Download Free Who Was Hurricane Higgins Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Who Was Hurricane Higgins and write the review.

Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins transcended sport in a way very few sportsmen ever have. In this definitive biography, Tony Francis describes how Alex threw himself into life like a man throwing himself off a cliff. No safety net. No plan. No fear. No shame. Francis interviews more than sixty witnesses to this extraordinary life and comes up with a remarkable series of adventures to surprise even Alex's staunchest fans. We hear from his ex-wife Lynn who tolerated him for ten years, helped him recover from a suicide attempt, watched him trash the house, but still has a fondness for the father of her kids. Snooker champion Jimmy White, Alex's best friend, says: 'I loved him, I hated him, I loved him, I hated him!' The author investigates the Irish drink culture which undermined his family, colleagues and, of course Higgins himself. How did Higgins' fellow Irish sportsman and biggest fan, Barry McGuigan, escape the excesses which dragged Higgins and George Best into the gutter? Did drink account for Higgins' wild outbursts or was there something more to it? Why did his lost love describe the man who once head-butted a tournament official as 'the gentlest man I ever met'? For all his faults, Higgins was, for a time, the most loved sportsman in Britain. He remains a legend and the most outstanding, charismatic snooker player who ever walked into an arena. Francis traces his crazy life from the time when as a baby he was kept in a shoe box in his mother's top drawer, to the sheltered accommodation in Sandy Row, Belfast where died. If you want to know what kind of man could mesmerise and terrorise his way to the top; be acclaimed by millions one moment and literally thrown out of a pub the next; die in pitiful isolation yet be celebrated by thousands lining the streets in what amounted to a state funeral, then Who Was Hurricane Higgins? is a must-read.
Born on a council estate in Belfast, Alex Higgins left school at 15. At 17 he won the Northern Ireland and All Ireland snooker championships, and turned professional when he was 20. In 1972, aged just 23, he became the youngest person ever to win the World Championship. He repeated this achievement in an emotional final 10 years later, in the process becoming the biggest box-office draw the game has ever known. Alex Higgins was a showman, gambler, comedian, bully, charmer and alcoholic. His antics - and ferocious temper - were legendary yet he was loved by millions. Now, dying of cancer, he has spent everything he has and divided his time between Manchester and Belfast, where he survives by playing u10 snooker matches in pubs. Bill Burrows has had unprecedented access to Higgins and reconstructs vividly the terrifying roller-coaster ride that is his life. Outrageous, gripping and ultimately, emotionally wrenching, this is the definitive account of one of the most charasmatic and self-destructive figures ever to appear in British sport."
When Alex Higgins' first manager, John McLaughlin, bestowed the nickname 'Hurricane Higgins' on the young, feisty snooker player he had no idea just how apt it was to prove over the next thirty years. Eye of the Hurricane details a sad but uplifting story of a man who had everything to play for but now has to play hard for anything he can get. It describes Higgins, sitting fitfully on snooker's sidelines, still has a story to tell, another controversy to spark. Author John Hennessey promises a 'wart and all' account of Alex Higgin's life and that is precisely what he delivers in this thoroughly absorbing book. . . well-told but cautionary tale of how narr ow the line is between genius and insanity 'This first proper account of Higgin's life is all the more clear-eyed for being written without his co-operation.
Jason Francis is the man who created the Snooker Legends Tour and who's been at Ronnie O'Sullivan's side on tour for the past 6 years. This is his story, sharing tales on the road with "the Rocket" and some of the game's greatest ever snooker legends like Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry. From his initial idea, to meeting and staging the last ever snooker show with Alex "Hurricane" Higgins to taking over the World Seniors Tour, Jason reveals what he learnt about the players themselves and also the sport as it developed over the years under the guidance of Barry Hearn. Through his tour, Jason was at the center of it all, able to bring the former players together again to renew old rivalries and create new memories. He struggled against those in the game who didn't want him to succeed but never gave up. This is his story, a snooker fan's story.
The top snooker players in the world compete for several trophies every year, but one carries more prestige than all the others put together - the World Championship. No other tournament in the sport carries with it so much history, so many golden moments of spectacular success and dramatic failure. Meticulously researched and including exclusive interview material with Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry and 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy, among others, Masters of the Baize is a comprehensive guide to the men who have lifted the greatest prize in snooker. From the legendary Joe Davis, the first champion in 1927, to modern-day masters like Mark Williams, all the sport's world champions are put under the microscope, while the colourful careers of forgotten figures such as Walter Donaldson and John Pulman and rogue heroes like Alex Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan are brought vividly to life. After uncovering the inauspicious origins of the game in nineteenth-century India, the authors examine every former world champion in his own comprehensive chapter. Additionally, a special section focuses on the extraordinary popularity of Jimmy White, by far the greatest player never to have won the title and one of the most emotive names in the sport.
A brilliant, seat-of-your-pants hostage-taking and daring SAS rescue mission of the Iran Embassy in London in 1980, this is Ben Macintyre at the very height of his story-telling powers. On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Prince’s Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There, they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued—all on television, over a Bank Holiday weekend—in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. This mission marked a fundamental turning point in global history, when Middle Eastern terrorism arrived in the West. Britain had experienced IRA terrorism before, but never an international terrorist incident on this scale. It was a precursor to the brutal Iran-Iraq War that would follow, in which millions perished. Yet there exists to this day no full account of the week-long siege and gripping rescue. Drawing on interviews with police, hostages, terrorists and key SAS figures, and cutting through the sensationalism and misinformation, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre (author of Sunday Times #1s Colditz, The Spy and the Traitor and SAS: Rogue Heroes) goes deep into the archives with exclusive access to tell the story of what really happened and give the first definitive account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS—and itself.
Are you a snooker fan? Do you play regularly? Are you familiar with the rules and terminology of snooker? Would you like to know more about the professional players who make the game look so easy? If you answered yes to any of these questions you won't want to be without 101 Things You May Not Have Known About Snooker. Do you know how snooker got its name, who is the only player so far to have won the world title at junior, amateur and professional level or which five players have achieved a maximum 147 break at the World Professional Snooker Championships? This fascinating new book has the answers, along with everything you ever wanted to know about snooker, including all the top snooker players past and present, their nicknames, history of the game, championship winners and losers and much more. This book is a must-have for all those who enjoy watching or taking part in this game of skill and would like to learn more about the professional circuit.
An A-Z of Hellraisers is the last word on inebriated misbehaviour, and the miscreant mob in this whopper of a book constitute the most amazing grouping to see print: from Alexander the Great, whose drunken revelries once ended with the destruction of an entire city; to W. C. Fields, who passed critical judgement on a brass band by urinating over them from a hotel balcony; Dylan Thomas, who drove a sports car onto Charlie Chaplin's private tennis court; to Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, suffocating on his own vomit after consuming forty measures of vodka - what a night out that was! This hilarious volume makes for an ideal bedside companion or pub reading fodder, as it scrutinises and salutes these glorious individuals, from Winston Churchill to Keith Moon, George Best to Ernest Hemingway, Wild Bill Hickok to Sam Peckinpah, Ozzy Osbourne to Errol Flynn. Just thank God we didn't have to live next door to any of them.
At 17, Rowland Rivron had already fulfilled his ambitions as a professional drummer gigging in London’s West End. All that changed in the 1980s when he fell in with the new and anarchic ‘alternative comedians’. Alongside Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Alexei Sayle and others, he appeared in such culturally defining shows as The Comic Strip Presents, The Young Ones, The Tube and of course French & Saunders, where he appeared as the charismatic Duane, one half of the inimitable Raw Sex. But the real story is what went on behind the scenes because, possessing the constitution of an ox, he fast got reputation as a party animal and loose cannon. When he wasn’t having penalty shoot-outs with Diana Ross in her Ritz suite or upsetting countless Hollywood stars, he could be found cycling down the staircase of the Groucho Club or setting fire to himself for money. Wherever he went there was bound to be trouble, hilarity and an eye-watering bar bill. In What the F*** Did I Do Last Night? he bares his soul (and quite a lot else) in a tale of hilarious encounters, death-defying escapades and shameless unprofessionalism. You have to read it to believe it.
How do you achieve sporting immortality? How do you develop a winning mentality? What seprates the best from the rest? While sporting greatness is for the few, there is much that the rest of us can learn from them. From the era-defining brilliance of Muhammad Ali to the tactical genius of Sir Alex Ferguson, gathered together here for the first time are the rare insights into what made some of the best sports men and women from the past century. Drawn from the Telegraph archives, this collection of interviews, contemporary accounts and first-person articles covering everyone from Michael Phelps to Dame Ellen MacArthur, Roger Federer to Michael Schumacher, Sir Steve Redgrave to Nicole Cooke, give a rare glimpse of how these individuals conquered the world. Through the snow, mud, ice and sun of the sporting calendar, TheTelegraph Book of Champions features one hundred champions from thirty-one sports. Side by side, in this unique collection, they line up as a reminder of what it takes to be the best, why success at the very top is only for the few, and what the rest of us mere mortals can learn from them.