Mallett, Jeff Thomson, Max Walker, Dennis Lillee. When Australia knocked off the Poms in the 1977 Centenary Test, winning by the exact same margin as seen n the first test, I ran out of the house screaming with pleasure. My father took me and my brother to the Fifth Test of the 1975/76 series against the West Indies, and the crowd that day was 50,001, and I got to sit oh so briefly on the ground before being told to get back over onto the concrete in front of the old Brewongle Stand. I invented a whole table top cricket league built around my Freddie Trueman's Test Match game and my ABC cricket books.
Then there was the war between the Establishment and WSC, from 1977 to l979, and the foillowing bad years for the game. The years when Australian teams were regularly pummelled, weakened by money or politics, just way too ordinary to watch. And in the middle of much of what went down was Kim Hughes. A cricketer who I always felt was fucked over and never deserved the calumny that came his way. Having now read Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket in some respects my youthful thoughts on the man seem vindicated. However, what is more compelling to think about is that if ever there was a tragic figure in Australian sport these last 50 years it would have to be Hughes. Ryan's biography reads not unlike a Shakespearean tragedy with Hughes an amalgam of Coriolanus, Othello, Hamlet. Okay, that might be an overwrought metaphor, yet if you lived and breathed Australian cricket as I did back in the decade 1975-1985 you might understand. This is a compelling book for folk like me who watched Hughes and the game back then, and a superb example of sporting literature.
Ryan's achievement in developing such a fascinating study of Hughes and Australian cricket in the relevant period is heavily reliant on his ability to develop a sympathetic yet honest appraisal of his subject. Early in the text the author notes that Hughes did not cooperate with its writing, and that two of the most important figures in the cricketer's career, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, also didn't participate. Perhaps because Ryan couldn't rely on their testimony he has sourced much of his information from a plethora of people who knew Hughes, Lillee and Marsh. He also uses the published opinions of the three Australian test cricketers to add depth and breadth to his biographical narrative. The result is that the reader is shown how badly Hughes was treated by several supposed team mates, and yet how he also was perhaps complicit in his own downfall. Throw in the consistent underpinning sadness of how Hughes didn't deliver what he himself hoped for, as developed by Ryan in his narrative and as discussed in the testimony of those who knew him, and one cannot escape the conclusion that so much good about Hughes and Australian cricket was wasted.
That Hughes is shown to be somewhat enigmatic as a man and as a cricketer in Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket helps further the signifcance of what Ryan writes about his subject. It would be relatively simple for anyone writing a biography of any sporting identity to just map career highs and lows, record the stats, list the wins, chat about defining moments in the sportsperson's playing time. Ryan goes far beyond that. Time and time again Ryan tries to analyse Hughes's persona and his cricketing life and derive some kind of deeper understanding of the man. Whilst not making him out to be a hero Ryan does quite a lot to redeem Hughes' reputation, particularly in terms of his resilience, whilst also recording the complexity and fraught nature of his personality. The man who, in perhaps one of the most iconic moments in Australian sorting history, sobbed as he announced his resignation from the captaincy of the national team, is shown to be far more compelling, far more complicated than what that one moment could convey.
As someone who was a partisan of Kim Hughes during his tenure as Australian captain it is great to read of how he was appreciated by many, and how he wasn't as flawed as his adversaries suggested. Having said that Ryan does make some valid criticisms of Hughes's decision making. And therein lies another reason why this biography works. Those who demeaned or denigrated Hughes couldn't help combining their disdain for his semi-frequent inadequacies on the pitch with attacks on the man himself. Ryan doesn't shy away from calling out what Hughes didn't do well when playing cricket, but he is willing to cut Hughes slack when it comes to his personality, his youthfulness.
Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket is a fantastic achievement in the relatively rich vein of Australian cricket books. It explores and helps explain what was perhaps the most tortured, most bleak decade of the sport's history in this country, giving new and/or expanded insights into the issues and people that were there during this time and who helped (for ill or for better) to create this history. Ryan has provided a compelling narrative about a truly tragic Australian sporting identity, and in the process helped expand our understanding of cricket as a cultural, political, social and economic phenomenon in this country. If I was to pick the best biography of any Australian sportsman I've ever read it would be this one, and if you are a cricket fan this is a must have for your library.
Then there was the war between the Establishment and WSC, from 1977 to l979, and the foillowing bad years for the game. The years when Australian teams were regularly pummelled, weakened by money or politics, just way too ordinary to watch. And in the middle of much of what went down was Kim Hughes. A cricketer who I always felt was fucked over and never deserved the calumny that came his way. Having now read Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket in some respects my youthful thoughts on the man seem vindicated. However, what is more compelling to think about is that if ever there was a tragic figure in Australian sport these last 50 years it would have to be Hughes. Ryan's biography reads not unlike a Shakespearean tragedy with Hughes an amalgam of Coriolanus, Othello, Hamlet. Okay, that might be an overwrought metaphor, yet if you lived and breathed Australian cricket as I did back in the decade 1975-1985 you might understand. This is a compelling book for folk like me who watched Hughes and the game back then, and a superb example of sporting literature.
Ryan's achievement in developing such a fascinating study of Hughes and Australian cricket in the relevant period is heavily reliant on his ability to develop a sympathetic yet honest appraisal of his subject. Early in the text the author notes that Hughes did not cooperate with its writing, and that two of the most important figures in the cricketer's career, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh, also didn't participate. Perhaps because Ryan couldn't rely on their testimony he has sourced much of his information from a plethora of people who knew Hughes, Lillee and Marsh. He also uses the published opinions of the three Australian test cricketers to add depth and breadth to his biographical narrative. The result is that the reader is shown how badly Hughes was treated by several supposed team mates, and yet how he also was perhaps complicit in his own downfall. Throw in the consistent underpinning sadness of how Hughes didn't deliver what he himself hoped for, as developed by Ryan in his narrative and as discussed in the testimony of those who knew him, and one cannot escape the conclusion that so much good about Hughes and Australian cricket was wasted.
That Hughes is shown to be somewhat enigmatic as a man and as a cricketer in Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket helps further the signifcance of what Ryan writes about his subject. It would be relatively simple for anyone writing a biography of any sporting identity to just map career highs and lows, record the stats, list the wins, chat about defining moments in the sportsperson's playing time. Ryan goes far beyond that. Time and time again Ryan tries to analyse Hughes's persona and his cricketing life and derive some kind of deeper understanding of the man. Whilst not making him out to be a hero Ryan does quite a lot to redeem Hughes' reputation, particularly in terms of his resilience, whilst also recording the complexity and fraught nature of his personality. The man who, in perhaps one of the most iconic moments in Australian sorting history, sobbed as he announced his resignation from the captaincy of the national team, is shown to be far more compelling, far more complicated than what that one moment could convey.
As someone who was a partisan of Kim Hughes during his tenure as Australian captain it is great to read of how he was appreciated by many, and how he wasn't as flawed as his adversaries suggested. Having said that Ryan does make some valid criticisms of Hughes's decision making. And therein lies another reason why this biography works. Those who demeaned or denigrated Hughes couldn't help combining their disdain for his semi-frequent inadequacies on the pitch with attacks on the man himself. Ryan doesn't shy away from calling out what Hughes didn't do well when playing cricket, but he is willing to cut Hughes slack when it comes to his personality, his youthfulness.
Golden Boy: Kim Hughes and the Bad Old Days of Australian Cricket is a fantastic achievement in the relatively rich vein of Australian cricket books. It explores and helps explain what was perhaps the most tortured, most bleak decade of the sport's history in this country, giving new and/or expanded insights into the issues and people that were there during this time and who helped (for ill or for better) to create this history. Ryan has provided a compelling narrative about a truly tragic Australian sporting identity, and in the process helped expand our understanding of cricket as a cultural, political, social and economic phenomenon in this country. If I was to pick the best biography of any Australian sportsman I've ever read it would be this one, and if you are a cricket fan this is a must have for your library.
March 13, 2012
Good book which brought back memories of my cricket-obsessed youth, while at the same time shattering some preconceptions of my cricket heroes of the time. I wonder how true this version of history is? Without Hughes' side of the story, I guess we'll never know.
October 28, 2013
Interesting in a sense of it being an insight into a strange time for Australian sport but not very well written and if you don't have a strong knowledge of Cricket from that time it is tough to follow.
November 23, 2020
Very well written. Found myself slowly uncovering a fairly ordinary tale of a very talented bloke who was very talented but for some reason didn't really ever "fit in" with the cricket landscape in the 70's & 80's. I was totally invested in the book so I found it a bit of a slog to get to the end.
July 21, 2021
I am not sure whether this book will rank among one of the best cricket books written, but is something of a personal favorite. It is an honest, yet sympathetic, account of the cricketing career of Kim Hughes, once Australian cricket's Golden Boy, who ended his career in tears, hounded out in parts by the severe acrimony he faced from seniors in his team, and in parts by his own frailties.
December 11, 2021
For anyone who played or followed cricket during the 30 years prior to 1990, this book is a must read. The best book on a sport related topic that I remember reading. Though I am biased since I was around the people, places and events referenced.
April 18, 2023
This book really opened my eyes to a number of things I didn't know about Kim Hughes and his teammates. However the compelling parts of the book (about the famous cricketers and their feuds) were submerged by a lot of boring stuff about minor players and minor matches.
6.5/10
6.5/10
May 1, 2019
Best cricket book I've ever read and I have read a few!
It is a sad story but the one needed to be told. Do Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee regret their actions now? I really hope they do.
It is a sad story but the one needed to be told. Do Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee regret their actions now? I really hope they do.
October 2, 2021
Shame the author gets in the way of a good story with his overwrought style.
Read
December 14, 2021Interesting
Hard to believe that a cricketer would be treated like this by his peers an unquestionable talent which was wasted by in fighting and bad decisions by all parties
Hard to believe that a cricketer would be treated like this by his peers an unquestionable talent which was wasted by in fighting and bad decisions by all parties
July 16, 2022
One of the most insightful sporting biographies I have read exposing the resentment that followed Kim Hughes around especially from some of his Western Australia teammates.
February 10, 2015
Kim Hughes was one of my cricketing idols when i was growing up. Ironically my other two were Greg Chappell and Dennis Lillee, given the relationships between the three in the course of their career.
This is a terrific book, not only of Hughes' career, but the turbulent era that surrounded his career in the times of Australian cricket. It is a bold telling of the story, with plenty of bones lain bare for all to read about. The only sticking point is the people who made themselves unavailable for interviews by the author, including Hughes himself and his closest confidantes, and Lillee and Rod Marsh amongst others. Their testimony along the way could have been instructive, but quotes from them from other sources still illuminated the story.
Christian Ryan has done a great job here, and it was a trip down memory lane for me - through those troubled times being an Australian cricket lover in the 1980's
This is a terrific book, not only of Hughes' career, but the turbulent era that surrounded his career in the times of Australian cricket. It is a bold telling of the story, with plenty of bones lain bare for all to read about. The only sticking point is the people who made themselves unavailable for interviews by the author, including Hughes himself and his closest confidantes, and Lillee and Rod Marsh amongst others. Their testimony along the way could have been instructive, but quotes from them from other sources still illuminated the story.
Christian Ryan has done a great job here, and it was a trip down memory lane for me - through those troubled times being an Australian cricket lover in the 1980's
August 5, 2013
A really interesting book, about someone who I knew solely as the losing Aussie Captain during Botham's Ashes. My only criticism, something which I have seen others mention, is that the narrative often jumps through time which can be a little confusing. I feel a stricter chronological order throughout the main text would have been helpful, and would have probably led to me giving it more than three stars!
February 10, 2014
Should be one of the best biographies ever.Not a biography as such but an observation on the bad days of Australian cricket when the personalities of Lillie/Marsh/Chappells' disturbed the new kid on the block. You cant help but to feel for the golden boy who cried during his resignation. Maybe he could have been a better captain had the haunting trio extended some help. After all when people like Dhoni and Cook can be successful, anyone can! Hope Kim is happy at least now.
May 1, 2012
I found it quite difficult to read as it kept jumping backwards and forwards in the timeline and I found it disjointed. I also did not know as many of the names as I thought I would and found it quite difficult at first to remember who was who which is my fault rather than the authors, but it did not help.
March 11, 2012
One for the cricket tragics, as the whole book really only makes sense against a backdrop of the hero workship of Lillee, Marsh, and the rest of the chest thumping Australian cricketers from the 70s.
Quite intensely human.
Quite intensely human.
August 31, 2016
Great book on one of the most turbulent eras of any sport. Great research and very well written. One of the best sports books i've ever read. Captures well the politics and the behind the scenes backstabbing. A shame Kim didn't want anything to do with the book.
September 4, 2012
A great read. Some nice writing and great insight into the golden age of Australian cricket.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews