Jimmy Burns – författare

The author of a best-selling biography of Diego Maradona, and similarly widely acclaimed books on FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, digs deep into the roots of the most popular sport, to look at how football played in Spain became the most admired in the world. From its early beginnings when the first football on the shores of Bilbao and Buenos Aires was played by British sailors and engineers, through to the influx of South American stars, and similarly inspirational Italians, Dutchman and Scandinavians, the author shows how the engagement of foreigners with home-grown Spanish talent overcame political adversity and produced football of sublime skill, passion, and unparalleled entertainment value. The book takes us on a journey through some of the extraordinary characters, games, and moments that have defined Spanish football from the early days when a few enthusiasts developed their talent kicking a ball around on a piece of industrial waste-ground or beach, to the emergence of rival giants, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid - the most powerful and successful football clubs in the world - and a national team that, encompassing all that was most brilliant in the Spanish League, became the World Champions.

In the 1930s Tom Burns was a rising star of British publishing, whose friends and authors included G. K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, the artist Eric Gill and the poet David Jones. And among his glittering social circle he had set his heart on the beautiful Ann Bowes-Lyon, cousin of the Queen. When war was declared in 1939, Burns joined the Ministry of Information, effectively the propaganda wing of the secret services. Sent to Madrid as press attached at the British Embassy, where the Ambassador was the formidable and very Protestant Sir Samuel Hoare, Burns used his faith and his deep love of Spain in the propaganda war against the Nazis, who at the time had pretty much unrestricted access to the Spanish media. Burns' brief was to do all in his power to keep Franco neutral and so protect Gibraltar and access to the western Mediterranean. The strategy was simple, but the tactics were more complicated, especially when Burns found he had begun to make enemies at home, not least among them Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, head of the MI6's Iberian section.By 1941 he felt far from the real fighting, Ann had pledged herself to another man, and Burns was spending as much time protecting his back as fighting the Nazis. How he overcame these odds, was involved in the Man Who Never Was decoy plot, arranged Leslie Howard's fatal propaganda trip to Portugal and Spain, and finally found true love while loyally serving his country is the story told in this extraordinary book by his son.

The story of FC Barcelona, written by the author of the internationally acclaimed Hand of God: The Life of Diego Maradona and updated with a new preface''Burns'' examination of the club''s fates and fortunes always goes well beyond the game itself … Burns is a brilliant journalist … Unmissable'' Total Football''Anyone who really wants to know Barcelona should read Burns. A cracker – part sports book, part travelogue'' Daily MirrorBarça is més que un club: more than a club. It is a social and political phenomenon, successful on the football field and emblematic of the proud region of Catalonia off it.Founded in 1898, FC Barcelona is today the world''s biggest football club. To unravel the background to the Barça phenomenon, Jimmy Burns has travelled with supporters, talked to people intimately linked to the club, unearthed police files and long-forgotten newspaper reports.Barça: A People''s Passion is much more than a book about football – it is a story of more than a hundred years of obsessive national pride and has now been brought right up to date.

''The definitive work on Diego Maradona'' The 42''One of football''s greatest stories ... this is the best football book in ages'' Goal''A modern footballing classic'' FHM_________________________Anyone doubting that Diego Maradona was more than just a football player had only to witness the outpourings after his death on November 25th 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, he played for top clubs in South America and Europe, notably Napoli where he became an adored hero and adopted son, and grew to be a legend in his homeland of Argentina after leading them to victory in the 1986 World Cup.Having gained access to his inner circle, Jimmy Burns traces Maradona''s life from the slums of Buenos Aires, where he was born, through his great years of triumph, to the United States from where, in 1994, he was ignobly expelled after undergoing a positive drugs test. He also tells of his failed attempt to bring further glory to Argentina as coach in the 2010 World Cup, and ultimately, his tragic decline and recent death.Widely regarded as the best and most revealing account of the highs, lows, genius and flaws of arguably the greatest footballer of all time, this biography inspired Asif Kapadia''s award-winning 2019 film Diego Maradona._________________________''Excellent and well-researched'' Sunday Times''I finished it thinking how great it would be to make something on Diego Maradona one day'' Asif Kapadia, director of Diego Maradona

A true story with a cast of characters and a plot worthy of John le Carré''s Smiley novels''A great story, with drama, betrayal and historical significance'' Independence''Frank and revealing ... a world of intrigue and betrayal ... A son''s search for who his father really was.'' Daily TelegraphIn the 1930s Tom Burns was a rising star of British publishing, whose friends and authors included G. K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, the artist Eric Gill and the poet David Jones. And among his glittering social circle he had set his heart on the beautiful Ann Bowes-Lyon, cousin of the Queen.When war was declared in 1939, Burns joined the Ministry of Information, effectively the propaganda wing of the secret services. Sent to Madrid as press attaché at the British Embassy, where the Ambassador was the formidable and very Protestant Sir Samuel Hoare, Burns used his faith and his deep love of Spain in the propaganda war against the Nazis, who at the time had pretty much unrestricted access to the Spanish media. Burns'' brief was to do all in his power to keep Franco neutral and so protect Gibraltar and access to the western Mediterranean.The strategy was simple, but the tactics were more complicated, especially when Burns found he had begun to make enemies at home, not least among them Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, head of the MI6''s Iberian section. By 1941 he felt far from the real fighting, Ann had pledged herself to another man, and Burns was spending as much time protecting his back as fighting the Nazis. How he overcame these odds, was involved in the Man Who Never Was decoy plot, arranged Leslie Howard''s fatal propaganda trip to Portugal and Spain, and finally found true love while loyally serving his country is the story told in this extraordinary book by his son.

'A required book for anyone who wishes to understand the Argentine situation before and after the Falklands War' Graham Greene'Full of insights about the extraordinary story of Argentina under Galtieri and Alfonsin' Max Hastings__________________Jimmy Burns was the only full-time British foreign correspondent to remain in Argentina covering the Falklands War. In The Land that Lost Its Heroes, he gives a detailed account of the military planning of the invasion, exposing not only the hidden motives and nature of Argentina's military regime, but also the pitifully inadequate reactions of both British diplomacy and intelligence. Burns exposes the duplicity of other Western nations and the international banking community and gives a vivid first-hand account of the end of the regime, the debt crisis and the return to democracy under Raul Alfonsin.

''A required book for anyone who wishes to understand the Argentine situation before and after the Falklands War'' Graham Greene''Full of insights about the extraordinary story of Argentina under Galtieri and Alfonsin'' Max Hastings__________________Jimmy Burns was the only full-time British foreign correspondent to remain in Argentina covering the Falklands War.In The Land that Lost Its Heroes, he gives a detailed account of the military planning of the invasion, exposing not only the hidden motives and nature of Argentina''s military regime, but also the pitifully inadequate reactions of both British diplomacy and intelligence. Burns exposes the duplicity of other Western nations and the international banking community and gives a vivid first-hand account of the end of the regime, the debt crisis and the return to democracy under Raul Alfonsin.

The story of FC Barcelona, written by the author of the internationally acclaimed Hand of God: The Life of Diego Maradona and updated with a new preface'Burns’ examination of the club’s fates and fortunes always goes well beyond the game itself … Burns is a brilliant journalist … Unmissable' Total Football'Anyone who really wants to know Barcelona should read Burns. A cracker – part sports book, part travelogue' Daily MirrorBarça is més que un club: more than a club. It is a social and political phenomenon, successful on the football field and emblematic of the proud region of Catalonia off it.Founded in 1898, FC Barcelona is today the world’s biggest football club. To unravel the background to the Barça phenomenon, Jimmy Burns has travelled with supporters, talked to people intimately linked to the club, unearthed police files and long-forgotten newspaper reports.Barça: A People’s Passion is much more than a book about football – it is a story of more than a hundred years of obsessive national pride and has now been brought right up to date.

During the five years Jimmy Burns was based in Buenos Aires, which resulted in his award-winning study of the Falklands War and its aftermath, The Land That Lost Its Heroes, he also embarked on further-flung journeys in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. ''Each South American country is idiosyncratic - it brings out our individual fantasies and forces us to interpret anew,'' writes Burns. Certainly to travel with him is to trace the footprints of history - conquest and subjugation, defiance and hope - yet to encounter at each turn a fresh observation, the unexpected. He conducts us by steam train up the Andes and down to the treacherous depths of a Bolivian tin mine. We find a hotbed of Argentine loyalties in Tierra del Fuego, beaches of bodies beautiful in Brazil and Peruvian streets where fanatical Sendero Luminoso guerrillas wage a permanent power struggle with the military. Burns introduces us to Sixto Vazquez, Indian intellectual with an unshakeable faith in legend and animism; to Tina, White Russian Duchess of Platinov, who now presides over an eerie domain of enormous moths in the Ecuadorian rain forest; to Father Renato Hevia, the editor of a Jesuit magazine in Chile who is harassed and detained if he fails to mention Pinochet in even one edition. To this journey of discovery Jimmy Burns brings all the clarity of vision and eloquence of expression for which he was awarded the 1988 Somerset Maugham Award for Non-fiction.

From the moment Pope Francis stepped on to the balcony of St Peter's Basilica for the first time, a global audience sensed that not only the Catholic Church but the world at large could be entering a new spiritual, political and social age. In the days following Pope Francis' election, there would be further early signs of the simplicity worthy of the first apostles and the leader that inspired them. Not since John XIII appeared on the scene half a century earlier had a new Pope opened the windows of the Church in such a way as to let in some much needed fresh air. Nevertheless, for the excitement generated by the first Latin American Pope and a man who claimed to want to put the poor back at the centre of the Church's social teaching, people could still only guess where it might be all be leading.Francis: Pope of Good Promise is neither an instant media job, nor a hagiography based on authorised interviews, but the product of diligent investigation across a wide range of official and independent sources - a measured, objective portrait of a man who, in circumstances that he neither sought nor foresaw, found himself handed the highest office at a time of crisis not just for the Church but for long established institutions worldwide from banks to political parties.

A Financial Times Sports book of the Year 2018 pickWho's better: Ronaldo or Messi? Ask any football fan and they'll have an opinion. For the best part of the last decade football has seen a personal rivalry unlike any seen before. Cristiano and Leo. This is their definitive story, from children kicking a ball halfway around the world from each other to their era-defining battle to be number one. One the preening adonis, a precision physical machine who blows teams away with his pace and power. The other a shuffling genius, able to do things with a football that seem other-worldly. Their differences seem to tap into something fundamental about football and indeed life.Between them they have scored over a thousand goals, won the Ballon d'Or nine times and redefined modern football. For the past eight seasons they have shared the accolade of best footballer in the world and arguments rage over which one deserves the title of greatest player of all time. Cristiano and Leo by Spanish and South American football expert and journalist Jimmy Burns is the essential book to understand the defining players of a generation.'Burns is incapable of writing a boring sentence.' - Irish Times

A Financial Times Sports Books of the Year.Cristiano and Leo is the fascinating account of the lives and rivalry between two of the best footballers to ever play the game, Ronaldo and Messi, by Jimmy Burns the bestselling author of Maradona: The Hand of God.The rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi has defined football to a generation of fans – everyone has an opinion on who is the greatest.Do you prefer Ronaldo whose work ethic and physique have been honed for one purpose – scoring goals. Or Messi, whose superhuman natural talent means he can do the seemingly impossible with a football.Between them they have scored over 1300 goals, won the Ballon d’Or ten times, and taken the beautiful game to even greater heights. But statistics alone cannot do justice to their skill, athleticism and dedication to stay at the top for so long of one of the most competitive sports in the world.Cristiano and Leo tells their definitive story, from children kicking a ball halfway around the world from each other to facing each other in the epic clash El Clásico, between Real Madrid and Barcelona. This is the essential book to understand one the most compelling rivalries in sporting history.

A Financial Times Sports Books of the Year.Cristiano and Leo is the fascinating account of the lives and rivalry between two of the best footballers to ever play the game, Ronaldo and Messi, by Jimmy Burns the bestselling author of Maradona: The Hand of God.The rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi has defined football to a generation of fans – everyone has an opinion on who is the greatest.Do you prefer Ronaldo whose work ethic and physique have been honed for one purpose – scoring goals. Or Messi, whose superhuman natural talent means he can do the seemingly impossible with a football.Between them they have scored over 1300 goals, won the Ballon d’Or ten times, and taken the beautiful game to even greater heights. But statistics alone cannot do justice to their skill, athleticism and dedication to stay at the top for so long of one of the most competitive sports in the world.Cristiano and Leo tells their definitive story, from children kicking a ball halfway around the world from each other to facing each other in the epic clash El Clásico, between Real Madrid and Barcelona. This is the essential book to understand one the most compelling rivalries in sporting history.

‘The definitive work on Diego Maradona’ The 42'One of football’s greatest stories ... this is the best football book in ages' Goal'A modern footballing classic' FHM_________________________Anyone doubting that Diego Maradona was more than just a football player had only to witness the outpourings after his death on November 25th 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, he played for top clubs in South America and Europe, notably Napoli where he became an adored hero and adopted son, and grew to be a legend in his homeland of Argentina after leading them to victory in the 1986 World Cup.Having gained access to his inner circle, Jimmy Burns traces Maradona’s life from the slums of Buenos Aires, where he was born, through his great years of triumph, to the United States from where, in 1994, he was ignobly expelled after undergoing a positive drugs test. He also tells of his failed attempt to bring further glory to Argentina as coach in the 2010 World Cup, and ultimately, his tragic decline and recent death.Widely regarded as the best and most revealing account of the highs, lows, genius and flaws of arguably the greatest footballer of all time, this biography inspired Asif Kapadia’s award-winning 2019 film Diego Maradona._________________________'Excellent and well-researched' Sunday Times‘I finished it thinking how great it would be to make something on Diego Maradona one day’ Asif Kapadia, director of Diego Maradona

''The definitive work on Diego Maradona'' The 42''One of football''s greatest stories ... this is the best football book in ages'' Goal''A modern footballing classic'' FHM_________________________Anyone doubting that Diego Maradona was more than just a football player had only to witness the outpourings after his death on November 25th 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, he played for top clubs in South America and Europe, notably Napoli where he became an adored hero and adopted son, and grew to be a legend in his homeland of Argentina after leading them to victory in the 1986 World Cup.Having gained access to his inner circle, Jimmy Burns traces Maradona''s life from the slums of Buenos Aires, where he was born, through his great years of triumph, to the United States from where, in 1994, he was ignobly expelled after undergoing a positive drugs test. He also tells of his failed attempt to bring further glory to Argentina as coach in the 2010 World Cup, and ultimately, his tragic decline and recent death.Widely regarded as the best and most revealing account of the highs, lows, genius and flaws of arguably the greatest footballer of all time, this biography inspired Asif Kapadia''s award-winning 2019 film Diego Maradona._________________________''Excellent and well-researched'' Sunday Times''I finished it thinking how great it would be to make something on Diego Maradona one day'' Asif Kapadia, director of Diego Maradona

The Premier: Big Business and Great Football explores the history and evolution of the world’s most popular football league.Discover the curiosities and stand-out moments of the greatest Premier League clubs as well as fascinating stories of the owners, managers, players, fans and chroniclers who have lit up England’s top-flight league for 30-plus unforgettable years.From Wenger’s Arsenal and Ferguson’s Manchester United to the Guardiola–Klopp rivalry and Arteta, from tragic memories, tribal hymns and hooliganism, to controversial overseas owners and alleged breaches of fair-play rules, this is the Premier League in all its colour and complexity. Penned by an award-winning Anglo-Spanish writer, the book also highlights the contributions of Spaniards and other non-English players.Delving beyond the purely anecdotal, this is a lively, illustrative, incisive, enlightening and entertaining account of one of the world's greatest sporting institutions.

Drawing on previously undisclosed personal papers, this biography of Walter Bell by award-winning author Jimmy Burns gives a remarkable insight into the working of British Intelligence. He was at heart of the emerging intelligence special relationship between Britain and America before, during and immediately after WW2 - the very time that MI6 had been penetrated by Russian intelligence. He was acquainted with Philby, Burgess and Maclean.Moving to MI5 Bell had postings in Kenya, India, and the West Indies, playing a crucial role in the passing power of power to newly independent governments, and developing close ties with agents of influence at the highest levels in the former colonies, from journalists and judges to generals and independence heroes. Back home he was intimately involved in operations to limit the reputation damage provoked by the media outcry over the Cambridge Five affair and suspected KGB misinformation about further alleged Soviet agents at the highest level of the British state. He was rewarded for his service with a CMG and the US Medal of Freedom.

Drawing on previously undisclosed personal papers, this biography of Walter Bell by award-winning author Jimmy Burns gives a remarkable insight into the working of British Intelligence. He was at heart of the emerging intelligence special relationship between Britain and America before, during and immediately after WW2 - the very time that MI6 had been penetrated by Russian intelligence. He was acquainted with Philby, Burgess and Maclean.Moving to MI5 Bell had postings in Kenya, India, and the West Indies, playing a crucial role in the passing power of power to newly independent governments, and developing close ties with agents of influence at the highest levels in the former colonies, from journalists and judges to generals and independence heroes. Back home he was intimately involved in operations to limit the reputation damage provoked by the media outcry over the Cambridge Five affair and suspected KGB misinformation about further alleged Soviet agents at the highest level of the British state. He was rewarded for his service with a CMG and the US Medal of Freedom.