Ghost-busted

I was sorry to miss last week’s ghostbusting gig at the Hay-on-Wye festival when David Beckham’s surrogate-scribbler, actor-writer Tom Watt, joined two mates of mine, Paul Hayward (Sir Bobby Robson, Michael Owen) and Peter Burden (novelist-amanuensis of horseracing’s Francome and Pitman, and vet-thesps Hemmings and Phillips). Ghostwriting has a long literary history, but suddenly there’s a superabundant blight of it on the back pages; in my days on the desk at least we employed the strapline courtesy that the star performer ‘was talking to’ such and such a hack. No longer. Added insult to the reader these days is an uncertainty about who actually writes their own stuff. In fact, a select group are setting bespoke new sportswriting standards: well, a 1st XI could be led by long-established sparklers like cricket’s two Mikes, Brearley and Selvey, rugby’s Paul Ackford and Gerald Davies, followed by such green-neon talents as Stuart Barnes, Eddie Butler, Tony Cascarino, Gus Fraser, Steve James, Mark Nicholas, Derek Pringle (with Brian Moore, Alan Smith and a fair few others bristling on the bench).