Vote for your favourite sports book and win £50 in book tokens

Why not take the chance to win £50 in National Book Tokens by voting for your favourite sports book from among the winners at the British Sports Book Awards, announced earlier this month!  Follow the link to an online form to register your vote an be entered automatically into a draw.

To help you chose, The Sports Bookshelf is highlighting each of the eight contenders to be named the overall British Sports Book of the Year. Today's category winner:

BEST BIOGRAPHY

Not surprisingly, there was nothing in Manchester City’s FA Cup win last month to compare with the drama of the 1956 final, never to be forgotten for the bravery of City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann, who completed the match despite breaking a bone in his neck.

The story retains its fascination, as publishers Yellow Jersey discovered when Catrine Clay’s examination of Trautmann’s life proved a hit with sports book readers after it was published in hardback last spring.

Trautmann's Journey won critical acclaim, too, making the shortlist of six for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and subsequently earning the judges’ agreement as the best biography at the British Sports Book Awards.

Clay has focused on the story of the German footballer away from the field of play, leaving the part of his life for which Trautmann is best known until the final two chapters. 

It is the years that preceded Trautmann’s capture as a prisoner of war in 1945, which led to his arrival in Lancashire, that fascinated Clay, better known previously for making historical documentaries for television.

The Trautmann portrayed is a young man Clay believes was typical of his generation of Germans in being seduced by Nazism, a man whose physique and athletic ability made him in many ways the perfect fit for the Aryan ideal, and who embraced the ideals of the party without apology, yet who signed for a top-level English football club only four years after the end of the second world war.

Clay…uses Trautmann as an "everyman" figure to illustrate the experience of his generation of Germans. His story is told against, and intercut with, that of Germany's history from 1923, the year of his birth, to the end of the second world war. It is an ambitious, sophisticated scheme.

-- Huw Richards, The Guardian. Read more…

Buy Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend

Winners in the other categories were

Best Autobiography -- Beware of the Dog, by Brian Moore

Best Cricket Book  -- Slipless in Settle, by Harry Pearson

Best Football Book -- Promised Land, by Anthony Clavane

Best Rugby Book -- The Grudge, by Tom English

Best New Writer -- Bounce, by Matthew Syed

Best Racing Book -- The Story of Your Life, by James Lambie

Best Illustrated Title -- '61 The Spurs Double, by Doug Cheeseman, Martin Cloake and Adam Powley

Vote HERE for your favourite book from the winners of each of the award categories at the British Sports Book Awards at and you'll be entered -- free of charge -- in a draw to win £50 of National Book Tokens. Closing date June 12th. Full terms and conditions on the voting form.

VOTE NOW

To browse more books on football, visit The Sports Bookshelf Shop.

Read about the other award winners.

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