"Fifty Years by the Bay" is a literary documentary, covering all of the significant memories in San Francisco Giant history. This detailed account commences with the move West in 1958, through the 40 seasons at Candlestick Park, to a new beginning at Pacific Bell Park, into a new millennium, and onto the 2007 season. The work relives the key moments, teams, players and figures that made the franchise great. All of the memorable and celebrated moments are chronicled, including: . Through the years with the team, 1958 - 2007 . Top individual game feats . Significant seasonal performances . Successful career achievements . Features on all of the great San Francisco Giant players, including: ] Willie Mays

This book probably never would have been written without the owners' lockout which led to the cancelled 2004-05 season. Missing the fastest game in the world and my team, the Maple Leafs, I instead spent many cold and quiet winter nights last season wondering just who were the greatest Leaf players of all-time. What started out as a search for a method of ranking the players evolved into a need to justify the results by organizing all the biographical and statistical data into one place and this is what came out of the research. Interlacing many action segments with the facts, this is an attempt to make sports bios more entertaining and scintillating, as well as to illuminate the great moments in the history of the team. Dating back to 1927, Toronto's team has a rich history integral to that of the NHL and this epistle is a must for all hockey fans, not just fans of the Leafs. So come read about the legendary names of both the past and the present such as Johnny Bower, Busher Jackson, Dave Keon, The Big M, Ed Belfour, Bill Barilko and many, many more.

Cup Final Day, 1986, and the eyes of the world are on Liverpool and Everton as they walk out on to Wembley's lush green turf. Pumped with pride and passion, the two best teams in Europe are about to engage in a gladiatorial battle in front of 100,000 fanatical supporters. But this is not just another match, another cup final. On this warm day in May, the future of English football - and a city's reputation - is on the line. A year before this momentous Cup Final, Liverpool fans had been involved in the Heysel disaster. Thirty-nine people had died in the decaying stadium - a tragedy which cast a long, dark shadow over the sport. English clubs were banned from Continental competition, and football reached its lowest point. Tony Evans's Two Tribes recalls the tumultuous 1985/86 season and the titanic struggle for supremacy between the two great Merseyside clubs. Set against a backdrop of social and political turmoil, it reveals the full impact of Thatcher's policies, the vibrant northwest music scene and the burgeoning anti-establishment vibe on the streets and on the terraces. Giving voice to players, managers, politicians and musicians, Two Tribes follows the remarkable twists and turns of a season and how Merseysiders took over London for one unforgettable day with deafening chants of 'Merseyside! Merseyside!' ringing around Wembley Stadium. Ultimately, this is the story of Liverpool's renaissance and Everton's private agony, masked by a show of solidarity and communal spirit on the day, and how a season which began in shame ended in pride.

In Men in White Suits, Simon Hughes meets some of the most colourful characters to have played for Liverpool Football Club during the 1990s. The resulting interviews, set against the historical backdrop of both the club and the city, deliver a rich portrait of life at Anfield during a decade when on-field frustrations were symptomatic of off-the-field mismanagement and ill-discipline. After the shock resignation of Dalglish and Graeme Souness's ill-fated reign, the Reds - under the stewardship of Roy Evans - displayed a breathtaking style led by a supremely talented young group of British players whose names featured as regularly on the front pages of the tabloids as they did on the back. The Daily Mail was the first newspaper to tag Evans's team as the Spice Boys. Yet despite their flaws, this was a rare group of individuals: mavericks, playboys, goal-scorers and luckless defenders. Wearing off-white Armani suits, their confident personalities were exemplified in their pre-match walk around Wembley before the 1996 FA Cup final (a 1-0 defeat to Manchester United). In stark contrast to the media-coached, on-message interviews given by today's top stars, the blunt, ribald and sometimes cutting recollections of the footballers featured in Men in White Suits provide a rare insight into this fascinating era in Liverpool's long and illustrious history.

In two years, Wales went from Home International wooden spoon holders four times running to 1976 European Football Championship quarter-finalists. The book provides the background to qualification, accounts of all matches, examination of the fallout from the campaign's controversial ending, and a 'Where are they now?' section. 30 images. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru

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.

England On This Day revisits the most magical and memorable moments from the national cricket team's illustrious past, mixing in a maelstrom of quirky anecdotes and legendary characters to produce an irresistibly dippable England diary - with an entry for every day of the year. From the first ever Test match in 1877 through to the Twenty20 era, England's faithful fans have witnessed world domination and tragicomic failures, grudge matches, controversy and absurdity - all present here. Timeless greats such as Ian Botham, Jack Hobbs and Fred Trueman, Denis Compton, Harold Larwood and Alastair Cook all loom larger than life. Revisit 5 January 1971, when a Melbourne Test became the first ever one-day international, 30 July 1995 when Dominic Cork took England's first hat-trick in 38 years! Or 6 September 1880, when W.G. Grace and his two brothers all made their Test debuts - two successful, one tragic.

Ray Didinger, like every die-hard Eagles fan, has been waiting since the 1960 NFL Title for the Birds to win the Super Bowl. In this "Champions Edition" of The Eagles Encyclopedia, beloved Eagles commentator Didinger celebrates his team and their remarkable, against-all-odds season that ended at Super Bowl LII, where they claimed victory over the Patriots in Minnesota. Didinger updates his best-selling book The Eagles Encyclopedia with the departure of Coach Chip Kelly and the dawn of the Doug Pederson era. He provides a new chapter on the 2017-18 season and postseason. And he includes dozens of new player, coach, and front-office profiles as well as Hall of Fame updates on 2018 inductees Brian Dawkins and Terrell Owens. But wait, there's more! An all-new 16-page color insert highlights key moments on the road to the Super Bowl Iconic photos old and new, from Concrete Charlie Bednarik's tackle of Frank Gifford to Nick Foles and the Philly Special More than 100 new photos from the recent season as well as from earlier periods in the Eagles' storied history TheEagles Encyclopedia: Champions Edition is more than a keepsake of a championship season. It is a book about a city and a team and the emotion that binds them.

Record Breakers: The Inside Story of Notts County's Momentous 1997/98 Title Triumph delves into the inner sanctum of a basement-league dressing room in the 90s, as its inhabitants attempt to write themselves into the history books. Led by future England boss Sam Allardyce, taking some of his first managerial steps, Record Breakers is the inspirational tale of how the world's oldest Football League club fought back from a plunge down the divisions, falling attendances and financial strife to become the first side in post-war English football to win a title in March. The momentous feat is relived by the players themselves, lending a unique insight into their record run. It's packed with characters and anecdotes, and augmented with memories of supporters who lived through this season of tumbling records. From training ground punch-ups to transfer tales and unforgettable celebrations, Record Breakers is a remarkable winners' story in what now seems a bygone era.

For many, supporting Manchester United Football Club is much more than the ninety minutes out on the pitch. Away from the stadiums around England and abroad, fans' interest can also extend to collecting items of memorabilia relating to the club and its players. Some simply collect programmes from the games they attend, along with the match ticket if they had one, but there are others so engrossed in the club's long and illustrious history that they have created their own personal Manchester United museum, with countless other items relating to the games and the individuals who have worn the red shirt. Here, Iain McCartney, long-time collector and editor of the Manchester United Review Collectors Club, looks at some of the items that these supporters scour the footballing world for.

**THE FANS. THE PLAYERS. THE POMPEY FAMILY. YOU KNOW THEIR NAMES, NOW IT'S TIME FOR THEIR STORY** At the start of the 2019-20 League One season, award-winning sports reporter Neil Allen set out to follow the fortunes of a team in the hunt for promotion. By the time it came to an end, the football almost felt like an afterthought. Covering the highs and lows of a season like no other, Allen offers an exclusive insight into a club and a fanbase that has known more hardship than most, exploring the vital role a football club plays when the football is taken away. Given unparalleled access, Allen interviews current players and club legends, the fans who saved the club in 2013 and those now tasked with ensuring its survival. The essential profile of Portsmouth Football Club, its fans and its recent history.

The NHL’s New York Islanders were struggling. After winning four straight Stanley Cups in the early 1980s, the Islanders had suffered an embarrassing sweep by their geographic rivals, the New York Rangers, in the first round of the 1994 playoffs. Hoping for a new start, the Islanders swapped out their distinctive logo, which featured the letters NY and a map of Long Island, for a cartoon fisherman wearing a rain slicker and gripping a hockey stick. The new logo immediately drew comparisons to the mascot for Gorton’s frozen seafood, and opposing fans taunted the team with chants of “We want fish sticks!� During a rebranding process that lasted three torturous seasons, the Islanders unveiled a new mascot, new uniforms, new players, a new coach, and a new owner, which were supposed to signal a return to championship glory. Instead, the team and its fans endured a twenty-eight-month span more humiliating than what most franchises witness over twenty-eight years. Fans beat up the new mascot in the stands. The new coach shoved and spit at players. The Islanders were sold to a supposed billionaire who promised to buy elite players; he turned out to be a con artist and was sent to prison. We Want Fish Sticks examines this era through period sources and interviews with the people who lived it.  

A true story of hockey heartbreak, tragedy, and triumph. Sudden Death brings to life the incredible ongoing saga of the Swift Current Broncos hockey team. After a tragic game-day bus accident on December 30, 1986, left four of its star players dead, the first-year Western Hockey League team was faced with nearly insurmountable odds against not only its future success but its very survival. The heartbreaking story made headlines across North America, and the club garnered acclaim when it triumphantly rebounded and won the Canadian Hockey League’s prestigious Memorial Cup in 1989. Many of the surviving Broncos continued their successful hockey careers in the NHL, among them 2012 Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Sakic, Sheldon Kennedy, and Sudden Death co-author Bob Wilkie. Years later the Broncos’ tragedy-to-triumph tale was overshadowed when the team’s former coach, Graham James, was convicted of sexual assault against Sheldon Kennedy, Theoren Fleury, and Todd Holt, all of whom played for him.

'He's one of the best players I've ever played with. As a forward, I'd say he's the best.' Johnny Sexton Sean O'Brien does not come from a traditional rugby background. He grew up on a farm in Tullow, far from the rugby hotbeds of Limerick and Cork or the fee-paying schools of Dublin. But as he made his way up through the ranks, it soon became clear that he was a very special player and a very special personality. Now, Sean O'Brien tells the remarkable and unlikely story of his rise to the highest levels of world rugby, and of a decade of success with Leinster, Ireland and the British and Irish Lions.

Euro 2016 will forever have a special place in the hearts and memories of Wales football supporters, especially the tens of thousands who travelled to France and filled the stadiums with song, joy and colour as they proudly took their place in the spectacular 'Red Wall'. Bryn Law, author of the acclaimed Zombie Nation Awakes, was one of those passionate fans who fulfilled a life-long dream of following the Wales national team to a major tournament and 'Don't Take Me Home' is his diary of that magical month that gripped the whole nation. From arranging time off work to organising travel, accommodation and the all-important match tickets - as well as trying to explain to his patient and long-suffering family that he couldn't be sure exactly when he'd be back - Bryn perfectly describes the steep, tricky and expensive learning-curve faced by thousands of Welsh fans as he criss-crossed France by plane, car, camper van, tram and bus, desperate not to miss a match whilst enjoying the company of his friends and fellow fans. In 'Don't Take Me Home' Welsh fans can relive every game of the Euro 2016 experience from a supporter's perspective. Everyone has their own favourite memory of the tournament and Bryn lovingly recalls every game on that joyful journey: from the amazing scenes in Bordeaux to the 'chin up' disappointment of Lens; the perfect performance in Toulouse to the Celtic party in Paris; and from the sheer euphoria of Lille to the pride and au revoir in Lyon. Bryn Law's emotional, humorous yet insightful diary explains why Welsh fans - whenever they are asked about their experiences at Euro 2016 - smile, wipe away a tear and say 'It was the best month of my life': 'Don't Take Me Home'.

Why would a normal teenager throw his heart and soul into an average Third Division football club for almost a decade, only to walk away from them at the height of their success? After abandoning that club for 20 years, what would cause him to rekindle his passion in a conversion-like experience, and then stick with the club for the rest of his life? The answers lie in the psychology of attachment. This is the story of James Adams and his support of Coventry City, from the days of Billy Frith to Mark Robins. It's an account that delves into the crucial yet poorly understood psychological aspects of football fandom to uncover truths that every football fan can relate to. Join James on a rollercoaster ride as he asks important questions of himself and his life alongside a backdrop of footballing highs and lows, including three Wembley victories and four promotions, as well as FA Cup debacles for the Sky Blues. Attached to Coventry City is a highly personal, honest and reflective account of the unusual story of a lifelong football fan.

Why is sport so important among participants and spectators when its goals seem so pointless? Stephen Mumford's book introduces the reader to a host of philosophical topics found in sport, and argues that sports activities reflect diverse human experiences - including important values that we continue to contest. The author explores physicality, competition, how sport is best defined, ethics in sport, and issues of inclusion such as disability sports, the gender divide, and transgender athletes. His book is written for anyone who is thoughtful, a sports enthusiast, or both, and will deepen our understanding of sport and its place in our lives. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.

Searching for a home and a homerun-an overlooked era of Giants and San Francisco historyThe San Francisco Giants have been one of the most successful franchises in baseball in the twenty-first century as evidenced by the three World Series Championship flags flying in the breeze over Oracle Park, one of the most beautiful baseball venues in the world. However, the team was not always so successful on or off the field. The Giants and Their City tells the story of a Giants franchise that had no recognizable stars, was last in the league in attendance, and had more than one foot out the door on the way to Toronto when a local businessman and a brand new mayor found a way to keep the team in San Francisco. Over the next 17 years, the team had some very good years, but more than few terrible ones, while trying to find a home in a city with a unique and confounding political culture. The Giants and Their City relates how the team struggles to win ballgames, find its way back to the playoffs, but also to stay in San Francisco when, at times, it wasn't clear the city wanted them. This book is a baseball story about beloved Giants players like Vida Blue, Willie McCovey, Kevin Mitchell, and Robby Thompson, and includes interviews with Art Agnos, Frank Jordan, Dianne Feinstein, John Montefusco, Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, Mike Krukow, Dave Dravecky and Bob Lurie among others. The book features descriptions of important events in Giants history like the Mike Ivie grand slam, the Joe Morgan home run, the 1987 playoffs, the 1989 team, the Dave Dravecky game and the earthquake World Series. It's also a uniquely San Francisco story that shows how sports teams and cities often have very complex relationships.

In this engrossing cultural history of baseball in Taiwan, Andrew D. Morris traces the game's social, ethnic, political, and cultural significance since its introduction on the island more than one hundred years ago. Introduced by the Japanese colonial government at the turn of the century, baseball was expected to 'civilize' and modernize Taiwan's Han Chinese and Austronesian Aborigine populations. After World War II, the game was tolerated as a remnant of Japanese culture and then strategically employed by the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), even as it was also enthroned by Taiwanese politicians, cultural producers, and citizens as their national game. In considering baseball's cultural and historical implications, Morris deftly addresses a number of societal themes crucial to understanding modern Taiwan, the question of Chinese 'reunification', and East Asia as a whole.

A warmly written, readable and intelligent history of this famous football club... published just as United have been promoted back to the Premier League. In The Biography of Leeds United, Telegraph journalist and lifelong fan, Rob Bagchi, chronicles a history that will educate, entertain and inform both old and new supporters. Packed with fresh stories about (and from) former players, managers and money men, the book is an affectionate, comprehensive and blackly humorous portrait of a club like no other. Leeds United were founded in 1919 to revive professional football in Yorkshire's biggest city following the expulsion of their fragile and bungling predecessors, Leeds City. Over a century on from their formation, a club that makes a virtue out of its many ups and downs in its own anthem, has endured a turbulent existence of extraordinary, often mercurial, success tempered by crushing disappointment and conflict. This book is a roar of defiance against the recent period of mediocrity served up prior to the past few seasons of revival and, as well as providing vivid recollections of their greatest days, the three league championships, FA Cup, League Cup and floodlit memories of nights of European glory, it offers a broad sweep of the club's often neglected early history. The Biography of Leeds United includes the voices and thoughts of Johnny Giles, Eddie Gray, Scott Sellars, Gordon Strachan, David O'Leary and Gary Kelly and uses them to look deep into the soul of the club and at the spirit that resides with in it. A passionate manifesto that captures the essence of a club that has for the past five decades been in it's own story of great adventures, fleeting splendour, relegation and defiant, hard battles against authority, owners and self-sabotage, this rousing and comprehensive book is written for the supporters and echoes their passionate cry - We Are Leeds! When United mark their centenary in October 2019, vivid recollections of their greatest days, the three league championships, FA Cup, League Cup, and floodlit memories of nights of European glory will be celebrated throughout the vast fanbase, local and international, such triumphs promoted. Elland Road icons John Charles, Billy Bremner, Jack Charlton, Peter Lorimer, Norman Hunter, Eddie Gray, Tony Currie, John Sheridan, Gordan Strachan, David Batty, Eric Cantona, Gary Speed, and Lucas Radebe played for teams that were both revered and reviled, contributing to the club's fame throughout the world. Don Revie's team of the 60s and 70s, that immortal line-up that rolls off the tongue of generations of football fans, propelled the club and city to unprecedented heights. But when they reached the top, they failed to plan and there was nowhere to go but down. The theme of the past five decades has been the struggle to get back, a story of great adventures, fleeting splendour, relegation, and defiant, hard battles against authority, owners, and self-sabotage. So, here we go with Leeds United, a club adorned by hall of fame managers from Major Frank Buckley to Don Revie, Brian Clough, Jock Stein, George Graham, and Marcelo Bielsa, is also an institution that has perennially toiled to pay its own way and in recent years has suffered as a vehicle for the greater good of Peter Ridsdale, Kenneth Bates, Massimo Cellino and others. Yet it survives and now thrives because of the millions of people who love it. In The Biography of Leeds United, Telegraph journalist and lifelong fan Rob Bagchi writes the story of this famous club and chronicles a century of history that will educate, entertain and inform both old and new supporters. Packed with fresh stories about and from former players, managers, and the money men, as well as the fans, this book is an affectionate and insightful portrait of a football club like no other, 'Super Leeds'.

Harry Redknapp spent 15 years at AFC Bournemouth as a player, coach and manager, longer than at any other club in his colourful career in football. Despite this lengthy association, Redknapp's days at Dean Court have featured only fleetingly in his biographies to date. Now, with the co-operation of Harry himself, the tale of his rise from barely remembered player to the country's brightest young manager is told for the first time. Harry shot to fame when lowly Bournemouth dumped Manchester United out of the FA Cup, overcoming a backdrop of financial turmoil to guide the Cherries out of English football's third tier for the first time. He then bounced back from relegation and from almost losing his life to nurture his son, Jamie, from schoolboy sensation into one of Britain's most expensive teenage players. Featuring painstakingly researched archive material and interviews with team-mates, colleagues and friends, this is an inside account of Redknapp's years at Dean Court, as well as a history of two decades in the life of the Cherries.

The Jerry Sandusky child molestation case stunned the nation. As subsequent revelations uncovered an athletic program operating free of oversight, university officials faced criminal charges while unprecedented NCAA sanctions hammered Penn State football and blackened the reputation of coach Joe Paterno. In Wounded Lions, acclaimed sport historian and longtime Penn State professor Ronald A. Smith heavily draws from university archives to answer the How? and Why? at the heart of the scandal. The Sandusky case was far from the first example of illegal behavior related to the football program or the university's attempts to suppress news of it. As Smith shows, decades of infighting among administrators, alumni, trustees, faculty, and coaches established policies intended to protect the university, and the football team considered synonymous with its name, at all costs. If the habits predated Paterno, they also became sanctified during his tenure. Smith names names to show how abuses of power warped the "Penn State Way" even with hires like women's basketball coach Rene Portland, who allegedly practiced sexual bias against players for decades. Smith also details a system that concealed Sandusky's horrific acts just as deftly as it whitewashed years of rules violations, coaching malfeasance, and player crime while Paterno set records and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the university. A myth-shattering account of misplaced priorities, Wounded Lions charts the intertwined history of an elite university, its storied sports program, and the worst scandal in collegiate athletic history.

It was back in 1884 when a number of young footballers pledged nine pence each to buy a ball and formed Leicester Fosse FC. So began a fascinating story that brings us through to the modern Leicester City Football Club. It is a tale of continued excitement and occasional spectacular success but also battles to survive and give the Midlands city a team to be proud of. This book celebrates the unique history of a club where the one thing that has never been in short supply is the passion of its fans. We recall heroes from the 1920s like John Duncan and Arthur Chandler who both scored six goals in one game, and 1950s star Arthur Rowley whose 44 goals in a season remains a club record. There are tales of European adventures too in the 1960s, as well as during Martin O'Neill's more modern period of success. When Football was Football follows the highs and lows of nearly 130 years of drama, remembers the players, managers, and back room staff from laundry lady to first team coach, and most of all the thousands of Leicester fans who have shared the adventure.

Paul Lunney has been a devoted follower of Scottish football creating a vast archive of images and anecdotes. In this book he weaves a wonderful tapestry of imagery of players who have done so much for the club in its 124-year history. Celtic have won the Scottish League Championship on 43 occasions, most recently in the 2011-12 season, the Scottish Cup 35 times and the Scottish League Cup 14 times. In 1967 Celtic won an unprecedented quintuple: not only becoming the first British team to win the European Cup but also winning the Scottish League Championship, the Scottish Cup, the Scottish League Cup, and the Glasgow Cup. Celtic also reached the 1970 European Cup Final, and the 2003 UEFA Cup Final. This book encapsulates some of the glory by featuring star players down the ages.

They are the masters of deception, the jokers in the pack; illusionists conjuring wickets out of thin air with nothing more than an ambled approach and a wonky grip. Not for them the brutish physicality of the pace bowler nor the reactive slogging of the batsman. Theirs is a more cerebral art. They stand alone in a team sport. They are Twirlymen. Having himself failed through a combination of injury and indolence to become a leg-spinner of renown, Amol Rajan pays homage to that most eccentric of all sporting heroes - the spin bowler. On a journey through cricket history Rajan introduces us to the greatest purveyors of that craft, from W. G. Grace to Graeme Swann via Clarrie Grimmet's flipper, Muttiah Muralitharan's helicopter wrist, Shane Warne's ball-of-the-century and all the rest.