'Gus Poyet declared it to be the toughest league in England. Neil Warnock went further, believing it to be the tightest division in Europe. Norwich boss Daniel Farke went further still: "The Championship, without any doubt, is the toughest league in the world."' On the final day of the 2019/20 season, only four clubs in the Championship, England's second tier of soccer, had nothing to play for, everyone else was fighting for promotion or survival. It's stats like this that give the league its well-deserved reputation as the most exciting league in football. Anything can happen, and often does. In The Hard Yards, Nige Tassell tells the Championship's stories, uncovers its hidden gems and takes the reader on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the 2020/21 season. Following three clubs in particular - newly promoted Wycombe Wanderers, newly relegated Bournemouth and stalwarts Sheffield Wednesday, who start the season on 12-point deficit - he'll dip into the seasons of clubs across the league, interviewing managers, fans, kit men and chairmen. A world away from the glamour and melodrama of the Premiership, the Championship is the heart and soul of football and in The Hard Yards Nige Tassell will take it back to basics. Praise for The Bottom Corner: 'Warm and celebratory but also sharp and insightful, The Bottom Corner is a love letter to non-league football that is also a vivid snapshot of its place in our national life' -- Stuart Maconie 'A wonderful journey through life in the lower reaches of the football pyramid. A fascinating tale of a very different world of football from that of the overpaid stars of the television age' -- Barry Davies

Although the bad days are incredibly hard to take at the time, the pain of them dies through time; we surely can't be alone in looking back and smiling at some of them. As a club firmly established in what the legendary Bob Crampsey described as the 'middle order' of Scottish football, it's unlikely the Pars will ever win the league or get very far in Europe. We might as well embrace what we have for what it is, and celebrate that ridiculous collection of memories our love of football has given us. Many people who don't like football sneer at those of us who do - let them sneer. Standing in an enclosure at Elgin, under a rickety corrugated iron roof while the rain hammers down on a grim November Scottish Cup Saturday with the side from the higher division away from home - if someone doesn't understand why that can be the most romantic thing in the world, they probably aren't worth listening to.

A comprehensive text that covers scientific disciplines relevant to the development of rugby players and is applicable to a wide-ranging audience including sports scientists, physiotherapists, strength and conditioning coaches and coaches in both rugby league and union. The application of scientific theory to applied practice. Applied ‘case studies’ illustrating how theory has been implemented within elite rugby. Clear directives for practical application of scientific research.

This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the different environmental strategies adopted in the football world to foster sustainability. The authors lay out useful insights, both for scholars and practitioners, to improve good governance in football organisations by empowering environmental organisational and operational actions. As well as examining practical methods of implementing green initiatives, the book discusses their added value from different perspectives including football fans, football managers and policymakers. By identifying the most important green actions for the dissemination of environmentally friendly behaviours at both individual and organisational levels, the book demonstrates how football organisations can use operational and organisational methods to develop an environmental sustainability strategy. The book contributes to developing the role of the football world by covering different facets of sustainability such as the circular economy, climate change, green marketing, fans engagement and more. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of environmental management, sustainable business and corporate social responsibility, as well as professionals working in the football industry.

Suitable for anyone who enjoys logic puzzles Could be used as a companion book for a course on mathematical proof. The puzzles feature the same issues of problem-solving and proof-writing. For anyone who enjoys logical puzzles. For anyone interested in legal reasoning. For anyone who loves the game of baseball.

Since 2002, Mike Pratt and Tom Leach have become as much a part of Kentucky Basketball as Rupp Arena itself, as longtime colour analysts for the UK Radio Network. This collection of candid and intimate conversations between Pratt and Leach gifts fans and readers insights into each season between 2002 and 2021 that only they could have. Pratt and Leach cover it all here: the games, the players, the coaches, and the moments that stood out. Mike Pratt is colour analyst for the UK Radio Network, alongside Tom Leach. Pratt was a three-year letterwinner under legendary coach Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky from 1967 through 1970. Tom Leach began his work on the UK Radio Network in 1989 as host of the postgame scoreboard and call-in shows. Eight years later, he was named the play-by-play voice for Kentucky football and he added the basketball responsibilities in 2001. Leach is an acclaimed sports journalist, winning several awards including two Eclipse Awards for Thoroughbred racing coverage, and six Sportscaster of the Year awards for Kentucky from the National Sports Media Association.

The magnificent story of a writer's lifelong obsession with his city and its football club. When 5-year-old Michael Chaplin landed in a strange city of ships in the late 1950s, he looked in vain for something that would anchor him to it, make him feel at home. Then, one Saturday afternoon, it came: the roar of a crowd, and a football team to support. Young Michael became an avid Newcastle United fan, and has remained one-if sometimes disenchanted-for over sixty years. In this football memoir with a difference, the celebrated playwright and screenwriter tells the story of his six-decade love affair with the club, each chapter recreating an iconic Newcastle match: the players who graced the game, the managers in the dug-out, and the backdrop outside the stadium-both the changing face of Newcastle, and the ups and downs of Michael's own life and career. This vivid, thoughtful and entertaining book is an absolute must-read for all Newcastle United supporters, and indeed-given that the club is often described as everyone's second favourite-for football fans everywhere...

Longlisted for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2020 'This pioneering memoir . . . engagingly balances the highs of captaincy and grand slams with striking emotional honesty as to herregrets' Guardian Books of the Year 'Her struggle is that of women's rugby and it is told here with great honesty' Sunday Times Books of the Year Catherine Spencer was the captain of the England women's rugby team for three years. She scored eighteen tries for England, won six of the eight Six Nations competitions she took part in, and captained her team to three championship titles, a European cup, two Nations Cup tournament victories and the World Cup final held on home soil in 2010, which thrust women's rugby into the limelight. All of this while holding down a full time job, because the women's team, unlike the men's, did not get paid for their sport. Mud, Maul, Mascara is an effort to reconcile alleged opposites, to show the woman behind the international sporting success. Painfully honest about the mental struggles Catherine faced during, and after, her career as an elite athlete, it is also warm, funny and inspirational - a book for anyone who has ever had a dream, or self-doubt, or a yearning for a really good, mud-proof mascara.

Major League Baseball, alone among industries of its size in the United States, operates as an unregulated monopoly. This 20th-century regulatory anomaly has become known as the baseball anomaly. Major League Baseball developed into a major commercial enterprise without being subject to antitrust liability. Long after the interstate commercial character of baseball had been established and even recognized by the Supreme Court, baseball's monopoly remained free from federal regulation. Duquette explains the baseball anomaly by connecting baseball's regulatory status to the larger political environment, tracing the game's fate through four different regulatory regimes. The constellation of institutional, ideological, and political factors within each regulatory regime provides the context for the survival of the baseball anomaly.

Duquette shows baseball's unregulated monopoly persists because of the confluence of institutional, ideological, and political factors which have prevented the repeal of baseball's antitrust exemption to date. However, both the institutional and ideological factors are fading fast. Baseball's owners can no longer claim special cultural significance in defense of their exemption. Nor can they credibly claim that the commissioner system approximates government regulation effectively. Both of these strategies have been discredited by the labor unrest of the 1980s and 1990s. Duquette provides a unique perspective on American regulatory politics, and by explaining a complicated story in comprehensive prose, he has given researchers, policy makers, and fans a fascinating look at the business of baseball.

Football fans love nothing more than to read about their favourite teams. Although this books is aimed at young teenagers they will delight all ages with their mixture of funny and enlightening stories and will give hours of pleasure discovering quirky facts about your favourite team. Each title is also augmented with a selection of sketches by the young sketch artist Becky Welton that depict some of the stories within.

"OUR IDENTITY IS INTENSITY," declares Liverpool FC assistant-manager Pep Lijnders in this compelling account of the 2021/22 season, and from the very first chapter he takes us on a footballing thrill-ride we will never forget. Liverpool's blistering brand of football has revived a sleeping giant, energised its vast army of fans, entertained crowds at home and all over the world, and redefined coaching excellence. Now Pep tells the inside story of a season which, even by LFC standards, has been truly sensational. Week by week as the drama unfolds it's all here: from pre-season to unforgettable finale; great goals and gruelling schedules; passionate team-talks and personal reflections; unsung heroes and Kop idols; the pride and the passion, the joy and the heartache... and the fun. In his own engaging and inspiring style, Pep takes readers behind-the-scenes at Anfield, the AXA Training Centre and the team hotel; on the pitch, in the dugout and back in the dressing-room away from the media glare. In forming a 'one-club' mentality, Jurgen Klopp, Lijnders and co have also created countless modern memories for the LFC family, and this unique book chronicles their legacy. It's an unprecedented account of a season at an elite football club from one of the game's most thoughtful students.

The lost memoir from Lou Gehrig--"a compelling rumination by a baseball icon and a tragic hero" (Sports Illustrated) and "a fitting tribute to an inspiring baseball legend" (Publishers Weekly). At the tender age of twenty-four, Lou Gehrig decided to tell the remarkable story of his life and career. He was one of the most famous athletes in the country, in the midst of a record-breaking season with the legendary 1927 World Series-winning Yankees. In an effort to grow Lou's star, pioneering sports agent Christy Walsh arranged for Lou's tale of baseball greatness to syndicate in newspapers across the country. Those columns were largely forgotten and lost to history--until now. Lou comes alive in this "must-read" (Tyler Kepner, The New York Times) memoir. It is an inspiring, heartfelt rags-to-riches tale about a poor kid from New York who became one of the most revered baseball players of all time. Fourteen years after his account, Lou would tragically die from ALS, a neuromuscular disorder now known as Lou Gherig's Disease. His poignant autobiography is followed by an insightful biographical essay by historian Alan D. Gaff. Here is Lou--Hall of Famer, All Star, MVP, an "athlete who epitomized the American dream" (Christian Science Monitor)--back at bat.

Impressively researched and well written, this valuable study by a business professor at the Universiy of North Florida. . . traces the erosion of the reserve clause and the rise of arbitration in salary disputes, examining the participants in negotiations--players, owners, managers, agents, even commissoners--and showing the stake each has in the money game. Many striking points are made, i.e., there is no discrimination in salaries of minority players and there is little relationship between pay and performance. "Publishers Weekly"

Jennings . . . gives a detailed account of collective bargaining in baseball during the last 25 years, leading up to the owners' lockout this year. He discusses the participants on both sides and how disunity among the club owners has contributed to the union's ability to achieve large bargaining gains. He also deals with salary arbitration and how it has been used to settle pay disputes, noting that it can resemble 'a high-stakes crapshoot' that leaves management incapable of controlling a teaM's payroll costs. For aficionados of the sport, this book provides clarifying insight into the complicated issues of baseball's labor relations and offers fascinating anecdotes and a shrewd commentary on the diverse and colorful personalities involved.

"New York Times Book RevieW"

Kenneth M. Jennings examines union-management relations in professional baseball, bringing together all the information the sports fan needs to follow the issues surrounding player-management arbitration in this unique industry. Covering the history of collective bargaining action in baseball from 1869 to the 1990 season, this book examines the issues that influence those high-profile player-management-owner negotiations. "Balls and StrikeS" reveals: how in recent years the Major League Baseball Players' Association (MLBPA) has successfully parlayed owner disunity into substantial gains for its members; that baseball, in a statistical sense, surprisingly exhibits little discrimination against black and Hispanic players; how there is very little relationship between pay and performance in professional baseball. Baseball fans and sports journalists as well as professionals in management and labor relations, will find "Balls and StrikeS" a fresh and exciting look at America's favorite pastime.

"Balls and StrikeS" presents the confrontations and relationships between players and management from the perspective of several hundred collective bargaining participants--the union and management officials who negotiate the labor agreement and the players who must approve and live with it. Kenneth M. Jennings derives his perspective from a variety of media sources, related biographies, autobiographies, and articles. The result is a highly readable book about owners, commissioners, agents, the media, manager-player relations, player pressures including drug and alcohol problems, race and ethnic issues, and player mobility and salaries. The book discusses the history of collective bargaining action in baseball from 1869 to 1966; the year Marvin Miller became president of the MLBPA, through the 1970s and Miller's successful bargaining efforts, into the 1980s and the opening of the 1990 season. "Balls and StrikeS" discusses key participants in the collective bargaining process--owners, agents, the media, managers, and players--and concludes with a look at contemporary industrial relations issues in professional baseball: drug and alcohol abuse; racial discrimination; and the relationship between pay and performance.

The story of the Springboks 2019 Rugby World Cup victory is one of the most inspiring in South African sporting history.

It is about how two men – coach Rassie Erasmus and captain Siya Kolisi – led a team of warriors into battle and conquered the world when inequality and division are still undeniable realities in South African society. When the Boks won the 2007 World Cup final, they did so with 20 white players in their match-day squad of 22.

In 2019, there were five black Africans in their starting line-up for the Yokohama final and the images of Kolisi lifting the Webb Ellis Cup will be replayed forever.

None of this seemed possible in 2017 when the Boks had reached an all-time low. They had slipped to No 7 in the world and had lost the faith of the rugby-loving public. Erasmus came in with just 18 months to prepare for the competition.

Sports writer Lloyd Burnard takes the reader on a thrilling journey from the time when no-one gave the Boks a chance of winning, to the delirious victory tour. He covers the key roles played by Erasmus and Kolisi, and their special relationship. There are ups and downs en route to victory: the first signs of self-belief when they beat the All Blacks in Wellington, Kolisi’s injury, the fall of Aphiwe Dyantyi when he was caught with banned substances in his system, and the Langebaan incident involving Eben Etzebeth that threatened to derail the team.

When the Brooklyn Dodgers recruited Jackie Robinson from the Negro Leagues' Kansas City Monarchs in 1947, it marked a turning point both in baseball and civil rights history. Robinson became the first African American to play in the Major Leagues, and in doing so, led generations of black players into the previously all-white world of professional baseball. As one of the greatest players professional baseball has ever seen, Robinson fought fiercely for civil rights on and off the diamond throughout his lifetime, and in doing so became a great American hero.

Mary Kay Linge recounts the extraordinary story of Robinson's life-from his early childhood in the South, to his college years at UCLA, to becoming a Hall of Famer and a major figure in the NAACP. In analyzing the surrounding social and cultural contexts of Robinson's time, this biography examines the legacy of a man who forever changed baseball. A timeline, statistical appendix, bibliography of print and electronic sources for further reading, and photographs enhance this biography.

Master golfer Ben Hogan (1912-1997) is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, most notably for his legendary ball-striking ability. There are numerous theories as to what made Hogan's swing so effective, and in Power Golf, Hogan shares a lifetime of championship secrets for improving every phase of the game. Included are tips for selecting cubs, finding the right grip, getting better balance through stance, mastering uphill and downhill shots, winning backswings and downswings - even golfing in rain, storm, and wind. Regardless of level of golf expertise, readers will see a difference the next time they pick up a club and play their best game ever!

This book addresses the most important judicial aspects in relation to the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC), as well as the different categories of disputes, inter alia, the termination of player contracts, the amount of compensation, sporting sanctions, training compensation and the solidarity mechanism. The DRC was established in 2001 by FIFA for the purpose of resolving disputes regarding the international status and transfer of players. Since then the DRC has developed into a major and influential alternative resolution body, with an impressive and everincreasing caseload. In this updated and revised Second Edition the most important decisions of the DRC as of the date of its establishment in 2001 until 2016 are analysed. It is a reference work for those with a legal and financial interest in professional football, such as lawyers, agents, managers and administrators, but is also aimed at researchers and academics. Michele Bernasconi, Attorney-at-law in Zurich, Switzerland, Arbitrator at CAS and President of the Swiss Sports Law Association provided a foreword for the book. Frans M. de Weger is senior legal counsel working for the Dutch Federation of Professional Football Clubs (FBO). In 2015 he was, at the proposal of the European Club Association (ECA), appointed as an arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). As a legal counsel and a CAS arbitrator he is involved in several national and international football-related legal disputes. This book appears in the ASSER International Sports Law Series, under the editorship of Prof. Dr. Ben Van Rompuy and Dr. Antoine Duval. "Frans de Weger's work on the jurisprudence of the DRC is a "must-have" for anybody dealing with sports law and, in particular, dealing with football issues under the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players." Massimo Coccia Professor of International Law and Attorney-at-Law in Rome and CAS Arbitrator "Where to go when trying to understand the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players? Now Frans de Weger has the answer with his new version of the much-awaited and needed Jurisprudence of the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber." Juan de Dios Crespo Perez Sports Lawyer "The second edition of this book, which is systematic and practical at the same time, will surely be of great interest to both specialists active in the world of "football law" and aspiring individuals." Wouter Lambrecht Attorney-at-law, Head of Legal at the European Club Association, FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber Member and Mediator at the CAS

Football managers have to deal with a number of unique pressures, yet the challenges of the football manager are similar to those of managers in other sectors. This book examines the management of football and looks at ways that managers and leaders in other industries can use tools and techniques from the sporting world within their own sector.

In 2018, the Belgian national football team finished third in the FIFA World Cup and reached number one in the FIFA/Coca-Cola Men's Rankings. With a squad boasting the likes of Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku they possess some of the world's best players. However, such success is more than a flash in the pan. This generation is just the latest wave of talent the nation has produced. The first book of its kind in English, Golden: Why Belgian Football is More Than One Generation is the definitive story of football in Belgium. It relives the sport's growth and the European glories of Belgian clubs, charting their untold triumphs against the biggest names. It dives into the recent production of world-class players in its academies, amid the murkiness of financial irregularities and match-fixing. It tells the tale of how a nation with a population of under 12 million has continued to make its mark on world football.