Sports Poets Society

Book had spent his footballing life turning out for Bath City for £4 a week. He was already 28 going on 50 16 Jan 2025 - The Guardian Simon Hattenstone Tony Book. Mr Manchester City. Skip. One of our greats. Yet few fans have specific memories of him playing. Not necessarily because we didn’t see him play, just because he went about it so quietly. He wasn’t known for dashing overlaps or canny underlaps; flair or vision; passing or dribbling. And he certainly wasn’t known for his goals, though he did score four – or was it five – in his 315 games. Booky was a solid, tough-tackling rightback with a fair bit of pace, despite looking as if he should be on standby for a Dad’s Army XI. When we were kids, City fans wanted to be Franny Lee, “King” Colin Bell or Mike “Buzzer” Summerbee. Nobody wanted to be Book. Yet his was the most remarkable story by far. Anthony Keith Book, who died this week aged 90, represented possibility. The triumph of hope over expectation. The ultimate football dream....

WITH ITS STAR GUS WILLIAMS SIDELINED BY A CONTRACT DISPUTE, SEATTLE IS SUB-SONIC ROY S. JOHNSON TABLE OF CONTENTS ORIGINAL LAYOUT For the first 11 years of their existence, the Seattle SuperSonics were simply the other team that wore Kelly-green uniforms . Then, in 1979, the Sonics suddenly turned super and ran away with the NBA title. In the championship series, Seattle's little guys—6'2" Gus Williams and 6'4" Dennis Johnson—fast-broke Washington into oblivion . They out-scored, outrebounded and outdefensed their Bullet backcourt counterparts and, in a game so dominated by redwoods, Williams was the series' leading scorer and Johnson its MVP. Ah, those were the days. These aren't. On Jan. 20, Coach Lenny Wilkens' now less-than-super Sonics stumbled all the way into the Pacific Division basement . At times this season their play has been reminiscent of their expansion days. During last week's East Coast swing, the Sonics blew a 10-point lead in los...

https://vault.si.com/vault/2001/06/11/gus-williams-super-sonic-june-11-1979 SUNNY WU Sports Illustrated -  JUNE 11, 2001 As a child, Howard Graves often returned home to find the furniture knocked over and his father in a rage. Howard slept in fear, not knowing when he might awaken to a flurry of fists. Graves escaped this terror in 1975 when he left his hometown of Plainfield, N.J., for college, but he kept his painful childhood a secret. In the mid-'80s, he finally revealed his story to a friend, former NBA All-Star Gus Williams . "I was shocked," says Williams, who had met Graves in '78, when Graves's mother, Anita, was Williams's business manager. "People keep abuse to themselves and don't know where to seek help." In 1997 Williams helped Graves start Champions for Families, a Deltona , Fla.-based for-profit company that provides mentoring and online resources for children and families victimized by domestic or substance abuse. Says Williams...

Gus Williams waves to the crowd before a game between the Sonics  and Denver Nuggets in Seattle in March. (Rod Mar / The Seattle Times) https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sonics/gus-williams-who-lead-sonics-to-nba-championship-dies-at-71/ Jan. 15, 2025 at 7:34 pm  Updated Jan. 15, 2025 at 8:58 pm By  Tim Booth Seattle Times staff reporter Gus Williams, the point guard “Wizard” who helped lead the SuperSonics to their only NBA championship in 1979, died Wednesday nearly five years after suffering a stroke. He was 71. Nicknamed “the Wizard” for his combo of speed, athleticism and scoring , Williams spent six seasons of his NBA career with the SuperSonics . He was a dynamic score-first point guard at a time that kind of player wasn’t a regularity in the professional game and evolved from being a second-round pick out of college at USC into one of the best guards of his generation. Williams’ career ended after spending the 1986-87 season with the Atlanta Hawks and his care...