This is a decent collection of snippets about various athletes in many different sports who were considered to be the best in their particular sport or specialty at the time of their performances. The time frame is wide as is the variety of sports. As long as a reader is familiar with the sport, it doesn't matter whether or not they know about the athlete, they will enjoy these short stories. For some of the more famous names, especially those who were American (these are primarily American or British athletes) the stories will already familiar to many readers. This is the case if a reader has read other material about that athlete - if not, the reader will be able to learn a little bit about not only the athlete but also the sport. It should be noted that these athletes are not just humans - there are horses who were famous in racing, especially in the 19th and early 20th century.

Thank you to White Owl Publishing for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

A sports lovers delight to read! A very well researched book especially given the names at the start of the book where I have to admit I'd never heard of the majority of them! A good mix of sports too which I particularly liked.

This was a great read. I definitely became so engrossed in reading this book as it was so interesting. I loved the way it even included famous race horses. Gutted it missed out Milton the greatest show jumper of its time lol. I thought it was brilliant that the author managed to pack so many wonderful facts into each sports person story. I kept saying I never knew that. As I knew quite alot of those included in the book. Obviously not personally lol. So I found it very fascinating to read. I read it all in one sitting. It was so well wrote and there was never a dull moment. I found it so funny that they asked Damon Hill to do the forward for the book but he wasn't included but Schumacher was. Brings back the memories. I bit mean lol. The forward wasn't even needed as the book was brilliant. The only fact it didn't get the 5th star was there was only a handful of pictures in the book. I thought there should of been at least 2 for each person. One normal picture and one with them in sporting action. But I'm guessing this might of cost too much money. I definitely recommend reading this book if you love sports. It would make a great gift for a sport mad book reader. I will definitely be looking out for more books by this author. 

So much praise goes out to the author and publishers for creating such an interesting book that I learnt so much from. I just have to mention the most interesting story had to be about Messi.

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/the-greatest-of-their-time-by-benedict-bermange-pen-sword-publishing-4-stars either under my name or ladyreading365

A very short segment about each sports person, where they were duplicates it would have been best just to have them in one section and have the different dates underneith, the photos would be best places before or after the text, so people who don’t know aren’t flicking between.

This is a must-read for sports fans!
In about 3 pages, the book sums up an athlete who briefly was a GOTT (Greatest of Their Time).
You'll inevitably learn something about an athlete you thought you knew well because the book delves into their origins and follows them until their end.

For example, did you know that Ben Johnson bought a Ferrari after he outran Carl Lewis?
Or that he trained Colonel Gaddafi's son?

The 222-page book starts with athletes you've probably never heard of since they were pre- or early-20th century.

It gives bite-sized nuggets of sports trivia.

There are no photos in the book.