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Winning isn’t everything…..?

23rd October 2007 by Helena Leave a Comment  

“It has been suggested to me that it would be an awesome achievement if we win,” Jonny Wilkinson wrote in his column on the morning of the world cup final. “But I just can’t allow myself to think that way now, I can’t think beyond today. Because if we lose, all we have done so far here means nothing…..All we have achieved here is a lot of work, no tangible success.”

Sorry to keep droning on about Jonny (this really is the last time, at least for a week) but is he right? It seems to me terribly unfair that they got all the way to final but because they lost that final they see the whole campaign as a waste of time and effort.

Nowhere else but sport does that happen. If you are short-listed for the Booker Prize for example, and don’t win, you still get to stick a sticker on your book saying ‘short-listed for the Booker Prize’. But the England team won’t be wearing rugby shirts with ‘got to the World Cup final’ on them will they?

Meanwhile my thoughts have turned reluctantly from rugby to football. I am headhunting again. This time looking for a chief financial officer for Liverpool Football Club. This involves phoning up other CFOs at football clubs and hoping they would rather be in Liverpool than where they are. So far they wouldn’t, so if you have any ideas then let me know.

But back to Jonny – I am extremely proud of the England team’s massive achievement. However I think Jonny’s attitude is what makes a great sportsman; only winning is enough. As the American football coach Henry ‘Red’ Sanders said: “Sure, winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

Maybe with a middle name like Red he’d like a job at Liverpool? Except he’s dead. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. Except for Jonny, obviously.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Jonny Wilkinson, Sport, blog --> Tagged With: everything, winning

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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