As a Scotland and British and Irish Lions captain and coach, Jim Telfer has stirred incredible controversy from his native Borders to New Zealand. He has also been the subject of much criticism, and now wants to set the record straight. What made him lambast New Zealand rugby in the hotbed of Canterbury? Why didn't he select his favorite player of all time for a Lions tour? Which players let him, Scotland, and the Lions down? Telfer remains the only Scottish player to have faced the three southern hemisphere giants—Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa—and never lost. In this candid autobiography, Telfer talks about more than just the game, expressing his sadness at the prospect of life without children and his subsequent delight in adopting, and how his teaching career was blighted by tragedy in Glasgow but invigorated by a long-haired eccentric in Livingston.
Jim Telfer has been a mainstay of Scottish rugby since the early 1960s. In the '90s, he took over as the Scottish Rugby Union's first full-time director of rugby. A third Grand Slam and a Five Nations win book-ended that decade and he retired from the game at the end of 2003. David Ferguson is the chief rugby writer with The Scotsman. He has reported on rugby across Scotland and abroad for the past 16 years, covering several World Cup tournaments and British and Irish Lions tours.