Product details
- ISBN 9781836804758
- Dimensions: 160 x 240mm
- Publication Date: 07 Sep 2026
- Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Joe Bugner was the only boxer to take both Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier the distance, and he did it twice to Ali. Bugner faced the very best in a golden era of heavyweights and was British and European champion. He should have been one of the country’s most admired sportsmen. Yet he was cursed by his controversial points win over national hero Henry Cooper, and felt he was eventually hounded out of the country he had entered as a six-year-old refugee from Hungary. By the time he became the oldest man to win a version of the world heavyweight crown at 48, he was fighting from the other side of the world as ‘Aussie Joe’, his achievement met with indifference or even ridicule. Yet the reaction to his death in September 2025 revealed a respect and affection in Britain that would have surprised him. The Bugner Identity is the first major book on this most contentious of British champions. It explores his extraordinary life, his fractured bond with his adopted homeland, and whether history has judged Joe Bugner unfairly.
David Tossell is the author of 21 previous books. He has been shortlisted seven times in the British Sports Book Awards and three times for the MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year. He is a former national newspaper journalist and long-time head of European public relations for the National Football League.
