Author:Bernard O'Mahoney
From Salford to St Louis, former professional boxer Wayne Barker fought every man who ever challenged him. In this brutally honest account of his eventful life, Wayne recounts how his parents left him in the care of the travelling community, where he learned to fight and journeyed throughout Britain and Ireland to take on opponents for cash.
After being charged with attempting to murder a child killer, Wayne fled to America, where he found work in the gymnasiums of New York sparring with the likes of world champion Wilfred Benítez. His ability in the ring was noticed by promoter Bobby Gleason, whose gym had been graced by legendary boxers such as Jake LaMotta. Gleason set up a fight in Caracas between Wayne and former super middleweight world champion Fulgencio Obelmejias ('Fully Obel').
Wayne’s past eventually caught up with him and he was deported to Britain, where he served time in prison. He returned to the streets to earn a living from bare-knuckle fighting, before becoming a trainer and running a gym. Cancer claimed his life in 2012.
A gripping account of how football captured a nation
—— TelegraphA breezy, readable and nuanced primer to the centrality of football to Brazilian life
—— Jonathan Wilson , New StatesmanCompelling, lucidly written, and furnished with detail to spare
—— PAFutebol Nation isn't really about sport - it's a pimples-and-all portrait of the world's sixth
largest country and the many ways it has succeeded in shooting itself in both feet
Brilliant... The stories of the lanternes rouges that Leonard picks out have real value, because the race's rear view can tell you much more than the angle we're all familiar with
—— Michael Hutchinson , IndependentMakes for oddly inspiring reading. There is an art to losing
—— Jon Day , London Review of BooksAn elegant book... Surprising and illuminating
—— Ian Bell , HeraldThis is a valuable book with some great stories. Deeply-researched and well-written, it’s an enjoyable read that shouldn’t be rushed
—— The Inner RingFascinating… Without losers, there are no winners
—— London CyclistThoughtful, witty
—— Times Literary SupplementIn this lively, rear-view account of largely unsung heroes, and a few villains, Leonard has managed the difficult feat of coming up with an original angle on Le Tour
—— Simon Redfern , Independent on SundayLeonard extracts the dignity that sometimes exists in sporting failure; this is not the world of Armstrong, Keane or Pietersen and all the more appealing because of that
—— Tim Lewis , ObserverCelebratory and hilarious in equal measures, The Last Man revels in the travails of the underdog
—— Ben East , MetroThis book does a great job of revealing some of the less well known stories from le Tour: well written, entertaining, and informative
—— Richard Peploe , RoadThis book is an entertaining account taking in everyone from stage winners and former yellow jerseys who couldn’t hang on, to a breakaway leader who stopped for a bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn, to a doper whose drug cocktail backfired
—— Bike RadarWe know the winners of the Tour de France, but Lanterne Rouge tells the forgotten, often inspirational and occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider
—— Miss Dinky