Tennis champion Andy Murray has described for the first time his struggle to cope with the emotional fallout of surviving the 1996 Dunblane massacre.

Murray, the UK's highest-ranking tennis player, was eight years old when the former scout leader Thomas Hamilton burst into Dunblane primary school and opened fire with a collection of handguns. Sixteen children and a teacher were killed before Hamilton shot himself.

Murray and his elder brother, Jamie, then 10, were on their way to the school gymnasium and survived by hiding under a desk in the headmaster's office.

Since then Murray has rarely spoken of the episode, claiming he was too young to understand what had happened.

But in his new autobiography, Hitting Back, which is published today, he describes how he has struggled to cope with the realisation that he could easily have become one of Hamilton's victims.

"Some of my friends' brothers and sisters were killed. I have only retained patch impressions of that day, such as being in a classroom singing songs," Murray says.

Murray, who was brought up in Dunblane, had previously attended a youth group run by Hamilton, and in the book he describes how his mother sometimes gave the former scout leader lifts in her car.

He writes: "The weirdest thing was that we knew the guy [Hamilton]. He had been in my mum's car. It's obviously weird to think you had a murderer in your car, sitting next to your mum.

"That is probably another reason why I don't want to look back at it. It is just so uncomfortable to think that it was someone we knew from the Boys Club. We used to go to the club and have fun. Then to find out he's a murderer was something my brain couldn't cope with."

He says: "I could have been one of those children."

In the book, Murray - who is widely described as the UK's brightest sporting hope - also reveals his opinion of other British tennis players.

"There is something wrong with the mentality and work ethic of most of the British players. There doesn't seem to be anyone who's brutally honest about it either. I think the best way is to confront it, especially when it has been bad for so long," Murray says.

Murray, who has been criticised for bad-tempered outbursts on the court, says that he does not consider himself to be "stroppy".

"I can't count the number of times I've been called a bad tempered brat, but that is not how it felt growing up," he says.

During the 2006 World Cup, Murray received hate mail after claiming that he would support "anyone but England". In the book, he says that while he is "patriotic and proud to be Scottish", he is not anti-English.

He also describes his aversion to bananas - a fruit commonly favoured by many tennis stars.

"Players sit there and eat them at changeovers, but it can't be to give them energy because they take ages to digest," he says.

"To be honest, I think bananas are a pathetic fruit."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jun/0...ed=networkfront

:stupid:

yeah, what a thrilling insight in to MurrayMint's life :P

:giggle:

Should'nt a player write an autobiography after a long and SUCCESSFUL career? :unsure:

The build up to Wimbledon for the British No. 1 is always a nightmare combination of living in a goldfish bowl and being hyped up and knocked down by all and sundry in our crazy media.

For a 21-yr old British No. 1 who shows great promise but has yet to get into the last 8 of a GS to time his autobiography to coincide with this period is insane.

I just cannot believe how badly advised he is. This is not supposed to be an adverse comment on his personality or the contents of the book (although the title "Hitting Back" is very suspect), just on how short-sighted it is to try and cash in now when there is so much more for him to do.

The other players will no doubt be laughing away at him whilst they cruise around under the radar and he absorbs much of the distracting media flack - BY HIS OWN CHOICE!!!!!!!

Yes, an autobiography is the last thing I'd have advised Murray to have done right now (depressingly following footsteps of over-hyped young footballers 'writing' one before they've achieved anything).

No-one should be allowed to write an autobiography until 35 at the earliest!

a sign of the times... :rolleyes:

:ok: Clearly! I suppose having achieved British Number 1 status means he at least was number for something and that gives you autobiography status! :rolleyes:

Possibly you need to live in the UK to understand quite how prolific this is - appearing in a reality TV show tends to give you "autobiography status" :rolleyes:

Jordan (Katie Price) aged 30 is on to her third autobiography. She has sold more than 1m copies.

Please - Lewis Hamilton is on #2 with 5 additional official biographies.

Andy's well behind.

The most extraordinary aspect of that is that she could actually write an autobiography-maybe there were no big words and plenty of pictures.

her ghost writer must have had a really rough time of it. ;)

look at Wayne Rooney - his ghost writer got sued (along with Rooney) for libel...... :shrug:

I suspected that might be the case, I reckon she'd struggle to write a recipe for rice pudding-bless her..

Gosh! Well in any event books are out and websites and blogs are in! :P Appearing on TV gives you book writing status about yourself heaven only knows what stauts next will be given!

you don't make as much money out of a website or blog - as BS said, Jordan has sold 1million copies. At at least a tenner each (if not more) that's a hell of a lot of cash! :shrug:

it's a horribly prolific thing over here, so if you go to the autobiography section of bookshops they're full of 20-something year olds autobiographies. And the people who do then write them when they're older seem to get ignored. Out of interest my favourite title for an autobiography was Eric Sykes' (british actor) called "If i didn't write it no one else would" :giggle:

Well she's an easy target, and she is obviously not classically educated, but Katie Price is a shrewd and hard working young woman who is worthy of not being underestimated.

I don't envy her, not one bit, and I don't find it attractive that she can make as much money as she does doing what she does (that's down to the Great British public), but I respect her eye for the bottom line.

Its actually sad really that at 20 you talking about your life when you havent even lived :unsure:

As Timmadign has said Lewis Hamilton is probably the worst here. Just over one year in Formula 1 now and two autobiographies..... I reckon he may well reach 10 or more by the time his career is over. :)

He has 2 already :blink: WTF could he possibly talk about?Life before formula 1 then life after your 1st year. :blink: Its pathetic really!

should be some more appearing in about 95 days time then...

that's 92 days to win Big Brother, 2 days to write it and 1 to proof-read ;)

he's been associated with racing since he was about 7 years old, but I agree, I don't think Nigel Mansell or Damon Hill wrote theirs until after they won their World Titles..

It's a sad indictment of our microwave world I'm aftraid*




*summed up perfectly by Steven Wright "I have a microwave living-room fire. I spent a relaxing evening in front of it, in 10 minutes"

:lol:

I certainly don't underestimate her-i've no doubt of the depths she'd sink to promote herself. I despise the garish self serving vacuousness that parades itself unselfconsciously in an attempt to sell her and her family to the world as if they were a brand of Cola-It's a kind of prostitution of existence.
But you're spot on-she's an easy target-and i don't care much for her bottom line :unsure: