NEW BOOKS / The Sixties Revisited
Jimmy Greaves – new tv documentary and classic book ties in with his 80th birthday this week
The documentary tells the tale of the rise, fall and re-birth of one of England’s greatest strikers with rarely seen archive footage and interviews with some of the game’s biggest names.
Harry Redknapp, Sir Geoff Hurst, Ian St John, Denis Law, George Cohen, Cliff Jones, Pat Jennings, Gary Lineker, Glenn Hoddle, Barry Davies, John Sillett, Alan Mullery, Ron Harris, Steve Perryman, Jimmy Tarbuck, Rio Ferdinand, several members of Jimmy’s family and more have helped contribute.
The story begins in the 1950s with Jimmy a target for every major club in London and opts for Chelsea , the 1955 league champions. He makes the breakthrough and becomes a teenage superstar, scoring 124 league goals in 157 games.
Frustrated by Chelsea’s inconsistency and the maximum wage, Jimmy moves to AC Milan, but a disappointing spell in Italy sees Greaves head to Spurs for a club-record fee.
The forward is a major success, scoring 21 goals in 22 games before the end of the season and between 1962 and 1965, Greaves scores 101 league goals in 123 games.
In 1965/66, the year before England’s home World Cup, the country’s star striker contracts hepatitis. Jimmy makes the World Cup squad and starts the first three games, but injury against France puts him out of the quarter-final against Argentina. Sir Geoff Hurst takes his place and the rest is history.
Lost without football, Jimmy spends much of the 1970s battling alcoholism, but once sober he gets a newspaper column with The Sun and writes a book with friend Norman Giller, called ‘The Sixties Revisited’ which has been re-released by G2 Entertainment in both paperback (RRP £9.99) and as an Ebook (£7).
After spells on ATV in the Midlands, and on the panel for the 1982 World Cup, in 1985 ITV decide that Jimmy needs his own vehicle. Saint and Greavsie is born when they pair him with former Liverpool stalwart St John. The show is a colossal hit and Jimmy is a major public figure again, as evidenced by his Spitting Images Puppet.
Tragically in 2015 Jimmy suffers a severe stroke. He survives but is wheelchair bound and still has speech difficulties.
=========================== deCoubertin Books to publish The Signing Winger, the autobiography of Colin Grainger Liverpool, 4 October 2019 deCoubertin Books are privileged to be able to bring you the autobiography of Colin Grainger, The Singing Winger. Known as ‘The Singing Winger’ for his ability both out wide on a football field and centre stage at a concert hall, Colin Grainger had the privilege of sharing a changing room with Duncan Edwards and Stanley Matthews and a bill with the Beatles. Starting out in 1950, Grainger’s professional football career spanned sixteen years, taking in all four divisions, and after Nat Lofthouse persuaded him to perform while on England duty, a successful singing career was born alongside. Grainger continued to marry his passions in the years to come, and this tale tells the story of life on the road as a professional in two industries and the joy of forging friendships with icons of a bygone era. Now aged 86, Colin is one of the oldest surviving England internationals, having played in the country’s famous 4-2 win over Brazil in 1956, scoring 2 goals himself. Hyder Jawád, co-author, says, ‘The opportunity to work on the story of a man whose playing career began in 1949, the peak of English football’s popularity, felt magical and inspiring. For me, as a keen reader of history, the chance to combine the story of Colin’s two wonderful careers with some wonderful social settings seemed something of a privilege.’ Information for Editors About the Authors Hyder Jawád, who collaborated with Colin Grainger on this book, is an award-winning journalist, radio broadcaster and author. He has written for the Liverpool Echo, the South China Morning Post, The Times and the Independent. He has written eleven books, including the bestselling John Aldridge autobiography in 1999, and has covered seven World Cups. He is the publisher and editor of Soccerama. ================== More super stats out of Poland ** Some of the most assiduously compiled statistical volumes in recent years have emerged from Poland. Andrzej Gowarzewski’s work has been acknowledged far and wide and his latest publicatuions maintain the tradition. Bialo-Czserwoni 1921-2018, produced in cooperation with the Polish federation (PZPN) is a match-by-match history of the Polish national team with pictures, all-line-ups (both teams), goalscorers, referesd and attendances and accompaning notes. One further volume, Mistrzostwa Polski 1945-1962 presents an A-Z of all the players who featured in top division Polish leage football between those years. Also out of Poland is another remarkable historical production of a different sort from Piotr Chomicki, Leszek Śledziona and Edwin Kowszewicz. Olgen has published their Footabll Uearbook 1922 Poland-Europe-World which record the details of Polish football in that particular but records international matches, domestic league and cup results across Europe and in various other nations. This is another impressive effort with more to come. Next year will see a similar volume for 1923 then another rewviwing 1919-21. Pubication is in the Polish language but the statistics are compreherensive and clear, no matter the language
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