|
Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Sporting events, tours & organisations > Sports teams & clubs
Bluebirds Reunited is the incredible story of the renaissance of
Cardiff City: how a club in turmoil transformed its fortunes to win
the unlikeliest of promotions, and how its loyal fans fell back in
love with their beloved Bluebirds. Essential reading for every
Cardiff City fan, Aled Blake, charts the Bluebirds' roller-coaster
ride from the humiliating Premier League relegation in 2014 and the
fierce protests from disillusioned supporters against the club's
controversial rebranding, through a series of dismal seasons as the
team struggled in the Championship, to the return to blue and the
appointment of Neil Warnock. Featuring revealing fan insights and
exclusive interviews with Warnock, Bluebirds Reunited tells the
story of Cardiff City's rebirth from the fans' perspective and
explains how a club, its fans and a city were reunited in an
euphoric promotion back to the Premier League.
On the 11th May 1991, Leicester City beat Oxford United to avoid
relegation to the third tier of English football. Off the field,
the crumbling Main Stand did not meet the requirements of theTaylor
Report and the Club was leaking money, something needed to change!
And something did change! The appointments of Brian Little as the
Team Manager, and Barrie Pierpoint as the Club's first Director of
Marketing was the catalyst to one of the most remarkable
transformations in English football history. Over the next nine
years, Leicester City established themselves as a top Premier
League side, won major honours, competed in Europe for the first
time in almost thirty years and the loyal Blue Army enjoyed seven
trips to Wembley. Off the field, City became market leaders for
innovation; Fox Leisure, Family Night Football and the birth of
Filbert Fox were some of the initiatives that Barrie and his
progressive team introduced. The construction of the
state-of-the-art Carling Stand and flotation on the Stock Exchange
provided the Club with a much needed injection of cash. Featuring
contributions from over forty people, from directors, staff, fans
and journalists to corporate clients, team managers and players,
including Steve Walsh, Emile Heskey, Simon Grayson, Gary Mills and
Tony Cottee - this book chronicles the journey of a struggling
football club to one of the best teams in England, told by those
who were there and were pivotal to the Club's success. In full
colour, including photographs throughout, this book will take you
on a nostalgic trip through a glorious period in Leicester City's
history.
Cricket is a very old game in Scotland - far older than football, a
sport which sometimes exercises a baleful, obsessive and
deleterious effect on the national psyche. Cricket goes back at
least as far as the Jacobite rebellions and their sometimes vicious
aftermaths. It is often felt that Scottish cricket underplays
itself. It has been portrayed as in some ways an English sport, a
"softies" sport, and a sport that has a very limited interest among
the general population of Scotland. This is emphatically not true,
and this book is in part an attempt to prove that this is a
misconception. Sixty-one games (it was going to be just 60, but one
turned up at the last minute!) have been chosen from the past 250
years to show that cricket does indeed influence a substantial part
of the nation. The matches have been selected at all levels, from
Scotland against visiting Australian teams all the way down to a
Fife school fixture. These naturally reflect the life, experience
and geographical whereabouts of the author. The games are quirky
sometimes, (and quirkily chosen) with an emphasis on important
events in the broader history of this country, notably the
imminence of wars and resumptions at the end of these conflicts.
But the important thing is that every single cricket contest does
mean an awful lot to some people.
On 12 October 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying members of
the 'Old Christians' rugby team (and many of their friends and
family members) crashed into the Andes mountains. I Had to Survive
offers a gripping and heartrending recollection of the harrowing
brink-of-death experience that propelled survivor Roberto Canessa
to become one of the world's leading paediatric cardiologists.
Canessa, a second-year medical student at the time, tended to his
wounded teammates amidst the devastating carnage of the wreck and
played a key role in safeguarding his fellow survivors, eventually
trekking with a companion across the hostile mountain range for
help. This fine line between life and death became the catalyst for
the rest of his life. This uplifting tale of hope and
determination, solidarity and ingenuity gives vivid insight into a
world famous story. Canessa also draws a unique and fascinating
parallel between his work as a doctor performing arduous heart
surgeries on infants and unborn babies and the difficult
life-changing decisions he was forced to make in the Andes. With
grace and humanity, Canessa prompts us to ask ourselves: what do
you do when all the odds are stacked against you?
WINNER OF THE CRICKET SOCIETY AND MCC BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2016
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 'I
doubt there will be a better book written about this period in West
Indies cricket history.' Clive Lloyd Cricket had never been played
like this. Cricket had never meant so much. The West Indies had
always had brilliant cricketers; it hadn't always had brilliant
cricket teams. But in 1974, a man called Clive Lloyd began to lead
a side which would at last throw off the shackles that had hindered
the region for centuries. Nowhere else had a game been so closely
connected to a people's past and their future hopes; nowhere else
did cricket liberate a people like it did in the Caribbean. For
almost two decades, Clive Lloyd and then Vivian Richards led the
batsmen and bowlers who changed the way cricket was played and
changed the way a whole nation - which existed only on a cricket
pitch - saw itself. With their pace like fire and their scorching
batting, these sons of cane-cutters and fishermen brought pride to
a people which had been stifled by 300 years of slavery, empire and
colonialism. Their cricket roused the Caribbean and antagonised the
game's traditionalists. Told by the men who made it happen and the
people who watched it unfold, Fire in Babylon is the definitive
story of the greatest team that sport has known.
'A history of modern Spain told through one of world football's
most intense rivalries' Independent 'Sports Book of the Year'
Sunday Times It's Messi vs Ronaldo, it's Catalonia vs Castilla.
It's the nation against the state, freedom fighters vs Franco's
fascists. It's majestic goals and mesmerising skills, red cards and
bench brawls. It's the best two teams on the planet going face to
face and toe to toe. It's more than a game. It's a war. It's
Barcelona vs Real Madrid. Only, it's not that simple. From the
wounds left by the civil war to the teams' recent global
domination, historian and expert on Spanish football, Sid Lowe
lifts the lid on sport's greatest rivalry. Lowe has spoken to the
biggest names and the forgotten heroes who defined their clubs. Men
like Alfredo Di Stefano and Johan Cruyff as well as the only
survivor of the most politically charged game in history, the
Barcelona striker who knocked Madrid out of the European Cup for
the first time ever, and the president who celebrated his club's
defining moment by taking a midnight dip in the Thames. By
exploring the history, politics, culture, economics and language,
while never forgetting the drama on the pitch, Lowe demonstrates
the symbiotic nature of the relationship between these two football
giants. In doing so he reveals the human story behind this
explosive rivalry.
|
You may like...
Ordinary Joe
Joe Schmidt
Paperback
(1)
R330
R269
Discovery Miles 2 690
|