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Comrade Jim - The Spy Who Played for Spartak (Paperback)
Loot Price: R229
Discovery Miles 2 290
You Save: R50
(18%)
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Comrade Jim - The Spy Who Played for Spartak (Paperback)
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List price R279
Loot Price R229
Discovery Miles 2 290
You Save R50 (18%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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The true and remarkable story of the English double agent who ended
up playing for Spartak Moscow. Like many working class children
growing up in the war, the young Jim Riordan would fantasise his
way out of his devastated surroundings with dreams of Wembley and
FA Cup glory for his local team, Portsmouth FC. Spartak Moscow, the
team he would end up playing for, wasn't even on his radar. Taught
Russian and trained as a spy in the same institution that nurtured
the likes of Alan Bennett and Michael Frayn, he was posted to
Berlin as part of his National Service to listen in on Soviet
military communiques. But, unbeknownst to his seniors, he began
mixing with Russian servicemen, mostly through informal
kick-abouts, and the passion of these idealistic young men would
cultivate his interest in Russian culture, and especially
communism, until it blossomed into a full-grown love affair. From
the shambolic outfit that was the British Communist Party in the
1950s, to Cold War Moscow at its coldest, to his friendship with
the Cambridge Five and meetings with Brezhnev and Gregarin, and his
eventual debut in front of 50,000 Spartak fans at the Lenin
Stadium, 'Comrade Jim' is the remarkable true story of the only
Englishman to have played - and survived - Russian league football,
told with grace, humour and lashings of vodka. An incredible
journey of an ordinary man living through extraordinary times.
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