'Gus Honeybun' - best sports book of the year so far

Howdy all,

As a journalist I get sent all sorts of books for free. Review copies. Kind of makes up for the poor wages us hacks get paid. Most are good, some average, others I admit I never get round to reading. It takes something to rave about one, even more to post on here.

That in mind 'Gus Honeybun, Your Boys Took One Hell Of A Beating' by Simon Carter is in my humble opinion the best sports book I've read so far this year. Knowing it's the kind of thing more than a few of you would also enjoy, I thought I'd spread the word.

Have cut and pasted my review for Backpass magazine below, so you get the gist.

Up the Albion,
Spencer


GUS HONEYBUN, YOUR BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING by Simon Carter (Pitch Publishing, £12.99)

If 383 pages on the highs and lows of supporting Exeter City sounds testing, don’t be fooled. This is an absolute gem of a read. True, the Grecians take centre stage, yet Gus Honeybun is more a love letter to lower league football and Carter’s native west country than anything to do with one particular club.

The lower league football angle has been done before, but rarely as effectively. Reared on City’s 1980/81 FA Cup giant killing side, Tony Kellow and all, Carter guides us through what is in effect an autobiography. This works, for two reasons. One, Carter is a skilled and entertaining wordsmith with an impressive CV in regional journalism across the southern half of England. The boy can write. Two, his passion not just for Exeter City but lower division football in general shines through. Anyone who gets their kicks away from the Premier League (where ‘they speak a different language to the one we’re used to, not a language we don’t understand, just one we don’t believe we’ll ever need to learn’) will find a soulmate in this book.

Unless that is they support Plymouth Argyle, Gus Honeybun’s team. Gus was a moth-eaten puppet bunny which for many years starred on west country ITV and supported not Exeter, not Torquay, but Argyle. Gus and Argyle are the affectionate villains of the peace here. The chapter in which Gus, to Carter’s horror, dons his green and white scarf on the eve of Plymouth’s appearance in the 1984 FA Cup semi-finals is comedy gold.

I don’t support Exeter, I count no Exeter supporters among my close friends, and yet I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

I lived in Plymouth for a couple of years as a kid and remember Gus Honeybun. If it was your birthday he'd give you a bunny hop.

Y, N, M in that photo

F*** sake, I have had the theme to Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays' stuck in my head for weeks and was shot of it, so thanks...

I lived in Cornwall for 10 years, so I remember the programme well. It was actually on TSW rather than Westcountry, when they got the franchise, they ditched the bunny.

Think I shall add this book to my to do list.

Growing up in West Sussex, I don't recall there being a Gus Honeybun equivalent on ITV. And thank Christ for that. The way Simon Carter writes about it in the book, Plymouth was very much the local TV 'hub' down there in the same way that Southampton ruled everything over our way. Imagine some kind of rabid Muppet in a Saints shirt jumping all over our TV screens. Enough to give you serious psychological problems for life.....

Lush said:

I lived in Plymouth for a couple of years as a kid and remember Gus Honeybun. If it was your birthday he'd give you a bunny hop.

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I remember Gus Honeybun very well, & he was far from moth eaten.
He was a favourite amongst the matelots down there, as well as the kids.

Spencer Vignes said:

Growing up in West Sussex, I don't recall there being a Gus Honeybun equivalent on ITV. And thank Christ for that. The way Simon Carter writes about it in the book, Plymouth was very much the local TV 'hub' down there in the same way that Southampton ruled everything over our way. Imagine some kind of rabid Muppet in a Saints shirt jumping all over our TV screens. Enough to give you serious psychological problems for life.....

Click to expand...

But we did have Chris Harris though and 'Hey Look, That's Me'. *shudders*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q15BPBdz2FE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voH7gC3azoM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDUbOVEPOkY

Lush said:

I lived in Plymouth for a couple of years as a kid and remember Gus Honeybun. If it was your birthday he'd give you a bunny hop.

View attachment 76023

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On TSW, remember it well. You can go and see a shrine to him at Flambards in COrnwall. I think Judi Spiers was one of his regular sidekicks and some fellow too

Sounds testing.