Lynn McConnell

Born in Mataura in Southland, New Zealand, Lynn McConnell lives in Warkworth, New Zealand. He has worked in journalism since graduating from Wellington Polytechnic's news journalism course in 1973. He has worked on newspapers, The Southland Times (Invercargill), The Marlborough Express (Blenheim) and The Evening Post (Wellington), serving as Sports Editor at the Times and the Post and won New Zealand journalism awards in 1986 and 1996 and individual sports code journalism awards for cricket and softball. In 2000 he moved into the internet world as NZ editor of Cricinfo.com and then in 2005 took up the position of senior editor of sportal.co.nz. Since 2014 he has been a freelance writer.

He has written 24 books and completed a Master of Arts in History at Massey University in 2017. His most recent book, recently updated, Behind the All Blacks, was written with SKY TV (NZ) rugby commentator Tony Johnson. While his books have been mainly in the sporting sphere one of his most satisfying books was his Galatas 1941: Courage in Vain. It told the story of a small band of New Zealand soldiers during the Battle for Crete. They reclaimed a strategic Cretan village with what is regarded as one of the most famous bayonet charges in military history to rout the entrenched Germans from the town. What made the work so satisfying was being able to record the views of some of the participants before their deaths, and also uncovering previously untapped archival material on the events. And capping that was an appreciated critical response to the story.

Another work, Conquerors of Time, was released on October 8, 2009 and tells the story of the first great era of mile/1500m running which culminated in the spectacular 1500m final at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. Fascinating new material about some of the participants is also revealed in this book. In 2020 he co-authored Cricket's Global Warming with former NZ Test captain Glenn Turner. Other books include: The Shell Encyclopedia of New Zealand Cricket, The First Fifty (New Zealand's first 50 Test cricket victories), The 300 Club, Living the Dream (Mils Muliaina - All Black autobiography), Chats (the autobiography of New Zealand cricketer Ewen Chatfield), McKechnie - Double All Black, Playing League with Benji Marshall.