The Rhondda Valleys have always produced hard men. The descendants of those who flocked there in the nineteenth century to work in the expanding coalfield combined to form a special kind of society, in which brawn and brain were equally respected. While the famous miners' institutes nurtured the intellect, each village also had its gymnasium and these spawned some of the fight game's most famous practitioners. Jimmy Wilde was arguably the greatest British boxer of all time, while a whole nation stayed up to listen to the radio commentary of Tommy Farr's brave challenge to the legendary Joe Louis. Since this book first appeared Liam Williams has breathed new life into an old tradition. This updated and expanded volume tells the stories of Wilde and Farr, of course, but also those of more than 45 others, including Wales's forgotten world champion, Percy Jones, and two who wore the Lonsdale Belt, Tom Thomas and Llew Edwards. With 125 illustrations, many seen for the first time, this is the definitive account of Rhondda's boxing heritage and is essential reading for anyone interested in the square ring.

'Excellent . . . an in-depth excavation of the murky and mysterious world of football business. Smith's candid and often shocking book reveals the true workings of football business that take into account things few of us even could even imagine . . . The Deal answers some of those questions and leaves you wanting more. It is an educational tool that most fans could do with researching' Joe Short, Express Football analysis has grown at the same exponential rate as the sport's popularity and yet one of its most intrinsic elements remains tantalisingly opaque: the role of 'agent'. The Deal is a unique and fascinating perspective into the business of sports management through the eyes of 'Mr Football', 'super-agent', Jon Smith. 800,000 watch their professional football team play each week and TV pulls in audiences of around 600 million. Despite these phenomenal figures, the complex money-making scene behind sport is one of its biggest mysteries. The Deal will be an unprecedented insight into this world, showing what goes on as players and big money change hands. The Deal is also the story of one of the shrewdest and most successful businessmen of our time. Documented through Jon's personal rollercoaster of high-flying success to near bankruptcy, the book's over-arching narrative will offer an inspiring personal journey as well as insider knowledge of brokering deals at a high level and under extreme pressure. The Deal will appeal strongly to buyers of business books as well as a significant number of sports fans interested to know what goes on in the back room of their favourite sport.

Welcome To A Whole New Underwater World Whether you are new to the sport of scuba diving, considering giving it a try, or a seasoned veteran, you will enjoy reading the insights from someone who has been diving for more than half a century. You will appreciate how advancements in equipment have changed and made it easier than ever for more people to enjoy the vast underwater world that, for most, remains a hidden mystery. Are you ready to dive in? Why settle to read only facts and statistics about what can become a lifelong hobby, when you can benefit from reading a story? This book shares with you one man's journey of "taking the plunge", from swimming across the surface of the water to diving down to explore vast reaches of magical world invisible to those above.

SABR 50 at 50 celebrates and highlights the Society for American Baseball Research’s wide-ranging contributions to baseball history. Established in 1971 in Cooperstown, New York, SABR has sought to foster and disseminate the research of baseball—with groundbreaking work from statisticians, historians, and independent researchers—and has published dozens of articles with far-reaching and long-lasting impact on the game. Among its current membership are many Major and Minor League Baseball officials, broadcasters, and writers as well as numerous former players. The diversity of SABR members’ interests is reflected in this fiftieth-anniversary volume—from baseball and the arts to statistical analysis to the Deadball Era to women in baseball. SABR 50 at 50 includes the most important and influential research published by members across a multitude of topics, including the sabermetric work of Dick Cramer, Pete Palmer, and Bill James, along with Jerry Malloy on the Negro Leagues, Keith Olbermann on why the shortstop position is number 6, John Thorn and Jules Tygiel on the untold story behind Jackie Robinson’s signing with the Dodgers, and Gai Berlage on the Colorado Silver Bullets women’s team in the 1990s. To provide history and context, each notable research article is accompanied by a short introduction. As SABR celebrates fifty years this collection gathers the organization’s most notable research and baseball history for the serious baseball reader.    

This book critically explores sport-related tourism drawing on the fields of sport management, the sociology of sport, consumer behaviour, sports marketing, economic, urban and sports geography, and tourism studies. It presents multidisciplinary perspectives of sport tourism, as structured by the geographical concepts of space, place and environment. The volume offers a comprehensive update of the discussions presented in the two previous editions, recognising the significant growth in sub-elite participation sports and addresses spectator-based sport events, participation-based sport events, active sport, and sport heritage activities. It aims to advance theoretical thinking on the subject of sport tourism development and critical thinking on the interplay of local and global forces in sport and tourism development. It continues to be an important text for students and researchers in tourism studies, human geography, sports geography, sociology of sport, sports management, sports marketing and history of sport.

It's Britain's hottest summer since 1976 and English cricket is in a sweat of transformation. The public is no longer interested in County Championship games, traditional touchstone of the calendar. Fans prefer a bit of flash, bang, wallop – or so the experts tell us. Where though does that leave the twenty minor counties – strung out from Northumberland to Norfolk to Cornwall – who for the past one hundred and twenty-five years have fancied themselves the stepping-stone between regional club and first class county competitions? A level of the game seen as either an ex-professionals' graveyard or the last refuge of blazered old duffers is in a struggle for its very existence. And come 2020, the venerable Minor Counties Championship will indeed be blown away, like dandelion seeds on the breeze, replaced by the newly-branded and 'more marketable' National Counties Championship. At least that was the plan. In 2018, no-one has yet heard of Covid-19. What they do know is that this threat to their competition is existential and the modernisers at Lord's are to blame, far more interested in such innovations as a proposed new 'Hundred' than bolstering that which has stood the test of time. Granted full access to committee and squad, Tony Hannan, author of Underdogs – A Year in the Life of a Rugby League Town, spent a season with Cumberland CCC amid the lakes, fells and mountains of Cumbria. And as might have been expected in such dramatic terrain, he tells a story full of ups and downs – complete with one or two surprises. Skippered by former Durham player Gary Pratt – who as substitute fielder ran out Australia captain Ricky Ponting during the 2005 Ashes – Cumberland's expenses-only nomads are nevertheless just one important thread in a yarn stretching well beyond the boundaries of Cumbria. The Wicket Men is a cricket book unlike any other. It draws stumps on a small but fascinating aspect of a pastime whose rhythms and rituals, while endlessly evolving, are rooted firmly in the English folk tradition.

In this illustrated view of the history of Raith Rovers the author builds up the story of the club by recounting events that happened on every day of the year, even during the summer months. Triumphs, disasters, shipwrecks, crazy Board Room decisions, managers (good and bad), players (brilliant and mediocre) all feature. As do Davie Morris, who captained Scotland when they beat all three Home Nations in 1925; the wizardry of Alec James; the command of the famous half back line of Young, McNaught and Leigh; and the dash and enthusiasm of the team which won the Scottish League Cup. But it is not just about the good days. There are bad days, and loads of mediocre and mundane times too, as well as some accounts of Raith Rovers in war time. The year as a whole reveals the undeniable charm of the institution which means so much to so many - Raith Rovers Football Club - or, as they are referred to in Kirkcaldy, “the� Rovers.

Did you know that a former Ayr United great was the first Briton to be a football manager in Argentina? Did you know that he wasn't the only Ayr United manager to have been contracted to a South American club? Did you know that a former Ayr United manager gave first team debuts to such luminaries as Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott? There are facts aplenty but the overall purpose of this compilation is the study of the managerial evolution at Somerset Park. It seems inconceivable that Ayr United managers used to have no input in team selection, or that a modern day incumbent would have clerical work almost at the top of the list of their priorities. These practices were down to nothing more than it being consistent with the protocol of the time. Nowadays, the manager is either revered or vilified according to whether it is a halcyon period or a time of struggle. It was not always so. From the viewpoint of the present day, the reader gets chance to chart the changes. Sometimes the efforts of past managers were in vain. Sometimes it came to glorious fruition. Either way it is all documented within these pages.

As with any business, economic, financial, and marketing management for sports organizations is critical for attracting, retaining, and engaging fans. Unlike typical businesses, the sports industry is inconsistent, highly emotional with a strong personal nature, and operates in various markets where organizations compete and cooperate at the same time. Thus, traditional management techniques are not always appropriate for these organizations. Integrated Marketing Communications, Strategies, and Tactical Operations in Sports Organizations provides expert insight into the latest trends, strategies, and tactics that can be used in the sports industry to build foundations for successful commercialization. The content within this publication covers city marketing, social media interactions, and atmospheric influence and is designed for managers, marketers, business and industry professionals, stakeholders, academicians, researchers, and students.

The day the county cricket fixtures are revealed each winter, hoteliers in Scarborough get ready for their phones to melt. The migration of cricket fans each August to the North Yorkshire coast has yet to feature in a nature documentary but county cricket by the seaside has been a Yorkshire institution since 1876. Be transported to one of Yorkshire's finest sporting amphitheatres. Enjoy tales from the game and town that will surprise and delight, like the time the PA system picked up a funeral during play or when Derek Randall gave Sarfraz Nawaz a wire rubbish bin to aid his ability to field. There are interviews with fans, players and coaches past and present and those who have been coming to Scarborough for up to 50 years. Read Geoffrey Boycott's last innings for Yorkshire in his own words, Ken Rutherford's 317 in a day recalled by the man himself and Jason Gillespie on his favourite Festival memories. John Fuller travels to the coastal town to find the characters and stories, watch Yorkshire in action and tap into Scarborough's enduring appeal.

Darts fans will not want to miss this official commemoration of the PDC World Darts Championship – which entered its 26th year in December 2018. Readers will discover a vast collection of statistics, memories and images from a quarter of a century of darting excellence, with the results and player details of every match and performer over that time, along with a comprehensive reference source for lists and records, contained in its pages. Since the first match between Dennis Priestley and Jocky Wilson in December 1993, over 1,300 matches involving more than 350 players have been played. Colourful quotes and photos add to the celebration in a book compiled using statistics from Sportradar, who have collected live dart-by-dart data from events around the globe as official data partner to the PDC. Numbers are a large part of a tension-filled, fast-paced, mentally-draining sport. So whether you are a fan, player, media professional or just a darting geek, 25 Years of the PDC World Darts Championship is a must-have publication.

In an effort to understand how the absences of the colonial subject in sport were engineered and how colonial narratives became fixed in the literature and minds of South Africans, Exploring Decolonising Themes in SA Sport History: Issues and Challenges attempts a full-scale restructuring and rewriting of the history of sport in South Africa to include black South Africans, and thereby places them on the forefront of a colonial history. The book includes the articulations of academic researchers, professionals and retired sportspeople who were requested to explore their unique areas of interest in sport from the perspective of themes in South African sport history. They place themselves at the centre of discourses that dispel myths that blacks had no sport significance prior to 1994. The book ultimately challenges this spirit of the past where there was only one narrative – a white male sport tradition. Rather than adapting past colonial and apartheid narratives, this work seeks to fundamentally replace and supersede them.

After the first ever intercontinental rally - the London-Sydney in 1968 - there was widespread enthusiasm for an even more difficult test. With the Football World Cup being held in Mexico in 1970, it was the perfect opportunity to hold a parallel, much tougher challenge - the World Cup Rally. Organisers John Sprinzel and John Brown secured sponsorship from the Daily Mirror and planned a unique high-speed event, lasting six weeks and covering 16,000 miles from London to Mexico City via some of the most varying, tortuous and difficult terrain on three continents. Serious works teams such as Ford and British Leyland spent tremendous amounts choosing and developing new cars, completing months-long route surveys, and analysing every detail of diets, oxygen provision, and the number of crew members. Despite all this planning, out of an entry of more than 100, only 23 cars made it to the finish. It was then, and remains now, the toughest rally of all time. This book, now reprinted in paperback, tells the complete story.

The Ashes may be the longest and fiercest sporting soap opera the world has known. The anticipation is always intense, expectations are high and, for England fans, disappointment is almost inevitable, as we usually lose. But it's a drug we can never kick. How have we got into this state? Can we ever break free? Marcus Berkmann knows he can't and has stopped even trying. ASHES TO ASHES is the first emotional history of the contest, shamelessly eschewing balance and objectivity to give the punter's view of every series since 1972. This new edition updates the tale to the victorious 2009 series, while remaining brutally realistic about our chances in 2010 and beyond . . .

Baseball Beyond Our Borders celebrates the globalization of the game while highlighting the different histories and cultures of the nations in which the sport is played. This collection of essays tells the story of America’s national pastime as it has spread across the world and undergone instructive, entertaining, and sometimes quirky changes in the process. Covering nineteen countries and a U.S. territory, the contributors show how each country imported baseball, how baseball took hold and developed, how it is organized, played, and followed, and what local and regional traits tell us about the sport’s place in each culture.  But what lies in store as baseball’s passport fills up with far-flung stamps? Will the international migration of players homogenize baseball? What role will the World Baseball Classic play? These are just a few of the questions the authors pose.

In an era when college football coaches frequently command higher salaries than university presidents, many call for reform to restore the balance between amateur athletics and the educational mission of schools. This book traces attempts at college athletics reform from 1855 through the early twenty-first century while analyzing the different roles played by students, faculty, conferences, university presidents, the NCAA, legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Pay for Play: A History of Big-Time College Athletic Reform also tackles critically important questions about eligibility, compensation, recruiting, sponsorship, and rules enforcement. Discussing reasons for reform--to combat corruption, to level the playing field, and to make sports more accessible to minorities and women--Ronald A. Smith candidly explains why attempts at change have often failed. Of interest to historians, athletic reformers, college administrators, NCAA officials, and sports journalists, this thoughtful book considers the difficulty in balancing the principles of amateurism with the need to draw income from sporting events.

The complete ball by ball reference guide to the world's biggest Twenty20 cricket league. On May 24, 2015, Eden Gardens in Kolkata hosted the final of the 8th IPL tournament. Mumbai Indians took on Chennai Super Kings for the third time in an IPL final and after posting a target of over 200, saw off their opponents to win their second title. This is a complete record of the 8th Indian Premier League and includes full scorecards, details of every ball bowled in all 60 matches, with over summaries, dot ball analysis and graphical comparisons of run rates as the matches progressed. The book is also packed with batting, bowling, fielding and extras statistics and profiles of each team.