Playing the Moldovans at Tennis - Couverture rigide

September 1997. Tony Hawks and Arthur Smith are watching the football round at Tony's house, England are playing Moldova in the World Cup qualifiers and winning easily. The conversation, oddly, turns to Tennis, which Arthur has always asserted is a 'crap game', especially after Tony beat him at it on holiday in Majorca, easily. A pedantic argurment unsues, Tony believing that even a 'natural sportsman or sportswman' couldn't be good at tennis without proper tuition. Arthur vowing that most natural sportsmen (like the footballers on the telly) could pick up a racket and, without too much bother, play a good game, in fact, they could beat Tony (ex Susses Junior champion, former Equity Knockout winner). And so a childish bet was proffered that Tony couldn't play all of the Moldovan national football team at tennis (I believe a hundred pounds is sufficient to get you doing these kinds of things) and beath them all. I could, I could beat them all, said Tony. Not every single one of them, taunted his friend. Conspiratorially, one of them is bound to be very good. A further carrot was clearly needed: Look, if you beat them all then I'll stand naked on Balham High Street and sing the Moldovan national Anthem.

'All I knew about Moldova were the names of eleven men printed on the inside back pages of my newspaper. None of them sounded to me like they were any good at tennis ...'

An eccentric wager finds Tony Hawks, a man who loves an unusual challenge, bound for the little-known Eastern European state of Moldova. His mission: to track down members of the country's football team and persuade them to play him at tennis. The bizarre quest ultimately has little to do with tennis or football, but instead turns into an extraordinary journey involving the Moldovan underworld, gypsies, chronic power shortages, near kidnap, and a surprisingly tender relationship with his host family.

Follow the fortunes of Tony in this hilarious and often moving adventure as it takes him from Moldova, onwards to Northern Ireland, leading to an exciting denouement in Nazareth - and the naked truth of the bet's final outcome ...