Easier Said Than Done: A Life in Sport

Alan Wilkins

Description

From Mumbai and Lahore to the Highveld of the Transvaal and in his native Wales, Alan Wilkins is internationally known and admired as an accomplished sports broadcaster. Growing up as a talented young cricketer in 1970s Cardiff, Alan dreamt of a life in sport and yearned to travel the world but, as he reveals in Easier Said Than Done, he could never have imagined he would realise his dream via a microphone and camera rather than with a bat and a ball.
With great humility and humour, Alan Wilkins tells the fascinating story of how he swapped the life of a sports teacher for a career as a professional cricketer with Glamorgan and Gloucestershire – taking over 370 wickets and playing in the 1977 Gillette Cup final – and how it was brought to a devastating end in 1983 by a debilitating shoulder injury.
Determined that his Life in Sport would not end after his enforced retirement from cricket, Alan vividly describes how, with determination and enthusiasm, he embarked on a new and successful career in sports broadcasting which has seen him commentate on many of the world’s greatest sporting occasions – from Wimbledon to The Masters and from the Rugby World Cup to the Indian Premier League and Pakistan Super League – and how he has forged lifelong friendships with many legends of the sporting world.
Millions of sports fans know Alan Wilkins the broadcaster but now, with Easier Said Than Done, they can get to know the man behind the microphone and the absorbing story of his Life in Sport.

Sujets

• Sport
• Autour du sport
• Histoire du sport
• 1970
• 1977
• Bombay
• Cricket
• Cardiff
• Lahore
• Transvaal
• Masters de golf
• Gloucestershire
• Wales
• Wimbledon
• Glamorgan
• Friends Provident Trophy
• Indian Premier League
• Mumbai
• Recreation
• Rugby World Cup
• Retirement
• Masters Tournament
• Teacher
• Shoulder
• Commentator
• Final
• Trauma (medicine)
• Gillette Cup
• Broadcaster
• Easier Said Than Done
• Pakistan Super League
• Alan Wilkins
• Campeonato de Wimbledon
• The Masters
• Sports

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788193750124
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 14 Mo

Extrait

EASIER
SAID THAN DONE
‘Alan’s been an integral part of many great sporting events and sports lovers from around the world will enjoy his story. He is the consummate professional and, having witnessed at first-hand the silky skills he possesses, the “silver fox” from Wales justifies his tag as one of the “best in the business”.’
Stephen Fleming
‘Working with Alan Wilkins has been great fun. When we’re broadcasting he’s articulate and knowledgeable but he’s also excellent company socially with his endless supply of hilarious stories, all told with his amazing ability to perfectly mimic accents. Alan has certainly led an interesting life and his book makes enjoyable reading.’
Ian Chappell
 
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ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2018
First published in 2018 by
The Lotus Collection
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Copyright © Alan Wilkins, 2018
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eISBN: 978-81-937501-2-4
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface – Vijay Amritraj
Foreword – Sunil Gavaskar
Introduction – Lynn Davies
1. Early Days
2. Loughborough, Eventually
3. Glamorgan New Boy
4. Home Truths
5. High Hopes on the Highveld
6. The Parting of Ways
7. Over the Bridge to Bristol
8. Christmas in Calcutta
9. Reality Check
10. The Jacaranda City
11. The Beginning of the End
12. No Shoulder No Cry
13. Familiar Places, Friendly Faces
14. Back to the Future
15. Indian Hat-Trick
16. Wales Welcomes the Rugby World
17. Singapore Fling
18. Vijay
19. Never a Good Walk Spoiled
20. Stumps
Selected Career Statistics
Index
 
‘To my parents, Anne and Haydn, who gave me everything in life I could have wished for, and ensured that whatever sport I played, at least I looked the part. I couldn’t have asked for more.’
 
Acknowledgements
This has been a long-term project and goodness knows how many years I have said that I would write a book. I am sure that many of my close friends have grown tired of my saying “It’s in the book” for so many years but, after living in Singapore for a decade or more, I began to put my thoughts down on paper and, slowly but surely, the manuscript started coming together. There are so many people to thank, and please forgive me if I leave anyone out, because this has been a long journey and my cricket career happened a hell of a long time ago.
Early encouragement to write a book came from Scyld Berry, cricket correspondent for The Telegraph , who kept telling me that I had a story to tell and that he, for one, would like to read it, which surprised me initially because Scyld’s focus would generally be on international cricket, and I of course did not play international cricket. I would ask him: “Who on earth would be interested in my story?” To which Scyld would reaffirm: “There are many people who haven’t played the cricket you have, or played with and against the cricketers you have, or led the life of a broadcaster that you have, so in my view, you have a story to relate.”
Getting facts and figures accurate is crucial in writing an autobiography and for all that he has done, not just for me but for television cricket commentators all over the world, Mohandas Menon from Mumbai, is peerless. Time after time I have asked Mohan for some information on someone, or for reminding me what I might have done in places as far removed as Canterbury and Calcutta (now Kolkata, of course) and each time I have asked, the answer has come through without fuss. Mohandas Menon is the extra commentator in the commentary box, a human encyclopaedia of cricket. Thank you, Mohan, and to all the cricket statisticians around the world whose endeavours are so appreciated by the broadcasters and our audiences alike.
I didn’t ever imagine that I would require physiotherapy to carry out my duties as a cricket commentator, but I have been kept in one piece for years by the unstinting efforts and genuine care of John Gloster, a physiotherapist-cum-psychologist who I first met in Dhaka when he was looking after the Bangladesh cricket team. When illness engulfed me on my first tour to Bangladesh, John gave me a dose of pills. I have never asked what exactly they were, but they got me back on to my feet, and we have been close friends ever since. In more recent years, he has looked after the Indian cricket team, Surrey County Cricket Club and the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. Before that, in my playing days and even when the shoulder problem and the neck joints were still not fully recovered, I must thank Dean Conway, physiotherapist to Glamorgan CCC (and one time with the England cricket team) for keeping me in decent shape for my new role in broadcasting. Across the water in Bristol, Gloucestershire’s Les Bardsley had the task of working with my dysfunctional shoulder that ultimately brought an end to my playing days. The medical people and physiotherapists who worked on me were unsung heroes who always gave me belief that it wasn’t the end of the world, even if it felt like it at the time. How right they were.
Away from the studios and commentary boxes, golf is a passion and a means of relaxing. Although my game would be described as ‘an honest endeavour’ at best, I must thank one of my great friends in Singapore, Rick Brown, for making me look like a Titleist staff ambassador whenever I ventured out onto the golf course. As with my cricket, at least I looked the part, even if my performance didn’t.
Embellishing the manuscript with photographs has been a lengthy procedure, going back into family photo albums and into scrapbooks for newspaper articles and preparing them for publication, so thanks go to Charlie Johnson and David Thomas of Davies Colour in Cardiff for working wonders with old black-and-white photographs. My thanks also to Siân Trenberth, for her patience in photographing the subject matter for the cover shot. It can’t have been easy.
It was my four years at Loughborough University which made me think differently about so many aspects of life and where ambition was driven by the pursuit of excellence. For that I especially thank Rod Thorpe and Rex Hazeldene, two of Loughborough’s foremost lecturers of physical education, who had a profound influence on my sporting career. They, with my dear friend and psychology lecturer, the late Duncan Case, made me feel like a Titan who could face any challenge in life.
I must thank my colleagues (who are now more like friends) who have contributed personal endorsements for the book. Every one of you has been a part of my life from my early playing days to more recent times in broadcasting. I can’t thank you enough for the truly humbling words you have written. Responding to my late call f