Sporting Words

Michael Parkinson — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:16:30 GMT

I am President of the Sports Journalists’Association and proudly so because I reckon that more often than not some of the best written articles in the paper are in the sports pages. The problem is – and always has been – that very few editors agree with me. Most I worked for, with the honourable exceptions of Harry Evans at the Sunday Times in the 70s and Max Hastings and Charles Moore at the Sunday Telegraph in the 90s had not the slightest knowledge of what went on the back pages. One editor I worked for called us the ‘Toy Department’.

There was a conference on the subject of sports writing recently and it set me thinking about those who I admire and have been influenced by.

Best book about football: Arthur Hopcraft ‘The Football Man’ along with Eamon Dunphy’s "Only a Game?: Diary of a Professional Footballer" are both outstanding.

Best cricket writer: From the past Cardus, R. C. Robertson-Glasgow and Jack Fingleton. Of the present: Michael Atherton, Steve James, Gideon Haigh, Scyld Berry, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Derek Pringle form my nucleus of an impressive bunch, particularly ex players.

Best book about a sport: Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Death In The Afternoon’, that’s if you regard bull fighting as a sport.

Favourite columnists / feature reporters: Martin Samuel, Paul Hayward, Patrick Collins, James Lawton, Hugh McIlvanney.

Favourite line in a sports report: Hugh McIlvanney reporting Ali’s Rumble In the Jungle against George Foreman: “We should have known that Muhammad Ali would not settle for any ordinary old resurrection. His had to have an additional flourish. So, having rolled away the rock, he hit George Foreman on the head with it..”

Michael Parkinson - Forum / Sports / Favourite sports writings

Sporting Words