Success, failure, heroism, stupidity, talent, skulduggery - Upton Park has seen it all. If supporting his club for fifty years has taught Brian Williams one thing it's that football fans defi nitely need a sense of humour - how else would they cope with the trials and tribulations that are part and parcel of cheering on their team? In this frank and funny take on the travails of a die-hard football supporter, Williams takes a nostalgic look back at some of the great players, great triumphs and great calamities that have marked West Ham's time at Upton Park, exploring the club's influence on its fans, the East End and football as a whole over the course of a lifetime. A Fever Pitch for the Premier League generation, Nearly Reach the Sky is an anecdotal journey through the seminal goals, games, fouls and finals, told with all the comedy, tragedy and irrationality fans of any team will recognise. This is a witty, fond, passionate and poignant tribute to the end of an era at Upton Park, as well as a universal meditation on the perks and perils of football fandom.

"An exciting and engrossing book with stories that are worth telling. This work will engage fans of Charlie O. Finley and the Oakland Athletics, along with anyone captivated by baseball history." -- Library Journal, starred review The Oakland A's of the early 1970s: Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions. The high drama that played out on the field--five straight division titles and three straight championships--was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office. Under the visionary leadership of owner Charles O. Finley, the team assembled such luminary figures as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue, and with garish uniforms and revolutionary facial hair, knocked baseball into the modern age. Finley's insatiable need for control--he was his own general manager and dictated everything from the ballpark organist's playlist to the menu for the media lounge--made him ill-suited for the advent of free agency. Within two years, his dynasty was lost. A sprawling, brawling history of one of the game's most unforgettable teams, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is a paean to the sport's most turbulent, magical team, during one of major league baseball's most turbulent, magical times.

This book sheds light on experiences relatively underrepresented in academic and non-academic sport history. It examines how Asian and Pacific Islander peoples used American football to maintain a sense of community while encountering racial exclusion, labor exploitation, and colonialism. Through their participation and spectatorship in American football, Asian and Pacific Islander people crossed treacherous cultural frontiers to construct what sociologist Elijah Anderson has called a cosmopolitan canopy under which Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and people of diverse racial and ethnic identities interacted with at least a semblance of respect and equity. And perhaps a surprising number of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have excelled in college and even professional football before the 1960s. Finally, acknowledging the impressive influx of elite Pacific Islander gridders who surfaced in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, it is vital to note as well the racialized nativism shadowing the lives of these athletes.

So You Think You're a New York Mets Fan? tests and expands your knowledge of Mets baseball. Rather than merely posing questions and providing answers, this book will give you the details behind each stories that bring to life players and coaches, games and seasons. This book is divided into multiple parts, with progressively more difficult questions in each new section. Along the way, you'll learn more about the great Mets players and managers of the past and present, from Tom Seaver to Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Lee Mazzilli, Davey Johnson, Dave Kingman, Gil Hodges, Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack, John Stearns, Darryl Strawberry, Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo, Matt Harvey, David Wright, and so many more. The many questions that this book answers include: Who was drafted number one overall by the Mets in 1984? Who was on deck when Mookie Wilson hit his famous ground ball to Bill Buckner? There are two men enshrined in Cooperstown wearing Mets caps on their plaques, but there are 12 other Hall of Famers who played for the Mets at one point in their career. Name them. What do the Mets' World Series MVPs from 1969 and 1986 have in common? The two pitchers who were on the mound in 1969 and 1986 when the final out of each World Series was made were actually traded for each other. Name them. This book makes the perfect gift for any fan of the Amazin's!

Rugby Union Threequarter Play is a technical playing guide that examines the demands of each of the positions in the threequarters, and analyses the specific positional roles and responsibilities. The book will help coaches to place the right player in the right position.

Surprisingly, perhaps, cricket is a game rich in international history, sporting characters and, on occasions, controversy. Over his long career as a cricket commentator and journalist Ralph Dellor has met some of the greatest exponents of the "summer" game. In the 1990s he conducted a series of face-to-face taped interviews with famous cricketers past and present. Along with Stephen Lamb, his fellow sports journalist and business partner, he has edited and annotated the interviews so they are put into context of time and place. Each chapter is a classic piece of cricketing history and insight into the legends and lore of the game. Featuring such names as Denis Compton, Brian Statham and Cyril Washbrook.

The name 'Everton' has a kind of mystical quality that you just don't get with any other team. The club embodies a fantastic footballing tradition: since 1878, Everton have played more top-flight league games than any other English team and have won the League title nine times. Great players like Dixie Dean, Alex Young, Alan Ball and Howard Kendall have all sworn allegiance and taken Everton to their hearts. For those who know their history, no club compares to Everton.

In 1957, when very few Mexican-Americans were familiar with the game of golf, and even less actually played it, a group of young caddies which had been recruited to form the San Felipe High School Golf Team by two men who loved the game, but who had limited access to it, competed against all-white schools for the Texas State High School Golf Championship. Despite having outdated and inferior equipment, no professional lessons or instructions, four young golfers with self-taught swings from the border city of Del Rio, captured the State title. Th ree of them took the gold, silver and bronze medals for best individual players. Th is book tells their story from their introduction to the game as caddies to eventually becoming champions.

Crowood Sports Guides provide sound, practical advice that will help make you a better sportsperson whether you are learning the basic skills, discovering more advanced techniques or reviewing the fundamentals of your game. There is valuable advice on practice, skills, techniques, team spirit, self-control and all aspects of playing bowls and photographs of top players in action. Information boxes contain Key Points and Useful Tips. There are sequence photographs and detailed diagrams in colour and finally, an introduction to rules and equipment.

When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability, his blind side.

The UK's most downloaded sports title of 2012! The prequel to the Movie Top Dog starring Leo Gregory - Directed by Martin Kemp APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEPTIVE - as As Paul Jarvis of the National Soccer Intelligence Unit is only too well aware. He knows that Billy Evans is no ordinary Cockney lad made good. He's also a thug, a villain and a cop killer. Jarvis just hasn't been able to prove it...Yet. So when Jarvis discovers that Evans is putting together a hooligan 'Super Crew' to follow the England national soccer team to Italy, he feels sure he can finally put Evans behind bars - if only someone can infiltrate the group and get him the proof he needs. But nothing is ever that simple. The Crew believe Evans is just out for a full-on riot. Jarvis thinks he's trafficking drugs. But Billy Evans is always one step ahead. He has another plan. And it will be catastrophic for everyone concerned. EXCEPT HIM.