Kenny Logan scoring a try for Scotland but still remembering to get his boots in the picture
WHEN KENNY Logan decided to publish his autobiography, he wanted a ghostwriter who didn’t know him and so would have no preconceptions. He chose The Observer’s Michael Aylwin and it’s made for a happy marriage, writes Rugby World deputy writer Alan Pearey.
If Logan’s rugby and dyslexia are the threads that run through the book, there are numerous entertaining diversions. The Scot’s relationships with Kirsty Young and Gabby Yorath (now Logan) put him on the news pages long before Strictly Come Dancing hit our screens, and the story of how Young crashed his car in a field after a night on the tiles is the sort of gem that few sportsmen can match. Logan also benefits from having played in both the amateur and pro eras, his tales of rowdy drinking and boot money and Kerry Packer’s WRC lending the book a welcome dimension.
In 1993 he was offered £500 a Test to wear Mizuno boots, and the players would practise lifting their boots in the air when diving for the line so that photographers would get the logos in their shots. Two years later he signed a £200,000 contract with WRC – 40 times his farmer’s salary – only for the rebel circus to bite the dust when the Springboks backtracked.
The love-hate relationship with Jim Telfer is another strong feature: during one International in Cardiff, Logan complained that the coach, sitting behind him on the bench, was covering him in spittle. “Knowing our relationship at the time,” says Logan, “it wouldn’t surprise me if he was doing it on purpose.”
It’s a life story told with a heartfelt honesty befitting of a farmer’s boy whose love of the Stirling soil has never faded.
RW RATING 5/5
BUY IT AT: amazon.co.uk RRP: £18.99 PUBLISHED BY: Headline
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This article appeared in the October 2009 issue of Rugby World Magazine
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