Golden Boy
Kim Hughes and the bad old days of Australian cricket
Published on 23. September 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
448 pages
978-1-74237-463-5 (ISBN)
Description
**Voted Wisden Cricket Monthly's best cricket book ever in 2019**
WINNER, BEST CRICKET BOOK, BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2010
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Golden Boy is a blistering expose of the tumultuous Lillee/Marsh/Chappells era of Australian cricket, as viewed through the lens of flawed genius Kim Hughes.
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Kim Hughes was one of the most majestic and daring batsmen to play for Australia in the last 40 years. Golden curled and boyishly handsome, his rise and fall as captain and player is unparalleled in cricketing history. He played several innings that count as all-time classics, but it's his tearful resignation from the captaincy that is remembered.
Insecure but arrogant, abrasive but charming; in Hughes' character were the seeds of his own destruction. Yet was Hughes' fall partly due to those around him, men who are themselves legends in Australia's cricketing history? Lillee, Marsh, the Chappells, all had their agendas, all were unhappy with his selection and performance as captain - evidenced by Dennis Lillee's tendency to aim bouncers relentlessly at Hughes' head during net practice.
Hughes' arrival on the Test scene coincided with the most turbulent time Australian cricket has ever seen - first Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, then the rebel tours to South Africa. Both had dramatic effects on Hughes' career. As he traces the high points and the low, Christian Ryan sheds new and fascinating light on the cricket - and the cricketers - of the times.
WINNER, BEST CRICKET BOOK, BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2010
_________________
Golden Boy is a blistering expose of the tumultuous Lillee/Marsh/Chappells era of Australian cricket, as viewed through the lens of flawed genius Kim Hughes.
_________________
Kim Hughes was one of the most majestic and daring batsmen to play for Australia in the last 40 years. Golden curled and boyishly handsome, his rise and fall as captain and player is unparalleled in cricketing history. He played several innings that count as all-time classics, but it's his tearful resignation from the captaincy that is remembered.
Insecure but arrogant, abrasive but charming; in Hughes' character were the seeds of his own destruction. Yet was Hughes' fall partly due to those around him, men who are themselves legends in Australia's cricketing history? Lillee, Marsh, the Chappells, all had their agendas, all were unhappy with his selection and performance as captain - evidenced by Dennis Lillee's tendency to aim bouncers relentlessly at Hughes' head during net practice.
Hughes' arrival on the Test scene coincided with the most turbulent time Australian cricket has ever seen - first Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, then the rebel tours to South Africa. Both had dramatic effects on Hughes' career. As he traces the high points and the low, Christian Ryan sheds new and fascinating light on the cricket - and the cricketers - of the times.
Reviews / Votes
Christian Ryan's Golden Boy has this brawny lyricism ... It's really alive, that book. Like a great Australian novel. Hughes personifies something mercurial, ethereal, this artistic flair alongside these macho, rugged, brawny bruisers like Marsh and Lillee. It's told with such lyricism and tempo. I found it absolutely enthralling and a real revelation. -- William Fiennes, member of Wisden Cricket Monthly's Best Cricket Book Ever judging panel At once unputdownable and also unpickupable, because if you pick it up you will eventually finish it, and what are you going to do then? -- Rob Smyth * Guardian * It made me laugh, it told me things, it reminded me why I love the subject I'm reading about and it put a series of images in my head that I won't ever forget. It's audacious, it's got chutzpah, it's done with a lyrical flourish. I didn't know cricket books could be written like this. -- Phil Walker, editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly A cracking read ... An almost tragic but compelling tale of how Hughes tried hard - and failed - to fit his smiling personality into the hard-faced world of his country's uniquely macho and badly moustached team. * The Observer * Graphic ... Shocking ... Devastating ... If half of what we read here is true, two Australian legends should hang their heads in shame. -- Simon Wilde * The Times * A valuable archive of the professional cricketer's lot during the 1980s - paltry wages, petty officials, vermin-infested hotels and astonishing levels of alcohol consumption ... a fascinating account of Australian cricket's leanest years. * Times Literary Supplement * Absolutely superb, one of the best cricket books I've read. -- John Stern * The Wisden Cricketer *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
St Leonards
Australia
Illustrations
12pp insert (b&w/colour)
Dimensions
Height: 199 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-74237-463-5 (9781742374635)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2017
Allen & Unwin
€9.99
Available for download
E-Book
09/2010
Allen & Unwin
€19.49
Available for download
Person
Christian Ryan is also the author of Feeling is the Thing that Happens in 1000th of a Second. His essays - appearing in Wisden, The Nightwatchman and The Cricket Monthly - include 'Blew', 'Two Thursdays', 'The Thirty-Ninth Summer of DK Lillee', 'The Unremembered Six', 'Abbamania' and 'Jeff Thomson is Annoyed'. He edited and assembled the literary/photographic cultural sweeps Rock Country and Australia: Story of a Cricket Country. He lives in Melbourne.