Bill Beaumont: The Autobiography

Bill Beaumont: The Autobiography
Bill Beaumont

First published in 2003 and now available as an ebook.One of the best lock forwards in the history of English and Lions’ game, and a successful captain to boot. Bill Beaumont’s popularity on the field and his appearances on A Question of Sport made him a household name.This is the light-hearted and amusing life story of a larger-than-life character.A serious head injury forced Bill Beaumont to retire from rugby prematurely at the age of 29, after leading his country 21 times in 34 appearances – including a memorable Grand Slam in 1980 – and captaining the Lions to South Africa in 1980.Since then he has been honoured with an OBE and turned effortlessly to a career in broadcasting as a BBC and Sky Sports summariser and, more famously, as captain on the sports quiz show A Question of Sport.He is also a brilliant after-dinner speaker, and recently became chairman of the RFU's National Playing Committee.Beaumont reflects back on a wonderful career, reliving the dramatic events on the field as well as the off-the-field scrapes and humorous escapades that characterised the game in its amateur era. And now as an elder statesman, he is perfectly positioned to talk knowledgeably about the game he so loves.

COPYRIGHT (#ulink_809228fa-0c08-5696-ac02-deb298777908)

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain in 2003

Copyright © Bill Beaumont 2003, 2004

Geoff Green asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007156702

Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008271114

Version: 2017-07-18

DEDICATION (#ulink_d4243107-d5cc-5e0a-8b98-a077c33e02d1)

To my wife Hilary and our sons Daniel, Sam and Josh.

Thank you for your support and encouragement and

for selflessly providing me with the opportunity to do a lot

of things I wouldn’t, otherwise, have been able to do.

CONTENTS

Cover (#u0f52e920-48b7-536c-acbe-28029a73a7c9)

Title Page (#u51f4adb0-dde6-5a3f-94bb-62ae22630942)

Copyright (#ulink_b8dbcf99-f301-547d-8403-acec3566dcb7)

Dedication (#ulink_d6467a5b-9e84-5c42-9db1-f8b12bda0517)

Foreword by Clive Woodward (#ulink_587f2b73-d755-5499-b97f-54ba111f98a7)

Prologue (#ulink_3e02b64d-9858-5973-82f3-6ed6396c9545)

One Childhood, school and family life (#ulink_046b1645-bd18-58c4-839b-0d6eefaccd9a)

Two Remember you’re a donkey (#ulink_83be66b6-8ca1-51d3-b5e2-ca95307f36ea)

Three Your country needs you (#ulink_58aec891-13dd-5ea3-a660-3c3b0338fd1d)

Four Lion cub (#ulink_6edc6400-e6d5-5083-97bb-abce9367ebbb)

Five A slam at last (#litres_trial_promo)

Six Leader of the pride (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven A brain discovered … and damaged! (#litres_trial_promo)

Eight Banished (#litres_trial_promo)

Nine Battle stations (#litres_trial_promo)

Ten A Question of Sport (#litres_trial_promo)

Eleven The World Cup (#litres_trial_promo)

Twelve The future (#litres_trial_promo)

Thirteen Nothing but the best (#litres_trial_promo)

Fourteen On top of the World (#litres_trial_promo)

Career Record (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

FOREWORD (#ulink_c58041d5-4909-5483-a370-383387bab772)

Clive Woodward (#ulink_c58041d5-4909-5483-a370-383387bab772)

I was delighted to accept Bill’s invitation to write the foreword for his autobiography.

Bill had a huge influence on my international career. He was captain when I made my debut for England against Ireland in January 1980, the same year he led England so brilliantly to the Grand Slam, England’s first for 23 years.

On the day I replaced Tony Bond, who was very unfortunate to break his leg on what was an otherwise enjoyable afternoon. To win your first cap, as Tony and Bill would testify, is a great feeling and one of Bill’s strengths as captain was to make the new caps feel welcome. I was fortunate to play in the remaining three games of the 1980 Grand Slam and they are memories that will always stay with me.