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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games
Bleed White is the story of Leeds United in the new Millennium. At
the turn of the century a young vibrant team had ambitions to
challenge the domination of Manchester United and Arsenal and by
the 1st January 2002 they sat proudly at the top of the Premier
League arguably the best league in Europe. But disaster was around
the corner. Mismanagement both on and off the field saw the club
fall into serious financial difficulty. Managers and players came
and went and the club was relegated from the Premier League in May
2004. The downfall continued and they were relegated from the
Championship in May 2007 and started in the third tier of British
football for the first time in the club's history. The club had
also been put into administration and to make matters worse they
were forced to start the next season with a fifteen point penalty
following a dispute with the Inland Revenue which caused them to
break Football League rules. But the club is on the way back and
after three long years in Division One, the future is looking much
brighter. Ken Bates the Chairman has restored financial stability
and Simon Grayson an excellent young manager who happens to be a
fan and ex Leeds player has given the fans hope at last. This story
is a fan's view of what happened at Leeds United Football Club
during those eventful years. The book covers issues both on and off
the pitch and has been written from two different perspectives -
wearing a level headed business hat one minute and a passionate
Leeds United baseball cap the next. Business objectivity meets
football fan emotion and they hate each other.
Al otro lado del gol y que a manera de juego-metafora entre el
futbol-vida vida-futbol, hago semejanzas y similitudes, tanto en su
lejania o su proximidad, segun cada uno de nosotros intentando
anotar o remontar un marcador, prevaleciendo el juego al estar
vivos y ante la imperiosa necesidad de ser, estar y seguir.
Sentimos la urgente necesidad de no ser "seres humanos" sino seres
pensantes, transitando por todo lo que nos esta permitido y/o
prohibido, reflejandose en nosotros todo tipo de sentimientos donde
unos quieren y otros no dejan. El futbol tan aceptado por una gran
mayoria y despreciado por otros.
Liverpool Football Club, in stark contrast to its competitors,
remains locally owned, not a conglomerate or media business. Unlike
its main rivals, the Liverpool club has been loathe to pursue
global markets for merchandizing - though it attracts a huge fandom
around the world - and its ambitions remain resolutely fixed on
footballing success. No football club has ever had such an extended
period of dominance in the English game, nor extended that
dominance to Europe so effectively.
Many of the current crop of top young players are locally born and
are a central feature of the city's nightlife, as well as national
icons in pop/football/youth culture. But there are fears that the
Club's great days have now passed. At the height of its powers in
the 1980s, Liverpool FC was the site of two catastrophic crowd
disasters, which effectively transformed the sport and added to
wounding perceptions about the city's alleged sentimentality,
fatalism and irreversible decline. The legacy of the Heysel and
Hillsborough tragedies continues to shape the self-image of the
Club and those who support it. A seething rivalry with nearby
corporate giant Manchester United is a constant reminder of
football's new order.
Addressing all of these concerns, as well as Liverpool's global
reputation as the home of the Beatles and the 'Mersey sound', this
book takes an original approach to the study of football by
examining its links with other important popular culture forms,
especially pop music, but also television and youth styles. In
particular, however, it looks at the very special meaning of
football in Liverpool.
Tiger Woods's childhood coach shows parents how to bring out the
natural athlete in their sons and daughters, no matter what their
skill level. Every year approximately 3 million Americans take
their first swing at golf. Most of them are young, and most are
taught by their parents. But golf is a difficult sport to learn,
and even harder to teach. Now the man who coached a golfing prodigy
named Tiger Woods shows parents how they can teach their child to
excel at the game.
Rudy Duran's unique and proven program is divided into skill
levels that can be adapted to suit any child's needs. Lacing his
book with anecdotes from his own youthful experiences, his years
with Tiger, and his work with other young golfers, Rudy starts with
basic instructions and etiquette, and then explores putting,
swings, and general knowledge. His words are simple, to the point,
and illustrated with numerous photos. Additional highlights include
a dictionary of terms, a section on skill-strengthening games,
quizzes, and Rudy's own "Personal Par" system, which will help
golfers evaluate themselves and give them realistic goals to aim
for. Best of all, Rudy makes his lessons fun. He reminds parents
that golf is a game and that a child's enthusiasm and delight can
be the most rewarding lesson of all.
At the start of the 1947 baseball season, reporters projected the
Boston Red Sox would repeat as American League champions. The New
York Yankees were picked to finish no higher than third place. The
reporters were wrong. The Yankees were a veteran team as Joe
DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Henrich, and Charlie Keller returned
from World War II military service. It was also a team that
introduced New York fans to rookies Yogi Berra, Bobby Brown, and
Frank Shea. The team saw stand-out performances from players such
as Allie Reynolds, who was obtained in a trade with Cleveland and
was a nineteen-game winner, and Joe Page, who became baseball's top
relief hurler that same year. Frank Strauss was a twelve-year-old
fan in 1947; he kept meticulous scrapbooks and even met some of the
players. In "Dawn of a Dynasty," he relives for readers how this
team won nineteen straight games in midseason and later claimed the
pennant-then capped the season with a memorable World Series win
against the Brooklyn Dodgers. The unforgettable 1947 Yankee team
launched a remarkable record of winning fifteen American League
pennants and ten World Championships between 1947 and 1964 and
truly marked the "Dawn of a Dynasty."
What if the world had never heard of Steve Bartman? What if Alex
Gonzalez had fielded that ground ball cleanly, and turned the pair?
What if Grady Little had listened when Pedro told him he was tired,
and gone to the bullpen, which had, after all, been extremely
effective throughout the post-season. This story is about how the
world and the 2003 World Series would have been had those things
happened. The stories in this book are a mixture of fact, fiction,
fantasy, and fanaticism. Outside of New York and Florida, there was
not a lot of sentiment for the Yankees and Marlins to get to the
2003 World Series. Even Fox Sports, Sports Business Journal, ESPN,
and every other media in the country were pulling for a Cubs vs.
Red Sox World Series.
It is true, they don't make things the way they used to, they don't
do things the way they used to, and the times are not what they
used to be. This book is a journey back to the days of my early
childhood through high school. What was like to be raised in
Indiana basketball country? It was an exciting time with over 700
high school teams from every corner of the state of Indiana
competing each year in a single elimination tournament for the
Indiana State Basketball Championship. One small school triumphed
in a miracle over the great odds against them. It is still for me
to imagine what those hundreds of Indiana basketball heroes
experienced by having family, friends, classmates, cheerleaders,
teachers, community fans for all kinds of reasons, even stranger
bystanders, cheering and shouting them on with encouragement.
(www.garyleesmith.com)
When the first lockdown came, finding himself without cricket for
the first time in his life, Geoffrey Boycott sat down and began to
write a retrospective warts-and-all diary of each of his Test match
appearances. It is illuminating and unsparing, characterised by
Boycott’s astonishing memory, famous forthrightness and
unvarnished, sometimes lacerating, honesty. That 100,000 word
document forms the basis for Being Geoffrey Boycott, a device that
takes the reader inside Geoffrey’s head and back through cricket
history, presenting a unique portrait of the internal and external
forces that compelled him from a pit village in Yorkshire to the
pinnacle of the world game. Now 81 and still one of the most
recognisable cricketers England has ever produced, Boycott has
teamed up with award-winning author Jon Hotten in this catalogue of
his tumultuous time with the national side. Dropped for scoring a
slow double hundred, making himself unavailable to play for England
for several years, captain for eight seasons of a group of strong,
stroppy and extremely talented players at Yorkshire, bringing up
his hundredth hundred at Headingley against the Old Enemy, seeing
David Gower and Ian Botham emerge as future greats, playing under
Mike Brearley in the 1981 Ashes, in this enlightening book Boycott
reveals a host of never-before-heard details regarding his peers
and his playing days.
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