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The Border years
135 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Gideon Haigh
101 books113 followersGideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist, who writes about sport (especially cricket) and business. He was born in London, raised in Geelong, and now lives in Melbourne.
Haigh began his career as a journalist, writing on business for The Age newspaper from 1984 to 1992 and for The Australian from 1993 to 1995. He has since contributed to over 70 newspapers and magazines,[2] both on business topics as well as on sport, mostly cricket. He wrote regularly for The Guardian during the 2006-07 Ashes series and has featured also in The Times and the Financial Times.
Haigh has authored 19 books and edited seven more. Of those on a cricketing theme, his historical works includes The Cricket War and Summer Game, his biographies The Big Ship (of Warwick Armstrong) and Mystery Spinner (of Jack Iverson), the latter pronounced The Cricket Society's "Book of the Year", short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and dubbed "a classic" by The Sunday Times;[3] anthologies of his writings Ashes 2005 and Game for Anything, as well as Many a Slip, the humorous diary of a club cricket season, and The Vincibles, his story of the South Yarra Cricket Club, of which he is life member and perennate vice-president and for whose newsletter he has written about cricket the longest. He has also published several books on business-related topics, such as The Battle for BHP, Asbestos House (which dilates the James Hardie asbestos controversy) and Bad Company, an examination of the CEO phenomenon. He mostly publishes with Aurum Press.
Haigh was appointed editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia for 1999–2000 and 2000–01. Since March 2006, he has been a regular panellist on the ABC television sports panel show Offsiders. He was also a regular co-host on The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne until near the end of 2006.
Haigh has been known to be critical of what he regards as the deification of Sir Donald Bradman and "the cynical exploitation of his name by the mediocre and the greedy".[4] He did so in a September 1998 article in Wisden Cricket Monthly, entitled "Sir Donald Brandname". Haigh has been critical of Bradman's biographer Roland Perry, writing in The Australian that Perry's biography was guilty of "glossing over or ignoring anything to Bradman's discredit".[4]
Haigh won the John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006[5] for his essay "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid",[6] which was published in The Monthly magazine. He asserted that the quality of discourse could suffer as a source of information's worth is judged by Google according to its previous degree of exposure to the status quo. He believes the pool of information available to those using Google as their sole avenue of inquiry is inevitably limited and possibly compromised due to covert commercial influences.
He blogged on the 2009 Ashes series for The Wisden Cricketer.[7]
On 24 October 2012 he addressed the tenth Bradman Oration in Melbourne.
Haigh began his career as a journalist, writing on business for The Age newspaper from 1984 to 1992 and for The Australian from 1993 to 1995. He has since contributed to over 70 newspapers and magazines,[2] both on business topics as well as on sport, mostly cricket. He wrote regularly for The Guardian during the 2006-07 Ashes series and has featured also in The Times and the Financial Times.
Haigh has authored 19 books and edited seven more. Of those on a cricketing theme, his historical works includes The Cricket War and Summer Game, his biographies The Big Ship (of Warwick Armstrong) and Mystery Spinner (of Jack Iverson), the latter pronounced The Cricket Society's "Book of the Year", short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and dubbed "a classic" by The Sunday Times;[3] anthologies of his writings Ashes 2005 and Game for Anything, as well as Many a Slip, the humorous diary of a club cricket season, and The Vincibles, his story of the South Yarra Cricket Club, of which he is life member and perennate vice-president and for whose newsletter he has written about cricket the longest. He has also published several books on business-related topics, such as The Battle for BHP, Asbestos House (which dilates the James Hardie asbestos controversy) and Bad Company, an examination of the CEO phenomenon. He mostly publishes with Aurum Press.
Haigh was appointed editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia for 1999–2000 and 2000–01. Since March 2006, he has been a regular panellist on the ABC television sports panel show Offsiders. He was also a regular co-host on The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne until near the end of 2006.
Haigh has been known to be critical of what he regards as the deification of Sir Donald Bradman and "the cynical exploitation of his name by the mediocre and the greedy".[4] He did so in a September 1998 article in Wisden Cricket Monthly, entitled "Sir Donald Brandname". Haigh has been critical of Bradman's biographer Roland Perry, writing in The Australian that Perry's biography was guilty of "glossing over or ignoring anything to Bradman's discredit".[4]
Haigh won the John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006[5] for his essay "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid",[6] which was published in The Monthly magazine. He asserted that the quality of discourse could suffer as a source of information's worth is judged by Google according to its previous degree of exposure to the status quo. He believes the pool of information available to those using Google as their sole avenue of inquiry is inevitably limited and possibly compromised due to covert commercial influences.
He blogged on the 2009 Ashes series for The Wisden Cricketer.[7]
On 24 October 2012 he addressed the tenth Bradman Oration in Melbourne.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 8, 2022
Gideon Haigh, on his website, describes this book as a "quickie about Allan Border's life and career, on the occasion of his retirement from international cricket. Nice pics." That is a very accurate summation of this book. As time has passed the legacy left to Australian cricket by Allan Border has become more obvious, but The Border Years is a pithy summary of the cricketing life of one of the true greats as he left the playing field.
What I enjoyed about this book - reading it in the summer of 2022 - was that it reminded me not so much of the tropes that we remember now about "Captain grumpy" or how he often came out at number 5 to save an innings teetering on disaster, but of his early pre-captain days, when he was an attacking left-hander with plenty of aggressive shots, making his mark in a team of greats.
This book also began a conversation with my eldest son - a cricket tragic - that (I hope) opened his eyes to another period of Australian cricket, and how so much has changed in the game both of us love.
This is a short coffee-table style book, and the writing, while interesting, is perhaps not up to the thoughtful and provocative best that Haigh can be. But good for an hour or so on the sofa at a rented house at the beach.
Why did I read it then you ask? Well how often can you pick up a book at an op-shop for three dollars that has been signed by the great man himself?
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
What I enjoyed about this book - reading it in the summer of 2022 - was that it reminded me not so much of the tropes that we remember now about "Captain grumpy" or how he often came out at number 5 to save an innings teetering on disaster, but of his early pre-captain days, when he was an attacking left-hander with plenty of aggressive shots, making his mark in a team of greats.
This book also began a conversation with my eldest son - a cricket tragic - that (I hope) opened his eyes to another period of Australian cricket, and how so much has changed in the game both of us love.
This is a short coffee-table style book, and the writing, while interesting, is perhaps not up to the thoughtful and provocative best that Haigh can be. But good for an hour or so on the sofa at a rented house at the beach.
Why did I read it then you ask? Well how often can you pick up a book at an op-shop for three dollars that has been signed by the great man himself?
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
December 31, 2022
Great author on a great Australian Test Captain. Reread this one again and it was still a great read with the only fault i my view that it almost becomes a hero worship but I guess I can forgive him for that.
April 6, 2015
Read for the first time now in 2015 the book should be afforded a view contemporary to its writing in 1994 and its documenting up to Border's retirement that year. But compared against Gideon Haigh's subsequent works it seems a little lightweight; like it's a skeleton of a fleshier story?
Early, but still classic Haigh though, with: good quotes, instinctual insights, witticisms, critiquing of cricket and characters, societal back-dropping and more - so any fan of his writing or Border's battling will mostly like enjoy this book featuring more references to 'teapotting' than a high-tea guide.
Early, but still classic Haigh though, with: good quotes, instinctual insights, witticisms, critiquing of cricket and characters, societal back-dropping and more - so any fan of his writing or Border's battling will mostly like enjoy this book featuring more references to 'teapotting' than a high-tea guide.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews