Ben Dirs is a freelance writer and journalist. He was a sports journalist for the

BBC news website BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the U ...

from 2001 to 2017. Whilst at the BBC he covered a wide range of major sporting events. He provided live

blogging A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...

on sports including boxing, golf and rugby for people who cannot watch live television coverage, often for people who live abroad. Dirs is the author o
seven books
He lives in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

with his dog Doris, a

Boston Terrier The Boston Terrier is a breed of dog originating in the United States of America. This "American Gentleman" was accepted in 1893 by the American Kennel Club as a non-sporting breed. Color and markings are important when distinguishing this breed f ...

. * ''We Could be Heroes: One Van, Two Blokes and Twelve World Championships'' with

Tom Fordyce Tom Fordyce is a former BBC Sport journalist. He wrote text commentaries on cricket and tennis, also writing features on various other sports and blogging from a number of different events. Fordyce attended Westminster School, where he was a pref ...

published 3 July 2009, charting the madcap escapades that resulted from trying to become the world champion in something. * ''Karma Chameleons: No-one said the search for happiness would be dignified'' was published in 2010. * ''Everywhere We Went: Top Tales from Cricket's Barmy Army'' about the

Barmy Army The Barmy Army is a company that provides tickets and arranges touring parties for some of its members to follow the English cricket team in the UK and overseas. The Barmy Army was at first an informal group, but was later turned into a company li ...

was published in 2012. * ''The Hate Game: Benn, Eubank and Boxing's Bitterest Rivalry'', documenting the boxing matches between

Nigel Benn Nigel Gregory Benn (born 22 January 1964) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1987 to 1996. He held world championships in two weight classes, including the WBO middleweight title in 1990 and the WBC super-middleweight t ...

and

Chris Eubank Christopher Livingstone Eubank (born 8 August 1966) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 1998. He held the WBO middleweight and super-middleweight titles between 1990 and 1995, and is ranked by BoxRec as the third ...

was published in 2013. * ''Box to Box: From Premier League to British Boxing Champion'', the autobiography of Curtis Woodhouse was published in 2016. * ''401: The Extraordinary Story of the Man who Ran 401 Marathons in 401 Days and Changed his Life Forever'' (2018) * ''Death Row – The Final Minutes'' (2018) * “Too Many Reasons to Live” the Rob Burrow Story 2021.

References

External links

Ben Dirs' BBC profile

Rugby World Cup Blog

Articles by Ben Dirs
at

Journalisted The Media Standards Trust is a British media think tank formed in 2006. It carries out research on issues in the media sector. It also advocates for press freedom as well as industry quality, transparency and accountability. It is a registered char ...

BBC people British sportswriters Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-journalist-stub