LIFE’S A PITCH FOR IAN DARLER
He’s won just about every award the greenkeeping industry has to offer, managed his stadium through tempestuous and terrific times and dealt with as many life-and-death situations as some paramedics.
Now Ian Darler, head groundsman and stadium manager at Cambridge United’s Abbey Stadium for 40 years, tells the story of a life that has seen him rub shoulders with some of the greatest and funniest characters in football, turn out the kind of surfaces players dream of, cross swords with the occasional manager and cope with catastrophes that would have floored a lesser mortal.
Lauded by his peers in the turf management business as one of its most able and dedicated practitioners, Ian has tales to tell about personalities from every echelon of the game. A natural storyteller, he remembers every disaster, every triumph, every tragedy and every side-splitting practical joke.
But there have been bad times too. Ian talks about the life-threatening incident that threatened to end his career and plunged him into a very dark place.Throughout the book, men and women who have come to value Ian’s peerless skill and devotion pay tribute to a remarkable man. Priced a £12.99, and with a foreword by England legend and former Cambridge United manager Roy McFarland, Ian’s moving memoirs will be pitching up in July for the club’s Open Day and pre-season friendlies.
A free copy of the Playfair Cricket Annual 2019 worth £9.95 is on offer to all visitors to our sister company’s revamped web-site www.cricshop.com which relaunches this month. The annual offer is for customers who order the latest edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack 2019 for £44.99 plus P&P – a saving of more than £10 on the published price. More than 500 customers took advantage of the offer last year which sets cricket fans up for the summer with both books containing statistics and information about the new season which includes the ICC Cricket World Cup and an Ashes series on home soil.
Fans of the late great angler John Wilson MBE will want to catch a new 132-page limited edition book from the makers of Angling Times, which pays affectionate tribute to fishing’s greatest-ever angler.
is now available at the International Bomber Command Centre shop at Canwick Hill, Lincoln (LN4 2RF www.internationalbcc.co.uk). The book features many of his action-packed paintings of WWII bombers including the famous Dam Busters – whose missions Lord of the Rings’ director Peter Jackson is about to make into a new film next year.
Like London buses, just when one Christmas Fair finishes another comes along in no time at all! This time G2 is exhibiting at the Coutts Luxury Christmas Market at 440 The Strand from Wednesday to Friday this week with a selection of their limited editions including signed and numbered copies of Philip West’s Aviation Masterworks collection.