The Sports Bookshelf

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight (Profile Books) THE STORY: In 2008, Alexander Fiske-Harrison established his literary credentials when his play, The Pendulum, set against a background of anti-semitic tension in the Vienna of 1900, and in which he also starred, made its debut in the West End and received favourable reviews.  At around the same time, he wrote an essay about bullfighting for Prospect magazine, the reaction to which led him to move to Spain to study the subject in greater depth, in part drawn by its literary heritage -- Ernest Hemingway, for example, was a notable aficionado -- and in part, as a former member of the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace, to see if he agreed with those who wou...

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar (Orion Books) THE STORY: By his 18th birthday David Millar was living and racing in France, sleeping in rented rooms, tipped to be the next English-speaking Tour winner. A year later he'd realised the dream and signed a professional contract with the Cofidis team, who had one Lance Armstrong on their books. He enjoyed the high life a little too enthusiastically at times, breaking his heel in a fall after one well lubricated party. The parties were one means of escaping from the competitive pressures of the sport. But those pressures only grew and as Millar became increasingly frustrated with what was dubbed the peloton à deux vitesses -- in which the riders using ille...

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: 32 Programmes (Bantam Press) THE STORY: Almost everyone collects something. A few seconds on Google turns up a woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who has more than 3,000 frogs (toy ones) and another, in Janesville, Wisconsin, who has accumulated upwards of 100 different mousetraps. It may sometimes seem weird but it is normal. And for the football fan there is nothing more normal than collecting football programmes.  In the United States, clearly, a man with 1,134 football programmes, such as Dave Roberts, would have barely merited comment. But when Dave Roberts and his wife decided to move there in 2008, taking with them only essentials, it was determined (by Mrs Roberts) that 1,134 football programmes were not essenti...

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop (Mainstream) THE STORY: John Tarrant was something of a celebrity in the 1950s and 60s, mingling with the crowds at high-profile long-distance running events, then suddenly joining the race himself, having arrived with his vest and shorts hidden beneath a long overcoat.  He became known as the Ghost Runner.  The popular press loved him. But his appearances on the front and back pages were more than a stunt.  Often, if he didn’t collapse from exhaustion first, he would win the race, leaving crack marathon runners trailing in his wake as he set and maintained a fearsome pace. Tarrant had dreamed of being an Olympic athlete and wanted to join Salford H...

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke (Yellow Jersey) THE STORY: In the early evening of November 10th, 2009, the German national goalkeeper, Robert Enke, parked his black Mercedes SUV close to a level crossing in the north-west German state of Lower Saxony and stepped in front of a train travelling at more than 100mph. He was 32 years old. The football world and beyond was stunned, friends and supporters unable to comprehend why an international footballer apparently at the peak of his career should decide to take his own life. Enke’s life in football had taken him to Benfica and Barcelona before he established himself back in his homeland with Hannover 96.  He looked likely to be Germany’s first choice ’keepe...

Part Two of The Sports Bookshelf's two-part interview with Jonathan Wilson  on his new biography of Brian Clough Read Part One Brian Clough: The Biography -- Nobody Ever Says Thank You Jonathan Wilson’s fascination with the evolution of football tactics has been the basis for two successful books so as he studied the career of Brian Clough for his new biography of the double European Cup-winning manager it was natural he should focus on the methods he employed. Yet Clough’s approach to the game had always been based on keeping it as simple as possible, so Wilson did not expect to discover any great tactical masterstrokes.  Indeed, a tape he obtained of a UEFA Cup tie between Clough’s Nottingham Forest and Anderlecht in 1984 rather confirmed that impression. It was a game notorious for a later admission from the former chairman of the Belgian club that the match referee had been bribed to officiate in Anderlecht’s favour -- they won 3-0 to overturn a two-goal defici...