Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year The Times Sports Book of the Year Telegraph Football Book of the Year 'Ferris's wonderful memoir represents a twin triumph. He has endured every kind of setback in life but has invariably reinvented himself; and his writing is a pure pleasure.' The Sunday Times 'Enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.' Telegraph 'A masterpiece of the genre' Brian McNally 'Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris's The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.' Guardian 'Fascinating and stylishly told.' David Walsh, The Sunday Times The Boy on the Shed is a story of love and fate. At 16, Paul Ferris becomes Newcastle United's youngest-ever first-teamer. Like many a tricky winger from Northern Ireland, he is hailed as 'the new George Best'. As a player and later a physio and member of the Magpies' managerial team, Paul's career acquaints him not only with Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Bobby Robson, Ruud Gullit, Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer but also with injury, insecurity and disappointment. Yet this autobiography is more than a tale of the vagaries of sporting fortune. It begins during 'The Troubles' in a working-class Catholic family in the Protestant town of Lisburn, near Belfast. After a childhood scarred by his mother's illness and sectarian hatred, Paul meets the love of his life, his future wife Geraldine. Talented and carefree on the pitch, shy and anxious off it, he earns a tilt at stardom. His first spell at Newcastle turns sour, as does his return as a physio, although obtaining a Masters degree shows him what he could achieve away from football. When Paul qualifies as a barrister, a career in Law beckons. Instead, a craving to prove himself in the game draws him back to St James' Park as part of Shearer's management triumvirate - with unfortunate consequences. Written with brutal candour, dark humour and consummate style, The Boy on the Shed is a riveting and moving account of a life less ordinary.

The first definitive biography of basketball legend LeBron James, by the acclaimed author of Tiger Woods. LeBron is unquestionably the greatest basketball player of the 21st century. Off the court, LeBron's political activism, outspoken stance on racism and social injustice have helped build a social media presence that includes 117 million followers on Instagram and 51 million followers on Twitter. He is an international brand worth billions of dollars. He doesn't just have huge endorsement deals with some of the biggest corporations in the world; LeBron sits on boards of directors and has an equity stake in the companies he sponsors. He has forged a close friendship with President Barack Obama and clashed publicly with President Donald Trump. As a child, LeBron was a lost little boy living in a public housing project in Akron, Ohio. His mother, who had LeBron when she was just sixteen, would disappear for days at a time. Scared and alone, LeBron rarely attended school. He was dirt poor and fatherless. And he had never played organised basketball. Yet he would become the most successful and most popular athlete that the United States has produced this century, bringing success to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers. To tell this epic story, Benedict has done exhaustive research, digging through thousands of pages of primary source documents, articles, books and hundreds of hours of video footage. He's also conducted hundreds of interviews with the people who were intimately involved with LeBron from the beginning of his life to the present. He shows the initial slow rise of a star that suddenly transformed into a speeding comet during his senior year of high school. It is a unique and unmissable insight into one of the world's greatest athletes.

The most detailed and in-depth biography of Andy Murray yet published. When Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal both exited in the first few days of Wimbledon 2013, the level of expectation on Andy Murray to become the first British champion of the men's competition since 1936 rose to new heights. Two sets down in the quarter-final, he recovered to keep alive the hopes of a nation. Then, on a boiling hot Sunday afternoon, Murray faced up to the world's best player, Novak Djokovic, with the title almost within his grasp. After three hours of tension, drama and sheer brilliance, Murray was Wimbledon champion and 17.3 million viewers, glued to the action, celebrated with him after his straight-sets victory. But how had the man from Dunblane, Scotland, a country once characterised as the worst tennis nation in the world, risen to the top? In this fascinating and revealing biography, Mark Hodgkinson, who first interviewed Murray when he was just 17, looks into the people who have influenced the Scot's career - his family, his coaches and his girlfriend among them - and assesses how he has won over a dubious and critical public. Murray's story is extraordinary, and this book gets to the heart of that remarkable drama.

Feeling Blue is a football fan's memoir like no other. Spanning more than 35 years and set across three continents, it is a true story that encompasses love, race and identity - all interweaved with the chaotic fall and rise of Manchester City. Dickie Denton was born into a 1960s Manchester home with many siblings, one of whom was adopted and of Asian parentage. As he grew up, Dickie faced the twin challenges of racist bullying and academic underachievement. Football was his refuge and Manchester City became his obsession - through boyhood, coming of age and adulthood. By middle age he had the trappings of a successful international business career but still craved the thing that he most desired and continued to elude him: success for Manchester City. His story dramatically climaxes in 2012, on a sultry May night in Singapore. Feeling Blue is not just for Man City fans, or even just football fans. It is a deeply personal story told with humour and honesty that will appeal to all and bring forth tears and laughter in equal measure.

Wartime and the scholarship to Grammar Schools allowed access to Rugby Union, an amateur game played by gentlemen in Rugby Clubs like Liverpool and Blackheath. Since the schism with Rugby League in 1895 the antipathy between the two codes was stark. Peter Harvey's story opened the door for hundreds of boys from Lancashire to play for England Schools. However, the suggestion that he might go to Rugby League was enough to prevent selection for England. The story of how this happened, and his subsequent success as a semi-professional rugby player, reaches its climax in Championships and Challenge Cups with the great St Helens RL side of the 1960s. Running parallel to this story is the training necessary to become a teacher and head teacher, and those people who helped me on that journey. The final chapters tell of rugby stars of the 1960s who he played with or against and the subsequent joys and fellowships of past players associations. It is a unique view of social history from coalmine to classroom, 1940 to present.

Ian Thorpe's achievements in the water are nothing short of phenomenal. He has won a record-holding 11 World Championship titles and ten Commonwealth Games gold medals. He has broken 22 world records and won five gold, three silver and one bronze Olympic medals. Having been under the spotlight since he was a young teenager, he retired from competitive swimming in 2006, but after five years he mounted a comeback for London 2012, and intense media attention followed. Thorpe is one of the world's most famous sportsmen, but it is the way he has managed his success and his commitment to helping others that has earned him respect and admiration internationally. This is a man who has had highs and lows away from the pool, who has led an extraordinary life of an elite athlete that most of us will never know, and who had the courage to come back and stake his claim for the ultimate goal once more.

'The dream was football . . .' John Giles had a gift. At the age of three, he could kick a ball the way it was supposed to be kicked. And he knew that every hour that passed without kicking a ball was an hour wasted. 'It was the same dream that most of the kids had at that time . . .' In A Football Man, Giles tells the story of a dream pursued and realised beyond his wildest imaginings, from his humble beginnings in Ormond Square in 1940s' Dublin,counting down the minutes to his next game of football, to that unforgettable moment when the original football man - his dad, 'Dickie' - announced that his young son, at just fourteen, was on his way to Manchester United. 'What I didn't realise was that my dream would come true.' Full of anecdote, insight and wry humour, Giles recounts his rise through the ranks at Manchester United, before and after the Munich Disaster; the great players he knew, the good and the bad times under Matt Busby; his sensational debut for Ireland which he served as player and manager; his starring role in the brilliant, controversial Leeds United of the '60s and '70s; and his challenge to the portrayal of himself and Brian Clough in The Damned United. He also describes his enduring friendship with the 'kid from across Dublin's Tolka Park', Eamon Dunphy, and his career on RTE2's football panel, where Giles' intelligent and insightful analysis have made him an even more well-loved and respected national figure.

THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE BIOGRAPHY OF ARSENE WENGER EVER PUBLISHED, NOW FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED TO THE END OF HIS ARSENAL CAREER. When Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996, he was little known to fans at the club and many doubted he could bring back the glory days of George Graham. But soon he was transforming the way the team played, melding the famous English defensive spine of Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and David Seaman with a hugely creative foreign attacking spirit, epitomised by Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires, that could both outplay and outmuscle their rivals. At the same time, he introduced new ideas on diet, exercise, training and tactics, which many players believe extended their careers. Having won numerous trophies, and led the Invincibles to an unprecedented unbeaten league season in 2003-04, Wenger then had to help the Gunners through the next stage of their development when they moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, a move that was followed by a nine-year trophy drought. Despite the financial constraints he faced, he still managed to keep the club playing in the Champions League year after year while remaining true to his philosophy of how the game should be played. Some began to question whether he had been left behind, despite picking up back-to-back FA Cups in 2014 and 2015, and in the end in April 2018 he decided the time was right to step away. Now, in this updated edition of John Cross's acclaimed biography, the author provides a compelling account of the man and his methods across 22 years in charge. He assesses the scale of Wenger's achievements and whether the criticism he faced towards the end was justified. Arsene Wenger builds into the most complete portrait of the Frenchman yet written.

From the management of major bands in the 1970s to 1980s like Fleetwood Mac, Queen, The Rolling Stones and ACDC to his swift move across to boxing management and promotion in 1984, this biography brings the late South African-born American boxing promoter Cedric Kushner’s history to life.

Leaving by ship with $400 in his pocket from South Africa to the United States, Cedric Kushner has become one of the most renowned music and boxing promoters and managers of his time. Driven by self-belief and the desire for success, Kushner rose to the very pinnacle of the boxing and music worlds. He was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame, with the promotion of over 300 World Title Fights and boxers such as Shane Mosley, Hasim Rahman, Shannon Briggs, Oleg Maskaev, Chris Byrd, Corrie Sanders, Ike Ibeabuchi and David Tua to name a few, under his belt.

With stories of co-promotion alongside Donald Trump, his infamous rivalry with Don King, the legendary heavyweight championship Hasim Rahman vs Lennox Lewis known as “Thunder in Africa”, the late Kushner’s decorated life is told through the eyes of his Muizenberg hometown friend Barry John Cohen.

Stanley Matthews was the most popular footballer of his era, the man who epitomised a generation of legendary players: Tom Finney, Nat Lofthouse, Billy Wright and many more. He was the first footballer ever to be knighted, the first European Footballer of the Year (at 41), and he played in the top division until he was 50 - and he will be forever remembered for his performance in the Matthews FA Cup final of 1953, when he inspired Blackpool to victory over Bolton. THE WAY IT WAS is a the fascinating memoir of a great footballer and the remarkable story of an extraordinary life, written in the last months of his life.

FULLY UPDATED WITH JOSE MOURINHO'S SENSATIONAL RETURN TO CHELSEA When Jose Mourinho realised as a teenager that he was never going to be a great player, he decided he was going to become the best coach in the world. From translator and assistant to Sir Bobby Robson at Barcelona to multiple league and Champions League-winning manager at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and now Chelsea once again, Jose Mourinho's ascent has been rapid. FURTHER ANATOMY OF A WINNER is the definitive account of the life and psychology of one of the greatest football managers of all time.

UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE 2021/22 SEASON THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER The behind-the-scenes story of the Marcelo Bielsa revolution at Leeds United and their first season back in the Premier League after sixteen years of hurt. FEATURING FRESH PERSONAL INSIGHT FROM MARCELO BIELSA On 27th February 2022, after 170 matches in charge, promotion to the Premier League and some of the most exhilarating football the English game has ever seen, Leeds United parted company with their most beloved and successful manager in a generation: Marcelo Bielsa. His parting gift was to embrace the crowds of adoring fans who turned up to say thank you as he left the club's training ground for the final time. In And it was Beautiful, The Athletic's Phil Hay chronicles Leeds United's glorious first season back in the top flight - which saw them finish ninth - after a chaotic sixteen-year absence. Phil pulls back the curtain on the hallmarks that now define the Marcelo Bielsa era, from his gruelling training schedule - including his infamous 'murderball' sessions - to innovative tactical methods that elevated Championship regulars into Premier League stars. Bielsa performed miracles, turning football into high art and making an extraordinary cultural impact on the city of Leeds. The result is a unique and fitting tribute to a Leeds United icon.

Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell is one of Britain's most successful and popular athletes, yet the real story behind his success has not been made public, until now. Track Record, his long-awaited autobiography, reveals how a boy from painfully humble beginnings in Moss Side, Manchester, and who suffered bullying at school, was inspired by Carl Lewis at the 1984 Olympics to harness his athletic ability and break out of a cycle of misbehaviour and petty crime to enjoy huge success in sport, business and as a broadcaster. Despite his early promise as a young sprinter Darren explains how, totally disillusioned with the use of performance-enhancing drugs in athletics, he turned to football where he played at a semi-professional level for Cwmbran Town, Weymouth FC and was offered a contract at Plymouth Argyle. His realisation, however, that he could either continue to be a decent lower league footballer, or return to the track and become a world class sprinter, saw him link-up with coach Linford Christie and achieve great success, winning a host of gold, silver and bronze medals at major championships, including silver in the 200m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and gold in the 4 x 100m at the 2004 Athens Olympics Spurred into finally telling his story after suffering a life-threatening condition in 2018, Track Record is the heart-warming and inspirational life-story of a talented, principled and determined man who overcame economic poverty and racial prejudice to triumph on the athletic tracks of the world.

Harry Caray is one of the most famous and beloved sports broadcasters of all time, with a career that lasted over 50 years. Always a baseball enthusiast, Caray once vowed to become a broadcaster who was the true voice of the fans. Caray's distinctive style soon resonated across St. Louis, then Chicago, and eventually across the nation. In The Legendary Harry Caray: Baseball's Greatest Salesman, Don Zminda delivers the first full-length biography of Caray since his death in 1998. It includes details of Caray's orphaned childhood, his 25 years as the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals, his tempestuous 11 years broadcasting games for the Chicago White Sox, and the 16 years he broadcast for the Chicago Cubs while also becoming a nationally-known celebrity. Interviews with significant figures from Caray's life are woven throughout, from his widow Dutchie and grandson Chip to broadcasters Bob Costas, Thom Brennaman, Dewayne Staats, Pat Hughes, and more. Caray was known during his final years as a beloved, often-imitated grandfather figure with the Cubs, but the story of his entire career is much more nuanced and often controversial. Featuring new information on Caray's life-including little-known information about his firing by the Cardinals and his feuds with players, executives, and fellow broadcasters-this book provides an intimate and in-depth look at a broadcasting legend.

Injury. Adrenaline. Addiction. These are the things that fuelled one man's race to international stardom as he pushed boundaries and took life on and off the bike to the limits. Starting out as a talented youth riding the desert tracks of California, his reckless nature and incredible talent earned him a position in the rarefied world of professional motorcycle racing. Despite the success in his professional life, his personal life was crumbling around him - John was battling with depression and temptation, which began to threaten his career, health and marriage, ultimately bringing him to a life of alcoholism, addiction and even smuggling. In his remarkable memoir, one of the world's most renowned riders takes us on a raw and unique journey to the extremes of fast living. John 'Hopper' Hopkins is an icon for motorsport fans worldwide. He won't let anything hold him back. He has broken almost every bone in his body (twice), suffered a bleed on the brain, and had a finger amputated... yet he continued to race. Finally, at the age of 35 - with his latest crash at Brands Hatch in 2017 putting him in rehab for two years - he decided to hang up his helmet. Leathered tells the incredible story of an unparalleled career. From bone-crunching injuries and alcohol-fuelled antics to the breakdown of his marriage, it unveils the true stories behind the lurid headlines.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 SPORTS BOOK AWARDS CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR* The gripping and revealing autobiography of one of Britain's most successful international cyclists of the modern era 'Getting in a break was my one chance of winning. The hard part was working out, again and again, how to make that chance count' Sharp, resourceful and a permanent outsider; for nearly 20 years Steve Cummings determinedly blazed his own winning trail in international cycling. A maverick who defied the dominant teams, to record a sequence of gloriously improbable victories, he has lived and raced with legends of the sport - Cavendish, Wiggins, Froome, Thomas and others - about whom he has strong views and untold stories. This autobiography of one of Britain's most successful international riders of the modern era takes the reader from Steve's earliest days as a junior, pounding across the flatlands of the Wirral, through his love-hate relationships with the British Cycling track cycling squad, to his series of top-level breakaway victories in the Tour de France, Tour of Britain and Vuelta a España and - rather than standout physical talent - how developing his own strategies and training techniques enabled him to succeed against the odds. The Break will be the first full-length account of the life and times of, in the words of ProCycling magazine, a 'universally popular and respected rider in the cycling world'.

The controversial story of Chris Jericho, the former undisputed Heavyweight Champion of WWE. From the age of eight, Chris dreamed of becoming a wrestler. But it wasn't until he was 25 that he hit the big time. Nicknamed 'Lion Heart', Chris eventually attained his ultimate goal - joining the WWF (now WWE). He became one of their biggest stars, even defeating wrestling powerhouses The Rock and 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin in the same night to be crowned the undisputed Heavyweight Champion. Now Chris dishes the dirt on his rivalries with other wrestling legends. Whether ripped-off by promoters, robbed at gunpoint or nearly paralysed after landing on his head during a match, Chris maintained his courage, determination and sense of humour about this dangerous and enthralling sport.

The King of Halloween and Miss Firecracker Queen tells the story of a football life from a daughter's perspective. It provides a look under the hood, so to speak, of one family's rise through the ranks of competitive football- from high school to college to professional coaching, and ultimately Super Bowl champion. It also chronicles their struggle to deal with the decline and death of the patriarch from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a result of that life. It is a story of one family's love of a game and each other, and of one man's strength of character, and one woman's love that sustained him.