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the villain

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ianstom 06 Apr 2005
Just read The Villain,the life of Don Whillans - brilliant book, anyone like to comment - if you haven't read it I would certainly recommend it
 Postmanpat 06 Apr 2005
In reply to ianstom:
Excellent book as you'd expect from Perrin .Even if you've read most of the other books on the period (Hard Years , Rope Boy etc) it has plenty of new material . It left me feeling rather sad . It felt like he'd wasted his life and his talent . Apart from an all too brief period as a top quality climber everything else seemed a bit of a disaster .
In reply to ianstom:

Gordon Stainforth has written a very interesting review of the book here - http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=105

Well worth reading before or after you have read the book.
ianstom 06 Apr 2005
In reply to Postmanpat: Good comments ,I believe like so many men of genius, he had a self destruct element, after he got where he wanted, it didn't matter any more
 Padraig 06 Apr 2005
In reply to ianstom:

I liked the book - didn't tell me anything I didn't already know about this fragile genius - thought the rivalry with Brown was a bit distracting.
P
In reply to Padraig:

Do you mean 'detracting'? It was certainly distracting at the time - from all accounts.
 jim robertson 07 Apr 2005
In reply to Padraig:

Isn't "Genius" a bit generous?

jim.
 Postmanpat 07 Apr 2005
In reply to ianstom:
I'd like to think that was the explanation but fear that he was actually just bloody idle and a bit of a yob to boot .
Quite possibly thats's overly harsh but it seems to be the way quite a lot of the people who knew him seemed to react .
catbaiter 07 Apr 2005
In reply to Postmanpat:

> I'd like to think that was the explanation but fear that he was actually just bloody idle and a bit of a yob to boot .


I think there's the whole insane/eccentric argument there, that is; if your rich then you're not mad, just eccentric. Therefore it follows that if you're talented, and there's no denying Whillans was, it's amazing what you can get away with. You're not a yob, your disfunctional or a fractured genius etc...

I never met the guy, and I've only ever had 2nd hand stories from people who have, so it's just a theory.
 Marc C 07 Apr 2005
In reply to ianstom: Seems to have been appointed Portsmouth FC's manager on the strength of it - 'Perrin gets Pompey job'

http://www.netscape.co.uk/sport/0.html


Presumably team tactics will be based on his Yes to Dance strategy - 'How do we play, boss? 4-4-2, 4-3-3?'
'No, we just dance'
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