Linford ChristieCaptain of the British athletics team and the 100 metre Olympic champion, has never been afraid of speaking his mind. They say he is prickly, controversial and fiercely independent. G.D.Govender, a long time fan, believes he can do no wrong, indeed that he has been gravely wronged by sections of a puerile and cantankerous British media, some sports officials.

WHEN the great Jessie Owens, effortlessly destroyed the White Aryan opposition in the 220, at the Albert Speer-built Olympic Stadium in Berlin in 1936, Herr Hitler showed what he thought of Owen's non-Aryan supremacy by a sullen and resentful walk-out. After that the only official race-supremacy doctrines in sport and every other field was practised by Adolf's verminous disciples in South Afrikca.What is not surprising, in the light of the racist denigration of Linford and other excellent black athletes, is the powerful support given to apartheid sport by the British media, government and sports bodies and officials.

From football to tennis, rugby to rowing, cricket to bowls, racist South Africa's staunchest and most loyal supporter and defender was Britain. This country produced all sorts of weird and phoney excuses to prevent South Africa being booted out of the major sports bodies, but thanks to India and the socialist countries, Britain was isolated and South Africa condemned to pariah status in most sports.

Linford Christie has been affected by apartheid-style racism in this country in a number of ways, persecuted and harassed by the Metropolitan police force, and subjected to racist sneers from the press and a petty, and peeved British Olympian who has dragged athletics into the racist gutter. Yet, despite all this, Linford Christie has refused to give way to racism in reverse.

He says with evident pride that his book is for athletic fans and anyone who has cheered to see British athletes triumphant. This absorbing, frank, uninhibted and yet deeply moving book is intended to set the Linford Christie record straight. Forget the distortions, the wild fantasies of the hacks, and the insinuations of the race experts on sport. This is the real Linford Christie story. Appropriately, the first chapter is proudly titled Hey! I'm Black. Linford's first school shoes were a pair of Tufs, very popular in the days before the advent of the designer labels. His mum emphasised that they were expensive, and not for playing football. He ruined them doing just that. The young Christie's ambition then was to be a footballer like his Irish hero, George Best, at that time unspoiled and a good role model. Although black and white got on extremely well at school in north London, and racism was barely noticeable, there was an instinctive tendency on the part of black and white to play segregated football.

Black teams played all-white teams, and children of mixed race were given the opportunity to choose their side. Curiously, there was no racial antagonisms, the boys took such apartheid for granted. This could perhaps be due to the fact that in the 70s, football, athletics, tennis, cricket etc. were all white, and there was not a single black face in the national teams. In contrast, of course, the Brazilians and the Portuguese in football, and the Americans in baseball, basketball, athletics and their version of football, were proud and grateful to their black mates, who were most visible on the tv screens of a nation which had not yet come to terms with its growing multculturalism.

But that all changed, particularly with the superb black achievements on the tracks and on the football field. Thanks to Linford and other black and white athletes of the modern era, Britain enjoys respect as a world power in the game. American racism is still a problem, but not it seems on the sports fields.

In Rebound: The Odyssey of Michael Jackson, there is not a single reference to race. That's how it should be - to bowdlerise a few lines from that mighty poet, Robert Burns, a man's a man for all that. In Christie's TO BE HONEST WITH YOU, race is pervasive. Christie strikes you as the sort of chap who does not like complaining, who would prefer to get away from the race question, but it seems a central part of his adopted country, at least the most vociferous part of it, the press and the pestilential race lobby, won't allow him to do so. Christie, while grateful to the white trainers, coaches administrators and fellow athletes, who treated him as a human being, not as an alien from an outer planet, pulls no punches about the dehumanised state of Britain.

Christie is convinced that racism in Britain has become institutionalised. In Britain, Christie opines more in sorrow than anger, racism is ingrained so cleverly that you can't do anything about it. "If you are black and complain, the first thing they say

is that you have a chip on your shoulder. There is no way round it. I know it exists; I know I am black, I don't have to go out and shout about it."

Christie doesn't let the sewer of racism spill into his personal or public life. He tries to keep it in check, even though he knows he is powerless to stop its relentless flow. He never thinks in apartheid terms. He counters racism not just for black people but also for whites. He likes to put smiles on people's faces, people of all races. In his own modest way he feels he is bringing races and nations together. "I don't go out there and say Im running for black people, I'm running for everyone." That's how it should be.

This is Linford Christie at his most candid and his most engaging, surely one of the decade's best books, not just on athletics and the achievements of a single athlete, but it is also about a modest lad whose credo of hard, honest and painful work brings rewards. It will surely inspire and motivate the children of the ghetto, both black and white.

LINFORD CHRISTIE: To Be Honest With You is priced at 16.99 Pounds and is published by MICHAEL JOSEPH.