Notable Obituaries.

Simon Mann

I picked up his biog in a second hand shop, flicked through and a name caught my eye, Chris Donnelly a relative who was a lecturer at Sandhurst, bought it and found it was virtually unreadable, Chris was only mentioned once as his mentor

 
Spoke to him on the phone once. Decent guy.

Got my brake pads done once at KF, but they were really spongy. Complained at the branch and the kid said they were fine. Pedal travel was huge.

Complained to KF on the phone. Didn't expect much.

Got a call back from the man himself, told me to go to the dealer, get it sorted and get them to ring me with a report when they have investigated and we'll get it sorted, he said.

Good as his word, the dealer bled everything, brakes as tight as a duck's wotsit and Tom paid with his company credit card.
 
Brian Glanville, who has died aged 93, was a football writer of unique stature and a figure of extraordinary industry in papers and publishing for nearly seven decades.

For 33 years he was the football correspondent of the Sunday Times, with whom he continued to work until he was 88. He produced thousands of match reports and features and was a pioneer in giving greater coverage to the international game, attending all World Cups from 1958 to 2006 and using his gift for languages – he spoke Italian almost perfectly, as well as French and Spanish — to write for other newspapers, magazines and agencies across the world. His fellow sports journalist Patrick Barclay once remarked that “most football writers fall into two categories: those who have been influenced by Brian Glanville and those who should have been”.
 
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