Hugh McIlvanney, thoughts please.

I'll be looking for you's lot to do us a favour tonight. What are the chances?

 

Not sure, but i'm wearing my legendary Unlucky Top for the occasion. Hey, maybe I'll break the jinx. :yep

 

:soccerred:soccerred

 

McIlvanny's eulogy of Johnny Owen following his fateful fight with Lupe Pintor may be one of the best pieces of writing, period, that I have read.

 

On boxing and Johnny Owen:
Quite a few of us who have been involved with it most of our lives share the doubts. But are reactions are bound to be complicated by the knowledge that it was boxing that gave Johnny Owen his one positive means of self-expression. Outside the ring he was an inaudible and almost invisible personality. Inside he became astonishingly positive and self-assured. He seemed to be more at home there than anywhere else. It is his tragedy that he found himself articulate in such a dangerous language.