![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Sport
Paul Parker's England manager, Sir Bobby Robson, once described him as a player who "leaps like a salmon and tackles like a ferret". Paul's positional sense saw him snuff out the threat of the world's top strikers as he wrote his name into football's history books with his dazzling displays in the Italia 90 World Cup. The night England lost the semi-final to Germany on penalties saw Paul intrinsically involved in both goals, in a game which has gone down in football history. At the time he was captain and one of the most high-profile players of a buoyant QPR team. He later won a host of medals with Manchester United as Sir Alex Ferguson built a dynasty on the defence, marshalled by Paul. In his autobiography, Paul relives the years of struggle against racism which brought him to the top level of English football, reveals how he saved Fulham Football Club from extinction, why he left QPR and refused to sign for Arsenal and Spurs and how he struggled to cope with the debilitating injury which cost him his career. Never one to shirk an opinion, Paul reveals his thoughts on everything from bungs to racism, from the proliferation of England caps in the modern era to having a winning mentality. He also tells bundles of stories about the many personalities within the game with whom he has worked including Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Bobby Robson, David Beckham, Roy Keane, Eric Cantona, Paul Gascoigne, Bobby Gould, Trevor Francis and Malcolm MacDonald. With a foreword by Sir Alex Ferguson, "Paul Parker: Tackles Like a Ferret" will entrance fans of all three clubs, plus a much wider audience who still hark back to that night in Turin when England so nearly reached the World Cup Final.
'Modern Heroes' is a series of modern and colourful books about the lives of eight remarkable people whose influence has shaped how we live today. This book looks at the life of Muhammad Ali.
F1 is now the fastest growing sport in the world; the full story of its
unbelievable rise is a riveting saga only hinted at by the likes of
Drive to Survive. In this book - the first, definitive account of how
F1 came to achieve total global fandom - Wall Street Journal reporters
Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg take us inside a world full of
racing obsessives, glamorous settings, petrolheads, engineering
geniuses, dashing racers and bitter rivalries.
He is the larger-than-life figure who bounced back from rejection at 16 and graduated from parks pitches to become a Premier League goalkeeper, and later represent his country. Paddy Kenny's career was certainly not straightforward... just like his life. In his autobiography, Kenny lifts the lid on his time on and off the football field - including dressing-room rucks, being beaten for the Premier League's most famous goal and having his eyebrow bitten off in a curry house, just days before he faced Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Manchester United. This is Kenny's story... and the gloves are well and truly off.
The inspirational and powerful memoir from double world heptathlon
champion and Team GB Olympian Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
"This is the book for the serious DiMaggio and sports-as-culture buff. Moore . . . has sifted through most of what has been written and rumored about the Yankee Clipper in newspapers, magazines, books and even songs. The narrative portion--there's also a bibliography and DiMaggio's baseball stats--is divided into two sections: DiMaggio's life on and off the field, and his evolving stature as a mythic figure. All rendered in sensitive, but refreshingly unsentimental, prose." USA Today "Anyone serious about building an excellent baseball library or interested in the role of sports in American society should get a copy of this book. . . . All in all, an excellent and well-researched book." The Sporting News
Peek into the mind of a champion swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time (28 medals, including 23 gold). In this candid memoir, Phelps talks openly about his battle with attention deficit disorder, the trauma of his parents’ divorce, and the challenges that come with being thrust into the limelight. Readers will relive all the heart-stopping glory as Phelps completes his journey from the youngest man to ever set a world swimming record in 2001, to an Olympic powerhouse in 2008, to surpassing the greatest athlete of ancient Greece, Leonidas of Rhodes, with 13 triumphs in 2016. Athletes and fans alike will be fascinated by insights into Phelps’s training, mental preparation, and behind-the-scenes perspective on international athletic competitions. A chronicle of Phelps’s evolution from awkward teenager to record-breaking powerhouse, Beneath the Surface is a must-read for any sports fan.
Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world and a notoriously difficult and dangerous mountain to climb. First climbed from the west in 1955 by a British team comprising Joe Brown, George Band, Tony Streather and Norman Hardie, it waited over twenty years for a second ascent. The third ascent, from the north, was made in 1979 by a four-man team including the visionary British alpinist Doug Scott. Completed before his death in 2020, and edited by Catherine Moorehead, Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott's final book. Scott explores the mountain and its varied people - the mountain sits on the border between Nepal and Sikkim in north-east India - before going on to look at Western approaches and early climbing attempts on the mountain. Kangchenjunga was in fact long believed to be the highest mountain in the world, until in the nineteenth century it was demonstrated that Peak XV - Everest - was taller. Out of respect for the beliefs of the Sikkimese, no climber has ever set foot on the very top of Kangchenjunga, the sacred summit. Scott's own relationship with the mountain began in 1978, three years after his first British ascent of Everest with Dougal Haston. The assembled team featured some of the greatest mountaineers in history: Scott, Joe Tasker, Peter Boardman and Georges Bettembourg. The plan was for a stripped-down expedition the following spring - minimal Sherpa support, no radios, largely self-financed. It was the first time a mountain of this scale had been attempted by a new and difficult route without the use of oxygen, and with such a small team. Scott, Tasker and Boardman summited on 16 May 1979, further consolidating their legends in this golden era. Kangchenjunga is Doug Scott's tribute to this sacred mountain, a paean for a Himalayan giant, written by a giant of Himalayan climbing.
Candid, outspoken and supremely honest, and including interviews with those close to him, 2 Sides is Rio's unique story: from his early days in Peckham, through to picking up the Champions League trophy on a rainy summer's night in Moscow, 2 Sides is the tell-all account of an extraordinary and controversial life in the game. On winning and losing; on defending and attacking; on Moyes, management and fellow players; on John Terry, lost friendships and ongoing rivalries; on the love and hate of the beautiful game; and on playing for club, country and for yourself - this is a full spectrum of life at the very top of the footballing tree, and a superb retrospective of a truly fascinating career.
Joe Tasker lies, struck down by illness, in a damp, bug-infested room in the Himalaya, wondering if he will be well enough to climb Dunagiri, his first venture to the 'big' mountains. One of Britain's foremost mountaineers and a pioneer of lightweight climbing, he is about to attempt one of the first true 'alpine-style' climbs in the Greater Ranges. The Dunagiri attempt forms part of Tasker's striking tale of adventure in the savage arena of the mountains. A superb writer, he vividly describes the first British winter ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, the first ascent of the West Wall of Changabang - considered a 'preposterous' plan by the climbing world - and his two unsuccessful attempts on K2, the second highest mountain on Earth. Savage Arena is both moving and exciting, an inspirational tale of the adventuring spirit which follows its own path, endlessly seeking new challenges, climbs and difficulties to overcome. It is not reaching the summit which counts, it is the journey to it. It is also a story of the stresses and strains of living for long periods in constant anxiety, often with only one other person, and of the close and vital human relationships which spring from those circumstances.
Robert Mads Anderson is an elite mountaineer with a solitary goal: to conquer Everest. After nearly getting killed on his first expedition, he led a team up a new route on the Kangshung Face without oxygen or Sherpa support, climbed solo on the remote North Face, and finally guided a team to the top of the world. Incorporating a who's who of internationally recognised climbers, including Stephen Venables, Reinhold Messner and Chris Bonington, Nine Lives traces the story of Everest, from the big, nationally supported expeditions of the 1980s; through the small teams forging new routes and climbing solo; to the commercially guided expeditions of today. Set against the majestic backdrop of the world's tallest peak, Anderson's nine Everest expeditions over eighteen years define what truly drives a human being to the greatest of heights. With a foreword by Peter Hillary and 32 pages of colour photography, in Nine Lives Robert Mads Anderson offers his personal account of the world's highest mountain.
Women have made significant strides in the sports world over the past 30 years, one of which has been moving into the ranks of coaching on both the collegiate and professional levels. Readers will meet 42 of these outstanding women, contemporary coaches in the world of sports today, some of whom had to overcome major obstacles to get where they are today in this male-dominated profession. Entries, uniquely based on interviews with the coaches themselves, bring to life the commitment to excellence, hard work, and service which these women have portrayed in wide-ranging sports from basketball to soccer to lacrosse. Each entry in this unique reference resource provides the following information: Personal Data, Formative Years, Sports History, Playing Career, Decision to Coach, Coaching, Philosophy of Coaching, Changes in Athletes, Memorable Moments, Role Models, Favorite Books and Authors, Hobbies, Favorite Movies, Future Plans, and Recognitions and Achievement, Photographs of the coaches round out the entries to provide complete portraits of these women and their successes.
When author Joe Sinclair turned sixty-two years old, he began his quest to run as many marathons as possible. Less than five years later, he has logged more than four thousand miles, participating in more than 150 marathons. In his memoir, Putting Life on the Finish Line, he tells his life story from his early years through his late sixties and details how he achieved his running goals. Sinclair shares running's rewards and challenges-crossing the finish line at the toughest marathon in America run entirely on asphalt; completing three marathons in three days in the hot July weather; fighting off attacks by vicious dogs during a lonely, rural, mountain marathon; and helping a struggling young marathoner achieve his very first marathon finish. Offering personal secrets for success, tips and tricks, nutritional and fitness plans, pre-race plans, and inspiring stories, Putting Life on the Finish Line provides encouragement for those who believe they are too old to accomplish a dream. It shows that personal health and fitness is attainable at any age.
As a young girl, Sylvia Hatchell longed to play little league baseball and, later, high-school basketball, but both were closed to her because she was a girl. In college, her world shifted when she discovered a passion for coaching that would lead her to become a Naismith Hall of Fame coach of women's basketball at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this book, Coach Hatchell's life story unfolds against the backdrop of Title IX and women's struggle for equal opportunities in athletics. She celebrates triumphs (such as winning the 1994 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament) and weathers sadness and failure (such as the loss of her parents, surviving cancer, and being forced to resign from her dream job in 2019).
In 2016, Doddie Weir's life - as much-loved sporting hero and Borders farmer - switched direction with the same speed and power this indefatigable No. 5 once displayed on the rugby pitch. Reeling from his own MND diagnosis, Doddie became a standard-bearer for all those valiantly seeking to halt Motor Neuron Disease in its tracks. It's a platform Doddie has unhesitatingly used to the max. 'I never set out to take the lead,' he says. 'It just happened - like MND itself. But we are making a fight of it.' And so he continues to live life at full tilt: as a tireless fundraiser for the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation and as a family man with a debilitating, unpredictable and incurable disease. During these unprecedented times, Doddie has received an OBE, celebrated his 50th birthday, helped pledge close to GBP10 million for MND research and his fellow sufferers - all amid a whirl of golfing challenges, charity cycle rides, book festivals and awards ceremonies . . . Now DODDIE'S DIARY lifts the lid on the highs, the lows, the laughter and the tears of the last few years. Each day shows an astonishing, inspirational man who simply refuses to give in as he brings his down-to-earth positivity and legendary sense of humour to the battle against MND. Just as on the pitch, it's a battle he's determined to win.
|
![]() ![]() You may like...
The Musical, Second Edition - A Concise…
Kurt Ganzl, Jamie Findlay
Paperback
R784
Discovery Miles 7 840
The Commercial Theatre Institute Guide…
Fredric Vogel, Ben Hodges
Paperback
R670
Discovery Miles 6 700
Globalization and Catholic Social…
John A. Coleman, William R. Ryan
Paperback
Disciple - Walking With God
Rorisang Thandekiso, Nkhensani Manabe
Paperback
![]()
|