MANUTE BOL: THE INDEPENDENT OBITUARY

My obituary of Manute Bol, the Sudanese basketball player, is in today's Independent, you can link to it here. It's odd to be alongside the obit of Beryl Bainbridge, but it makes a nice contrast. I would have loved to see a picture of Manute with Muggsy Bogues in the paper, but as a consolation prize, here's one of the 7-7 Bol with Spud Webb, at 5-5 two inches taller than Muggsy. As always with American sportsmen, I would have liked to go into more detail about Bol's unique set of basketball skills, and I really should have included the old basketball adage, 'you can't coach height'. But Manute's was such a fascinating and touching story that I went well over the word limit anyway. And my thanks to my old friend Bob Brennan for the story about playing with Manute on the playgrounds...