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There are three possible endings to a fight Maloney had taught her

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"There are three possible endings to a fight," Maloney had taught her. "Points, technical knock-out and knock-out." Charlotte had found a fourth in her very first bout, as a spectator, in Ipswich. One of the boxers had tripped and dislocated his foot.Halfway through the evening, "thrown in at the deep end" was in danger of becoming "drowned with all hands". The temptation to take to the lifeboat must have been overwhelming. "When that fight ended after 22 seconds, I just fell to pieces," Russell said. "I was saying to Frank, `What do I do now, what do I do?' It wasn't nerves so much.

I just wanted to do well for him because he'd given me a chance."But then a strange thing happened. Russell stopped trying to be Marilyn Monroe, Madonna or Melinda Messenger and became Charlotte Russell, the girl who once gatecrashed the Versace party in Bond Street dressed in a Topshop suit, who was voted 100th most influential person in the fashion industry in 1995 and who was picked on at school because she had a posh accent. She adlibbed a bit, apologised for her mistakes, thanked the audience for putting up with her debut and regained a patch of male ground "Not too bad," Maloney nodded "She learned a lot." What about? "Survival.". The main problem with writing a biography about a 21-year old footballer, albeit the most famous one in the world, is that he is only 21.

Ronaldo Nazario De Lima - better known to millions as Ronaldo - has hardly achieved enough in his career so far to fill an entire book. This obvious drawback did not unduly concern Wensley Clarkson. Instead, he set about recounting, in chronological order as well as in great and over-elaborate detail, the life and times of the Brazil No 9. Early indications that the book might verge towards the melodramatic are confirmed in the introduction: "All of this is here - the abject poverty, the escape from the slums, the rise to super-stardom, and the mystery of those heartbreaking 90 minutes that changed the face of world soccer."This sensationalist approach is unnecessary. First, it is not unusual for Brazilian stars to emanate from poor city suburbs - indeed, most of the present national team were discovered while playing on beaches or wasteland. Second, although the World Cup final incident was strange, it is highly debatable whether it "changed the face of world soccer". Hungary demolishing England 6-3 at Wembley in 1954; Pele bursting on to the world scene as a 17-year-old in 1958; or the Munich air disaster in the same year.

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