num_pages: 352
description: It all started in Balham. Tony Hawks and his friend Arthur Smith are watching on TV the England football team play the little-known Eastern European state of Moldova. For no reason other than sheer boredom, the pair argues about how good Tony is at tennis. A bet is that Tony can't beat all eleven members of the Moldovan football team at tennis. And with the loser agreeing to strip naked on Balham High Road and sing the Moldovan national anthem, it was too good to resist. Tony's attempts to get the football players on to the court see him being taken in by Moldovan gypsies and narrowly avoiding being kidnapped in Transnistria. It sees him smuggle his way on to the Moldovan National Team coach and witness (almost) divine intervention in the Holy Land. And, in the end, someone gets his kit off outside Woolworth on the Balham High Road.
language: English
title: Playing The Moldovans At Tennis
titlecomplete: Playing The Moldovans At Tennis
characters: Arthur Smith, Tony Hawks
genres: Sports, Biography, Memoir, Autobiography, Adventure, Comedy, Biography Memoir, Travel, Humor, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 3197
places: Belfast, Northern Ireland, Nazareth, Tiraspol, Liverpool, England, Chișinău
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
publisher: Isis Large Print