Quick Facts
Biography
Spiro Zavos (born in 1937 in Wellington, New Zealand of Greek immigrant parents) is an Australasian historian, philosopher, journalist and writer. He also played one first-class cricket match for Wellington in the 1958-59 season.
After gaining a Bachelor of Arts from the Victoria University of Wellington, Zavos taught history at St Patrick's College, Silverstream in Wellington.
In 1967, Zavos gained a Master of Arts (Education) from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. It was then that he moved into journalism, working as a reporter at The Dominion newspaper in Wellington (now amalgamated into The Dominion Post). In 1976 he shared the New Zealand Feature Writer of the Year award with fellow journalist Warwick Roger, won for a series on New Zealand under Prime Minister Rob Muldoon.
The following year Zavos moved to Australia. In 1978 he was awarded the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and spent a year in Menton, France writing a collection of autobiographical short stories, which he later published under the title Faith of Our Fathers.
In 1979 he became an editorial writer on the Sydney Morning Herald, where he would remain until 2000. At the Herald, he also moved into rugby writing. Zavos has written more than 1000 articles for www.TheRoar.com.au, an Australian sports opinion website founded by his two sons.
He has written seven books on rugby, and has contributed to Radio New Zealand as a sports analyst.
Partial bibliography
- The Real Muldoon, Fourth Estate Books (NZ), 1978
- Faith of Our Fathers
- Crusade: Social Credit's drive for power, 1981
- Winters of Revenge
- The Gold and the Black: Rugby Battles for the Bledisloe Cup: New Zealand Vs Australia, 1903-94
- Ka Mate! Ka Mate!: New Zealand's Conquest of British Rugby
- The Golden Wallabies: The Story of Australia's Rugby World Champions
- Two Mighty Tribes: A Hundred Years of All Black and Wallaby Battles (with Gordon Bray)
- How to Watch a Game of Rugby
- How to Watch the Rugby World Cup 2011, Awa Press, 2011