LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Ned Boulting’s Tour de France commentary is an institution for fans of the race and when Covid disrupted his annual gig, like many of us, he was vulnerable to any distraction from lockdown madness. In his case that came in the form of a two minute reel of Pathé news footage covering his beloved race at some point around one hundred years ago. On a tip-off he picked it up at an auction. He had no idea what he was buying, and certainly not where it would take him.
In the pages of 1923, Ned goes on a journey through time, hitched to this blurred, niche sporting film, barely a snapshot of one stage on the Tour. Driven on by the knowledge that the reel was his alone, his established obsession with the race, and slightly unhinged by what is going on in the world, he unravels mysteries, stories, characters and histories that together assemble a parallel universe that is all his own.
In normal life, Ned would be turning up annually to take his place ‘trackside’ at the world’s greatest display of cycling, with a natural understanding of what was going on in the world. He talks about his interest in the places through which the Tour moves and the light research he undertakes to enrich his commentary, but essentially for the duration of the race he is escaping the everyday.
This book is a reversal of that paradigm. Here, given only a short and shaky black and white spool of fading film, he enters another world and the research is anything but light. He firstly identifies the riders and other characters involved in the race. He widens the picture to individuals, adjacent colourful characters of both the time and location. Soon, he is edging into neighbouring territories and getting to grips with the fragility and uncertainty of post WW1 Europe.
1923 is compelling reading, whether a cycling nut or not. From the unlikely collision of Ned, this film and Covid, has emerged a story which explores the complex relationship between sport and the wider world. This is a once-in-a-century book and a worthy award winner.
Greg Hackett
Find This Book In
| Primary Genre |
Sports
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About
1923 Synopsis
Winner of the Sports Book Awards 2024 Cycling Book of the Year
Nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2023
The story of an obsession. When cycling commentator Ned Boulting bought a length of Pathé news film featuring a stage of the Tour de France from 1923 he set about learning everything he could about it - taking him on an intriguing journey that encompasses travelogue, history and detective story.
In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathé news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago.
Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France. No longer than 2.5 minutes long, it featured half a dozen sequences, including a lone rider crossing a bridge. Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence – studying each frame, face and building – until he had squeezed the meaning from it. It sets him off in fascinating directions, encompassing travelogue, history, mystery story – to explain, to go deeper into this moment in time, captured on his little film.
Join him as he explores the history of cycling and France just five years after WWI – meeting characters like Henri Pélissier, who won the Tour that year but who would within the decade be shot dead by his lover using the same pistol with which his wife had killed herself. And Theophile Beeckman – the lone rider on the bridge.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781399401548 |
| Publication date: |
22nd June 2023 |
| Author: |
Ned Boulting |
| Publisher: |
Bloomsbury Sport an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
284 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Sports
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Press Reviews
Ned Boulting Press Reviews
[a] fascinating and often touching book… Wonderful - The Times
An absorbing mix of historical sleuthing and travel writing - The Telegraph
Spellbinding - Daily Mail
A captivating journey of discovery into a lost world. A real joy to read. - Tom McTague
Witty, discursive, and tons of fun, Ned Boulting has the Tour de France under his skin, and you will too by the time you've read this - Al Murray, comedian, author and presenter of history podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Ned's captivating book explores one man's obsession with this magnificent event and casts an intriguing light on a tiny fragment of a race long gone by - Alexei Sayle
Ned has created a rich tapestry from the finest of threads ... I felt transported back with him to the very origins of bike racing and the world that created it - David Millar
one of the most intelligent sporting books i have come across…the writing is compulsive, eloquently conveying the twists and turns of the story as it unfolds…excellent -- thewashingmachinepost
There has never been a cycling book quite like this one. A scrap of newsreel film, a century old and two and a half minutes long, sweeps Ned Boulting back not just into the world of a forgotten hero of the Tour de France but into the forces that shaped that world: a collision of sport, war, family and destiny. And as he searches for the tiniest clues among the faded celluloid shadows, he carries us along with him, making us his companions on a remarkable mission of rediscovery - Richard Williams, music and sports journalist
Delightful -- Dara Ó Briain - Twitter
utterly captivating…an amazing concept and a truly fascinating adventure into cycling, history and people… a truly addictive read. - Cyclist
Beginning with a fragment of a century-old race, Ned has written a ‘biography of the unknown rider’. And in honouring him he’s told us more about bike racing, the Tour and about Europe in the years between the wars than we’d ever have learned from a book about a star - Michael Hutchinson, racing cyclist and writer
This is a wonderful piece of writing that transcends sport. -- New European A fascinating and often touching book -- Times Literary Supplement Witty, discursive, and tons of fun, Ned Boulting has the Tour De France under his skin, and you will too by the time you read this -- Al Murray
Author
About Ned Boulting
Ned Boulting began his television career in 1997 when he joined Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday. He moved to ITV Sport in 2001, and has covered a range of football events including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and the FA Cup over a period of fifteen years.
Ned is the author of five books, including the bestselling How I Won the Yellow Jumper and On the Road Bike.
He lives in London with his wife and two children.
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