Product Description

Born on a council estate in Belfast, Alex Higgins left school at 15 At 17 he won the Northern Ireland and All Ireland snooker championships, and turned professional when he was 20. In 1972, aged just 23, he became the youngest person ever to win the World Championship. He repeated this achievement in an emotional final 10 years later, in the process becoming the biggest box-office draw the game has ever known. Alex Higgins was a showman, gambler, comedian, bully, charmer and alcoholic. His antics - and ferocious temper - were legendary yet he was loved by millions. Now, dying of cancer, he has spent everything he has and divides his time between Manchester and Belfast, where he survives by playing #10 snooker matches in pubs. Bill Burrows has had unprecedented access to Higgins and reconstructs vividly the terrifying roller-coaster ride that is his life. Gripping and ultimately, emotionally wrenching, this is an account of one of the most charasmatic and self-destructive figures ever to appear in British sport.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63402 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'I had more fun with Alex than any other player. He was a nightmare because you always knew you'd have to lend him money when he played for you - and as soon as he'd done that lot at the bookies, he'd be back for more... But he put bums on seats and was great for the game.' Barry Hearn

Barry Hearn
‘I had more fun with Alex than any other player. …He put bums on seats and was great for the game.’

Ray Reardon
‘He was a great player… He turned up for one exhibition with two black eyes after a punch-up with a fan the previous night and walloped me off the table.’

Customer Reviews

Absolutely fantastic
I got this book for Xmas and read it in one go. The stories are, in turn, heart-breaking and funny and sometimes both at the same time. The story about him falling past a window as seen by his neighbour on the floor below made me cry laughing. 'I'll have to go,' she said on the phone, 'Alex Higgins has just fallen past my window.' There are laods of stories like this but the book is so wonderfully written that you never get tired of them. You get a real idea of what has happened to the Hurricane. I don't really read sports biographies but this has very little to do with snoooker. It's just the best biography I've ever read. Brilliant!!!

Rivetting expose of a flawed genius
Let's get one thing straight: I am not a snooker fan. But I've been interested in Alex "Hurricane" Higgins after seeing a TV documentary on him a couple of years ago. He seemed like an intriguing character; a sporting genius who did much to take snooker from the dingy pool halls into the realms of primetime TV but who managed, somehow, to make a fortune and then blow it all on drink, drugs and women.

Borrows' unauthorised book pulls no punches. The opening chapter has to be one of the best opening chapters of any biography I've ever read. It somehow captures the strange world that Higgins now inhabits, his cantankerous and difficult nature, and his sad demise from snooker legend to drunkard and drifter.

If you know nothing about snooker, the book is highly readable and, at times, just plain laugh-out-loud funny, as the following extract reveals: "He took off his hat, pulled a comb out of his pocket, dipped it in a glass of vodka and orange on the table, stood up and then combed his hair in the mirror over the fireplace. It is always the little things which give it away."

In many ways The Hurricane is a bit like a car crash: you know what's coming but you can't tear your eyes away. Higgins' penchant for self-destruction, his flawed genius and his vulnerability make this a thoroughly entertaining, if somewhat sobering, read. My only quibble is that it lacks a glossary of snooker terms. But all in all, you'd be hard pressed to find a more interesting and jaw-dropping sporting biography.

A great read - buy it!
Once you start to read the book, literally you can not put it down for more than a few minutes. Whether you're a snooker fan or not you will find this book fascinating. Reading about some of the things Alex got up to on the snooker tour and away from it will make your jaw drop. Buy this book at all costs, it's simply one of the best biographies you will ever read.