Blowing the Whistle Book

Radio 5 Live's On The Line show has been a rare crouton of investigative journalism in the trivia 'n' chat soup that accounts for much of the media's sports coverage, and Blowing The Whistle is a selection of 18 of today's juiciest scandals involving corruption, greed and test tubes of bodily fluid. From the team that brought you Football Confidential, these are the sort of reports that confirm the ugly rumours that behind the PR gloss of today's big-money sports something stinks. Boxing's bent; so is racing; the world's governing bodies are gravy-trains for the corrupt etc--and the results make for fascinating reading, including providing answers to the following questions: why did British hockey all but disappear after that Olympic Gold? Which promoter did jailed IBF boxing chief Robert Lee know as Fuzzy Wuzzy, and why were his Thanksgiving turkeys so welcome? Why are the UK's ordinary club golfers being forced to bankroll an ailing multi-million pound "super-course" in isolated Lincolnshire? The sensationalist, laddish gloss that is ladled over the journalism--a story on the inadequacies of the law and science of drug testing is called "Taking The Piss", for example--wears a little thin, as does the melodramatic tone. Too often this reads like pure bombast, and does nothing to support the credibility of the work. It was doubtless intended to make serious, sometimes complex stories ear-grabbing in their original radio format--but has the opposite effect on the page. That said, Blowing The Whistle tells its good stories well, hits the mark fairly regularly, and, if you always suspected that something fishy was going on, will be very welcome. --Alex HankinRead More