'We spent all our time surrounded by police cordons and barbed wire, never mind having our bus hijacked.' - Tommy Bedford, Springboks No. 8 2019 and 2020 mark the fiftieth anniversary of the controversial 1969/70 Springbok rugby tour of the British Isles - a landmark event on both a sporting and political level. Taking place during the time of South Africa's apartheid dispensation, the tour was characterised throughout by violent demonstrations against the 'ambassadors of apartheid'. Scenes of chanting demonstrators at the players' hotels and airports were not uncommon, nor was the sight of protesters being dragged off the field of play by police. Smoke bombs and flour bombs also became a match-day fixture. These were wild and unnerving times for the players on tour, whose movements were badly inhibited and who had to play hide-and-seek to avoid possible violence between games of rugby. During a demanding tour that lasted more than three months and took them to and fro between England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, they endeavoured to sustain a proud tradition of highly successful Springbok tours through the Isles. Through personal interviews with the players, including team captain Dawie de Villiers, vice-captain Tommy Bedford and other senior members of the squad, as well as key figures such as anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain, Rugby Behind Barbed Wire takes readers into the inner circle of a besieged group of sportsmen who just wanted to play rugby despite concerted efforts to deny them. The author also looks at the political context of events, and why so many felt that disrupting the tour was a matter of moral and political necessity.

**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.

***** Shortlisted for International Autobiography of the Year in the Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2021 'This account is often poetic and sometimes haunting.' - FourFourTwo Triple European Footballer of the Year. Once World Footballer of the Year. European Champion two UEFA Super Cups, European Champion with the Dutch National Team in 1988 and numerous national championships with both Ajax and AC Milan. Marco van Basten is known as one of the greatest footballers of all time, but his personal life has always remained somewhat of a mystery, until now. Basta is the raw, honest, but above all gripping autobiography of Marco van Basten. It's the unfiltered story of his rise to fame, from being under the wing of Cruyff and experiencing life as an Ajax player to being propelled into the spotlight following Euros '88 - and scoring the greatest goal ever to win a major final - and playing for AC Milan at the peak of Italian football's popularity. But despite countless successes, Marco van Basten experienced many low points, including losing a childhood friend, battling with pain after his numerous fluffed operations, and ultimately coming to terms with life after playing football. Basta is his story.

For fans of books by Jimmy Bullard, Paul Merson, The Sidemen and the F2 Freestylers Messi might be the most skilful, Ronaldo might have the best shot, but according to FIFA it's 16-stone Adebayo Akinfenwa who's the strongest footballer in the world. With a larger-than-life personality to match, it's no wonder 'The Beast' has become an icon, attracting millions of social media followers, launching his own clothing label, and still banging in the goals for Wycombe Wanderers. With such fame and adoration, it's easy to forget that Bayo is one of the hardest-working footballers around. His mental strength has had to be equal to his physical. Told by English clubs he was 'too big' to play football, he joined Lithuanian team FK Atlantas as a teenager where he faced widespread racial abuse. A career of grafting in the lower leagues of English and Welsh football followed, with spells at Barry Town, Torquay, Swansea, Gillingham, Northampton and AFC Wimbledon. Bayo's charisma and knack of scoring vital goals made him a fan favourite at each. His last ever kick for the Dons was a penalty at Wembley to help win the club promotion. 'I think I'm technically unemployed,' he told an interviewer after the final whistle. 'So any managers hit me up on the WhatsApp and get me a job!' Inspiring, entertaining and full of character, this is the story of how Akinfenwa became a true cult hero and the never-give-up attitude that made him the biggest footballer on the planet.

Fully updated to contain Sir Ian McGeechan's reflections on the 2017 Lions tour to New Zealand. 2017 saw the latest contest between the British Lions and New Zealand - the ultimate rugby clash between the northern and southern hemisphere. Ian McGeechan is the 'Ultimate Lion', and no one could have done more than McGeechan to promote the magic of the Lions. McGeechan played for the Lions in their unbeaten 1974 tour of South Africa, and again in the 1977 tour of New Zealand. Subsequently he has been the head coach on four Lions tours. In this unique and fascinating book which celebrates the immensity of rugby at the top level, Ian McGeechan uses his own coaching notes to provide his special insight and background into what it means to be a Lion. By looking at various themes such as selection, how to create the right environment and how to build the players into what he describes as 'Test-match animals' the reader learns how some of the most successful Lions tours in history were built. Writing always with passion for his various themes it is easy to see how he inspired his players to extraordinary physical endeavour. Rich in anecdote as well as facts, McGeechan brings to life many of the rugby legends with whom he played or coached - including Gareth Edwards, Gavin Hastings, Martin Johnson and Paul O'Connell amongst others. Hugely readable The Lions: When the Going Gets Tough splendidly conveys the massive excitement that is generated whenever there is a Lions tour.

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.  

The definitive account of Leicester City's astonishing rise from relegation certainties to Premier League title winners: the greatest achievement in the modern football era. King Power Stadium, countdown to kick off. Out on the pitch a lone brass player sounds the haunting Post Horn Gallop, for 80 years the home players' entrance tune. Spines tingle. Air is gulped into opposition lungs. Game time, time to begin the chase. Burning fox eyes peer down from between the decks of one of the stands. On the stadium's outside wall a royal blue LCD display says #Fearless. Welcome to Leicester City. They were always a club with a difference but in 2015-16 they created a story that in modern football stands unique. Who could believe it: from relegation certainties to champions of England? It was when, on behalf of every small club, dreams were hunted at the King Power, a season where the impossible became merely quarry. 5,000-1 shots when the campaign started, Leicester's transformation has been remarkable. This is the most incredible cast of written-offs, grafters, misfits and journeymen, coming together in a special time and place to simultaneously have the season of their lives. Fearless will document Leicester's hunt of their impossible dream. It will tell the greatest football tale of the Premier League era, in loving detail, with the inside track. Now Leicester have gone all the way and won the title, it's the best story in world sports - for years. Champions of the Premier League. The side who'd been adrift at the bottom 12 months previously, who's started the season as relegation favourites, whose manager was favourite to be the first one sacked once the campaign got underway. A League One side only seven seasons previously. A squad of GBP500,000 and GBP1m men. Leicester. Ridiculous. Miraculous. Fearless.

Bill Struth is the most celebrated Manager in the history of Rangers Football Club. In his 34 year tenure, he led the club to 30 major trophies and nurtured many of the club's greatest players. To them, he was simply 'Mr. Struth' - a father figure who guided them with the principle that, '... to be a Ranger is to sense the sacred trust of upholding all that such a name means in this shrine of football.' If these words set the ideals for his players to attain, his own personal life was clouded by moments of indiscretion which were to influence the course of his life and career. Drawing on family accounts and Rangers archives, the book explores his early life in Edinburgh and Fife, as well as his celebrated years in Glasgow. It recounts his career in professional athletics and in football with Heart of Midlothian, Clyde and ultimately, Rangers. It reflects on the legacy of the Struth era and his influences that remain at Ibrox today.

Colin Shindler first wrote of his deep love for Manchester City in Manchester United Ruined My Life. Now he tells the story of his sorrowful disenchantment with his home town club as, on the instruction of its new foreign owners, it turns itself remorselessly into a global brand. From the nail-biting victory over Gillingham 1999 to the equally dramatic winning of the Premier League in May 2012 Shindler watches as his team becomes more successful yet, to his own bewilderment, he feels increasingly alienated from the club. This is the story of a frustrated romantic who finds in the glitz and glamour of the current media-obsessed game a helter-skelter of artificially fabricated excitement. As he details how football courses through his veins, Shindler reveals how it intersects with his own life, a life that has been marked by family tragedy, and how he finally found personal redemption even as his team lost its soul.

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.

'Simply magnificent.' Mail on Sunday A massive audience in sitting-rooms, parks and pubs watched England in the 2018 World Cup. Yet as Duncan Hamilton demonstrates with style, insight and wit in Going to the Match, watching on TV is no substitute for being there. Hamilton embarks on a richly entertaining, exquisitely crafted journey through football. Glory game or grass roots, England v Slovenia or Guiseley v Hartlepool, he delves beneath the action to illuminate the stories which make the sport endlessly compelling. Along the way he marvels at present-day titans Harry Kane, Mo Salah, Kevin De Bruyne and Paul Pogba, reflects on sepia-tinted magicians Stanley Matthews, Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Charlton and Pele, and assesses managerial giants from Brian Clough and Jose Mourinho to Arsene Wenger and Gareth Southgate. The odyssey takes Hamilton from Fleetwood to Berlin, via Glasgow and a Manchester derby, making detours into art, cinema, literature and politics as he explores the game's ever-changing culture and character. The result, like the L.S. Lowry painting that inspired the book, is a football masterpiece.

'A masterful work...it could be the best thing to have happened to English football in years' TIME OUT '[A] thought-provoking reappraisal of ten key games in England's football history ... this book should be required reading for all future England squads' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY Having invented the game, everything that has followed for England and its national football team has been something of an anticlimax. There was, of course, the golden summer of 1966, and the great period of English dominance on the world stage, which fell roughly between 1886 and 1900, when England won 35 of their 40 internationals ... But before long foreign teams, with their insistence on progressive 'tactics', began to pose a few questions. And much of what followed for England constituted a series of false dawns. In THE ANATOMY OF ENGLAND Jonathan Wilson seeks to place the bright spots in context. Time and again, progressive coaches have been spurned by England - technique being all very well, but what really matters is pluck and 'organised muscularity', or, to quote Jimmy Hogan's chairman at Aston Villa in 1936: 'I've no time for these theories about football. Just get the ball in the bloody net.' Wilson takes ten key England fixtures and explores how what actually happened on the pitch shaped the future of the English game. Bursting with insight and critical detail, yet imbued with a wry affection, this is a history of England like none before.

'An excellent read' - Rugby World Rob Andrew is one of the key figures in modern rugby history: an outstanding international who won three Grand Slams with England and toured twice with the British and Irish Lions, he also played a central role in the game's professional revolution with his trailblazing work at Newcastle. During a long spell on Tyneside, he led the team to a Premiership title at the first opportunity, brought European action to the north-east and gave the young Jonny Wilkinson his break in big-time union by fast-tracking him into the side straight out of school. What happened off the field was equally eventful. Rob produced 'The Andrew Report' - the most radical of blueprints for the future of English rugby - and then, over the course of a decade as one of Twickenham's top administrators, found himself grappling with the extreme challenges of running a game repeatedly blown off course by the winds of change. He did not merely have a ringside seat as one of the world's major sports went through its greatest upheaval in a century: more often than not, he was in the ring itself.

'Isn't it lovely to have moments in your life where you think, oh, nothing can beat that. Nothing.' George Graham Anfield, May 26th 1989. The final day of the Division One season. An iconic underdog story. Set against the backdrop of Hillsborough disaster, and during an emotional era in football long before the Premier League as we now know it, 89 is an oral history of a sporting moment so unusual it felt instantly historic. Drawing on years of research, writer Amy Lawrence brings together fascinating and never-before seen testimony from the voices who were there, on the pitch, off it, and beyond. 89 creates a definitive and kaleidoscopic portrait of a match that changed English football forever. 'Once it hits the net I'm just thinking ecstasy really. It's incredible. I've done what I wanted to do. That's that feeling. I've done it.' Michael Thomas

'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.

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.

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.

"This book is a guide for life written by two people that I respect and revere. Together, Kate and Helen are the ultimate team. Now they are sharing the lessons they have learned for the benefit of all of us." From the foreword by CLARE BALDING THE INSIDE STORY OF WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS In Winning Together, Helen and Kate Richardson-Walsh, share powerful lessons from the Great Britain women's hockey team journey to gold in Rio 2016. They show how to create a winning culture in any environment, in any industry, so that you and your teammates can thrive. Drawing on their vast experience both in and out of sport, double Olympic medalists Helen and Kate, tell the incredible, behind-the-scenes story of how a team from the lower rankings forced its way to the top. They bring you into their team huddle to reflect and work through exercises to help improve your performance. Using their individual and collective stories they demonstrate that successful teams are made up of people who are valued as human beings and supported to individually flourish. Covering connection, care, awareness, empowerment, alignment, the power of difference and much more, Winning Together gives you the tools to be the very best version of yourself, and to build better teams. "Powerful ... Essential reading for anyone that's part of a team." MATTHEW SYED, bestselling author of REBEL IDEAS and YOU ARE AWESOME

An excellent recap, with wonderful access and forensic detail on the Premier League's rise to global alpha status... All told with an arch sense of humour The Guardian How did English football - once known for its stale pies, bad book-keeping and hooligans - become a commercial powerhouse and the world's premium popular entertainment? This was a business empire built in only twenty-five years on ambition, experimentation and gambler's luck. Lead by a motley cast of executives, Russian oligarchs, Arab Sheikhs, Asian Titans, American Tycoons, battle-hardened managers, ruthless agents and the Murdoch media - the Premier League has been carved up, rebranded and exported to phenomenal 185 countries. The United Nations only recognizes 193. But the extraordinary profit of bringing England's ageing industrial towns to a compulsive global attention has come at a cost. Today, as players are sold for hundreds of millions and clubs are valued in the billions, local fans are being priced out - and the clubs' local identities are fading. The Premier League has become the classic business fable for our globalised world. Drawing on dozens of exclusive and revelatory interviews from the Boardrooms - including Liverpool's John W. Henry, Tottenham's Daniel Levy, Martin Edwards and David Gill at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger and Stan Kroenke at Arsenal, Manchester City's sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and executives at Chelsea, West Ham, Leicester City and Aston Villa - this is the definitive bustand boom account of how the Premier League product took over the world.

In his entertaining and informative new book, Sir Clive Woodward analyses the events of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, offering his unique perspective on the performance of players and coaches, from Owen Farrell and Kieran Read, to Eddie Jones and Steve Hansen. HOW TO WIN:Rugby and Leadership from Twickenham to Tokyo is much more than the story of a tournament, however. It is the distillation of a philosophy of leadership developed during a lifetime in high-performance environments, from the rugby field to the boardroom. Tapping into his experience of winning the 2003 World Cup, being a part of the leadership team that delivered Olympic Success in 2012 and lessons drawn from Japan 2019, the author delivers a go-to manual in how to improve both individual and team performance in order to reach the pinnacle in sport and in business. Every individual position in rugby requires a unique set of skills, knowledge and expertise that collectively form a balanced team; the same is true in any successful business or organisation. From 1 to 15, the former England and British and Irish Lions coach identifies the key attributes and uses these defining traits to explain his collaborative 'Teamship' leadership style. With a fascinating blend of analysis, insight and anecdote, and the highs and lows of a memorable Rugby World Cup as the setting, Clive reveals how to lead the culture of a winning team - in any context.

An inspiring memoir by England netball star and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Geva Mentor. **Includes an exclusive 15% discount code for Gilbert Netball** Geva Mentor is the best netballer in the world. In her honest, open and inspiring autobiography, Leap, she sheds light on her journey to the top. As a child Geva was a naturally gifted athlete, standing out at 5'10" at the age of twelve. She began life as a champion trampolinist, but when she outgrew the sport, literally, she found she had to try something new. This led her to basketball, but the boys on the other teams complained - she was just too good. Making up the numbers for an impromptu netball match one day at the age of thirteen she found her home in netball - or rather it found her. From here, Geva's rise amongst the ranks of British netball was stratospheric, she was playing for the England senior team when she was just fifteen years old. Taking risks and forging the way for other athletes Geva moved to Australia to develop her game by playing in the best league in the world and eventually winning Commonwealth gold with the England Roses. However, it's not all been easy, both on and off the court, and Geva talks honestly about her personal life, and how the difficulties and failures of her teams, both international and domestic, have driven her on to achieve the highest possible success in the sport.

Ever wondered what it's REALLY like to be a Premier League footballer? My name is James Milner and I'm not a Ribena-holic. Let me share insights into what it's like being a professional footballer, across my different experiences with Newcastle, Aston Villa, Manchester City and now Liverpool (not forgetting a six-match loan spell at Swindon). Plus my highs - and a few too many lows - playing for England. There isn't a current player who's been playing Premier League football as long as I have, and that gives me a pretty rare perspective into how the top-flight game has changed over the past seventeen years. In this book, I explain how a footballer's working week unfolds - what we eat and how we prepare for matches technically, tactically, mentally and physically - and talk you through the ups and downs of a matchday. I reveal my penalty-taking techniques, half-time team talks and the differences between playing against Lionel Messi, Wilfried Zaha and Jimmy Bullard. I've played for managers ranging from Terry Venables, Peter Reid and Sir Bobby Robson to Martin O'Neill, Fabio Capello and Jurgen Klopp. I tell you what it's like sharing a training ground and a dressing-room with team-mates such as Lee Bowyer, Mario Balotelli and Mo Salah. I also reveal the behind-the-scenes work that went into Liverpool's Champions League success - and the celebrations that followed. So this isn't an autobiography. The whole point of Ask A Footballer is that you, the fans, asked me questions and I have used my own experiences to answer them. I hope you like it, and don't find it too boring.

The Little Book of England Football is the latest volume in this highly successful series of sports-themed quotes books. It is dedicated to all things wide and wonderful about the Three Lions, focusing on the words of wit and wisdom from former players, such as Bobby Moore, Gazza and Gary Lineker, to the key men in today's set-up including manager Gareth Southgate and captain Harry Kane. Ingerlund! Ingerlund! Ingerlund!

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.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . then you're probably not a football fan. Years of underachievement. An heroic sense of injustice. A seemingly infinite capacity for self-destruction. John Crace and Spurs were made for each other. But then the team started to play like possible champions. For most fans, these are the glory moments they dream about. For Crace they just opened a new dimension of anxiety: the fear of success. Crace has supported Spurs for 40 years. His wife thinks he suffers from a psychiatric disorder, but fandom is not only one of the ways he negotiates his relationships, it also helps him make some sense of his life. Vertigo is the story of why fandom that starts out in boyish hope always ends in dark comedy.