The Sports Bookshelf

Judges declare themselves 'bowled over' by Hamilton's work Duncan Hamilton won the award twice before, in 2007 and 2009 Duncan Hamilton has won the 2019 William Hill Sports Book of the Year with his book The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus . By winning the £30,000 award, presented by judge Mark Lawson at the Horseguards Hotel,  Hamilton became the first person to have won the award three times. The Newcastle-born writer, who spent his journalistic career in Nottingham and Leeds, was previously successful with Provided You Don’t Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough   in 2007 and Harold Larwood: The Authorized Biography   in 2009. Cardus, the venerated cricket writer and music journalist, changed the way in which sport was reported and introduced poise and eloquence into what had traditionally been a prosaic experience for both journalist and fan. Alyson Rudd, Chair of Judges, said: “The judges were bowled over by the quality of...

OUT NOW:   A selection of the latest football books Mark Bright, the former Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday striker, is the week’s headline-maker with his autobiography, My Story: From Foster Care to Footballer (Constable), which has been featured or serialised in a number of national newspapers, including an excellent piece for the Mail on Sunday by James Sharpe. Written with the help of Kevin Brennan, who has previously ghosted for ex-Scotland footballer John McGovern, snooker player Willie Thorne and football manager Alan Curbishley, the book describes Bright’s journey from a troubled upbringing in Staffordshire, to earning £10-a-week for his first contract at Port Vale and finally reaching the top of the game, forming a famous partnership with Ian Wright at Crystal Palace and playing in two FA Cup finals before retiring to a career as a sometime media pundit and now full-time coach at Palace. It is an engaging, sometimes harrowing story. Particularly mov...

Donald McRae and Duncan Hamilton both named on shortlist for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2019 Duncan Hamilton Two of British sports writing’s biggest names are among a shortlist of six titles from which the 2019 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be chosen in early December. Donald McRae and Duncan Hamilton , the only authors to have won the award twice in its 30-year history, both made the final cut after the award’s judging panel whittled down a longlist of 14 to come up with their final selection. South African-born McRae, whose in-depth interviews are an outstanding feature of The Guardian newspaper’s sports pages, won the judges’ vote with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing in 1996, and with In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens in 2002. Hamilton, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, raised in Nottingham and now an adoptive Yorkshireman, was successful in 2007 with Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough , and again t...

The winners at the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year awards 2019 were as follows: Autobiography of the Year: The Boy on the Shed , by Paul Ferris (Hodder) The candid and gripping story of a boy raised in Lisburn, near Belfast during The Troubles who became a professional footballer with Newcastle United, saw his career at the top level wrecked by injury, won a Wembley final with Barrow as a non-League player, returned to Newcastle as before quitting the game to study Law and qualify as a barrister - only to return to Newcastle as a member of Alan Shearer’s management team. _______________________________________ The Sporting Club General Outstanding Book of the Year: Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August , by Oliver Hilmes Berlin 1936 was the Nazi Olympics, the moment when the world’s attention turned to the German capital as it hosted the Olympic Games, the one in which Hitler was happy to extend the hand of welcome to visitors from all nations but in which he hoped to se...

Nine categories to be judged as new sponsor starts three-year backing The shortlists have been announced for the annual Sports Book Awards, now sponsored by The Telegraph after the newspaper group signed up to a three-year partnership deal. The Telegraph replaces Cross Pens as headline sponsor. The awards were launched by the National Sporting Club in 2003 and for many years were known simply as the British Sports Book Awards. There are nine categories being judged this year, with the winners of each to be announced early in June. In the autobiography category, former Newcastle physio Paul Ferris’s extraordinary memoir The Boy on the Shed is joined by equestrian Charlotte Dujardin’s The Girl on the Dancing Horse , Kevin Keegan’s My Life in Football , cricketer Moeen Ali’s Moeen , How to be a Footballer by Peter Crouch and superbike star Jonathan Rea’s Dream. Believe. Achieve . The biography category sees boxing, golf, motor racing, rowing, gambling and football repre...

Award split for first time after judges cannot separate Tom Gregory's swimming epic A Boy in the Water and Paul D Gibson's boxing tale The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee For the first time in its 30-year history, the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award has joint winners. Broadcaster John Inverdale told guests at a reception at BAFTA in London to announce the 2018 winner that the judges had been unable to decide between Tom Gregory’s extraordinary debut book A Boy in the Water (Particular Books) and Paul D Gibson’s boxing tale The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee (Mercier Press). As a result, they took the unprecedented step of declaring the two books joint winners, which means the £30,000 cash prize is split equally between the two titles, with both authors receiving a £15,000 cheque. A Boy in the Water tells the story of how Tom Gregory , now a director with the accountancy firm Deloitte, swam the English Channel on September 6, 1988 to become at the age of 11 years 3...

Brave Paralympian Martine Wright scoops Autobiography prize Add caption The inspiring story of the GB Paralympic athlete Martine Wright has been named Sports Autobiography of the Year at the 16th Sports Book Awards and will be a strong contender for overall Sports Book of the Year for 2018, which will be decided by a public vote. Written in collaboration with journalist Sue Mott, Unbroken , published by Simon & Schuster, tells the remarkable story of Martine’s incredible fight back from the horrors of the July 7 atrocities in London in 2005, when she was sharing a carriage on a tube train on the Circle Line with a suicide bomber, who detonated his device just outside Aldgate station. Seven passengers around her were killed among 52 who lost their lives that day but she survived, albeit at the cost of both her legs. Martine, who took up wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball as part of her rehabilitation, represented Great Britain in the latter at the 2012 Paralympics...

Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty - Football's Lost Genius. Oliver Kay is chief football correspondent at The Times Times football journalist Oliver Kay has won the 2017 Cross Sports Book of the Year award for his debut book Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty, Football’s Lost Genius. Kay, the newspaper’s Chief Football Correspondent, was named as the overall winner after sports book fans were asked to vote for their favourite among the nine category winners selected by the judges and announced at a ceremony at Lord’s Cricket Ground last month. Forever Young, which charts the tragically short life of former Manchester United player Doherty, was written with the co-operation of Doherty’s family in Belfast and Kay thanked them in a tweet on learning the news, declaring himself to be “amazed and delighted”. Read The Sports Bookshelf's review of Forever Young Doherty, a maverick character among United’s golden generation of Ryan Giggs, David ...

The shortlist announced in the autobiography section of the Cross Sports Book Awards for 2017 features two footballers, two Olympic athletes, a cricketer and a Formula One world champion. Those hoping to clinch the top prize when the winners are announced at Lord’s Cricket Ground next month are: • No Nonsense: The Autobiography , by Joey Barton (Simon & Schuster) • Watching the Wheels: My Autobiography , by Damon Hill (Macmillan) • This Mum Runs , by Jo Pavey (Yellow Jersey, PRH) • Unexpected: The Autobiography , by Greg Rutherford (Simon & Schuster) • Unguarded: My Autobiography , by Jonathan Trott (Sphere, Little Brown) • A Life in Football: My Autobiography , by Ian Wright (Constable, Little Brown) The titles from the longlist that missed the cut were: Triumphs & Turbulence , by Chris Boardman (Ebury, PRH); What Doesn’t Kill You… by Johnny Herbert (Transworld); Firestarter , by Ben Stokes (Headline); The Inside Track , by Laura Trott & Jas...

Books 'reflect passion and knowledge' - judges' chair Vic Marks The shortlist of six for the 2017 Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award shortlist has been announced. The list comprises books by cricket presenter Mark Nicholas and journalist Emma John, who both write about their love for and fascination with cricket, a couple of titles by ex-England players in Graeme Fowler and Alan Butcher, the latest from the brilliant Gideon Haigh and a portrait of Pakistan cricket by Peter Oborne and Richard Heller. Chair of judges Vic Marks said: “There is some good writing here. All six books reflect passion for and knowledge about their subject matter.  I look forward to lively discussion at the judges’ final meeting; there is no doubt we will come up with a worthy winner." The competition, run by the Cricket Society since 1970 and in partnership with MCC since 2009, is for books nominated by MCC and Cricket Society Members, and is highly regarded by write...