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England. 1966. The World Cup. Duncan Hamilton watched England beat
West Germany as an eight-year-old boy in the company of his father
and grandfather. He recalls 'Wembley, spread out in the sun; the
waving flags; the delirious, joy-of-all-joys moment of the final
whistle; the trophy sparkling in the late afternoon light'. But,
seeing the whole game again during the misery of the first Covid
lockdown, finally made him realise what Alf Ramsey and his players
had no inkling of, which was what came next for them. How, for many
of those boys of summer, almost everything after that shimmering
moment amounted to an anti-climax or a setback. How '66 was not a
beginning, a guaranteed path towards more success, but a slow
decline and fall, and also a disproportionate number of
disappointments. And how the triumph of '66 was dulled through
constant repetition, the same images always flashed before us.
Hamilton recognised, too, how many myths and misconceptions had
grown around the match. He decided to revisit '66, tracing the very
roots of a story - as well as the hidden figures within it - that
really began during the era of post-War austerity. Answered Prayers
provides, at last, a full account of English football's greatest
achievement and the failures that followed it. We see the
institutional inability to appreciate Ramsey and his players, who
were taken for granted; the political machinations of the blazered
fools who ran the Football Association; the short-sighted
blunderers of the Football League. With his matchless insight and
descriptive power, Hamilton tells history afresh and shows us, for
the first time, the scale of what was won and what was lost. PRAISE
FOR DUNCAN HAMILTON 'Hamilton has a perceptively humane
understanding of men for whom football was never just a game'
Guardian 'A marriage of prose and detail so fine and fastidious
that it takes the breath away' Independent 'Justifiably
prize-winning' Mail on Sunday
'One day you'll write a book about this club. Or, more to the
point, about me. So you may as well know what I'm thinking and save
it up for later when it won't do any harm to anyone.' Brian
Clough's twenty years as Nottingham Forest manager were an
unpredictable mixture of success, failure, fall-outs and
alcoholism. Duncan Hamilton, initiated as a young journalist into
the Brian Clough empire, was there to see it all. In this
strikingly intimate biography - William Hill Sports Book of the
Year 2007 - Hamilton paints a vivid portrait of one of football's
greatest managers: from Nottingham Forest's double European Cup
triumph to the torturous breakdown of relations at the club and
Clough's descent into alcoholism. Sad, joyous and personal,
Hamilton's account of life with Brian Clough is a touching tribute
to a brilliant man.
WINNER OF THE WISDEN BOOK OF THE YEAR As a young boy of eight,
Jonny Bairstow was dealt a cruel blow. His father David 'Bluey'
Bairstow, the combative and very popular wicketkeeper and captain
of Yorkshire, took his own life at the age of forty-six. David left
behind Jonny, Jonny's sister Becky and half-brother Andy, and his
wife Janet, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer at the time
of his death. From these incredibly tough circumstances, Jonny and
his family strived to find an even keel and come to terms with the
loss of their father and husband. Jonny found his way through his
dedication to sport. He was a gifted and natural athlete, with
potential careers ahead of him in rugby and football, but he
eventually chose cricket and came to build a career that followed
in his father's footsteps, eventually reaching the pinnacle of the
sport and breaking the record for most Test runs in a year by a
wicketkeeper. Written with multiple-award-winning writer Duncan
Hamilton, this is an incredible story of triumph over adversity and
a memoir with far-reaching lessons about determination and the will
to overcome.
Combining reportage, anecdote, biography, history and personal
recollection, A Last English Summer is an honest and passionate
reflection on cricket's past, present and future. A memorable and
acutely observed portrait of one summer of cricket from an
award-winning sports writer who has watched - and loved - cricket
since he was a boy, it is essential reading for anyone who cares
about the English game. In 2009 the county system looked
directionless and obsolete; more than ever the players blessed with
central contracts seemed apart from, rather than a part of, the
domestic game; the Ashes series was for the first time only
available on pay-TV; and, of course, the juggernaut of Twenty20
threatened to flatten all but the Test form of the game, suggesting
it may soon eclipse even that as well. Duncan Hamilton has
preserved this seminal, convulsing season, which in years to come
may be seen as a turning point in the history of cricket in a way
that overshadows even the Packer Revolution of the 1970s. In the
process he embarks on a journey - often a deeply personal one -
through the history and spirit of the game. He experiences
irresistible nostalgia for what has been and will never return,
together with an overwhelming love for the game that transcends
even the most dramatic shifts in the way it is played.
'One of the best football books I've ever read.' John Motson on
Provided You Don't Kiss Me 'Some people believe football is a
matter of life and death. I am very disappointed by that attitude.
I can assure you it's much more important than that' - Bill Shankly
What Shankly said isn't even half-true. In fact, it's bollocks.
Football isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. If nothing
else, I know that much. As a player, Thom Callaghan was defined by
the winning goal he scored in an FA Cup final. The goal wasn't the
blessing he imagined it would be. His whole career was defined by
that brief moment of glory. With his playing days over, Callaghan,
still a local hero, is tempted back to his old club as caretaker
manager. His task to rescue it from relegation. He's got the job
solely on the recommendation of his former boss and mentor Frank
Mallory, now desperately ill and responsible for the team's
precipitous decline. Callaghan is pitched into the Premier League
during the last months of the 1996-1997 season, where - among
reputations more gilded than his own - he finds himself pitted
against the likes of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, chasing
their fourth title in five years, and also one of the newest
recruits to the English game, Arsene Wenger. Can Callaghan save his
club from what seems the inevitability of the drop? Does Mallory -
eccentric, inspirational and manipulative - even want him to
succeed? What if the prize of a personal triumph isn't worth it in
the end? Injury Time is the first novel from the multiple
award-winning sportswriter Duncan Hamilton.
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Immortal (Paperback)
Duncan Hamilton
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The two time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year
Award on George Best, considered the greatest footballer of our
time. No other imposed himself so completely on to the romantic
imagination. No other was so emblematic of the era during which he
flourished. And no other will ever be as memorable as George Best.
On the field Best's skills were sublime and almost other-worldly.
Off it, he had a magnetic appeal. He was treated like a pop icon
and a pin-up; a fashion-model and a sex-symbol. Every man envied
him and every woman adored him. To mark the 50th anniversary of his
debut for Manchester United, Duncan Hamilton examines Best's
crowded life and premature death. But most importantly, Hamilton
presents Best at his glorious peak - the precocious goals, the
labyrinthine runs, the poise and balletic balance and the body
swerves. This is George Best: footballing immortal.
'One of the best football books I've ever read.' John Motson on
Provided You Don't Kiss Me 'Some people believe football is a
matter of life and death. I am very disappointed by that attitude.
I can assure you it's much more important than that' - Bill Shankly
What Shankly said isn't even half-true. In fact, it's bollocks.
Football isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. If nothing
else, I know that much. As a player, Thom Callaghan was defined by
the winning goal he scored in an FA Cup final. The goal wasn't the
blessing he imagined it would be. His whole career was defined by
that brief moment of glory. With his playing days over, Callaghan,
still a local hero, is tempted back to his old club as caretaker
manager. His task to rescue it from relegation. He's got the job
solely on the recommendation of his former boss and mentor Frank
Mallory, now desperately ill and responsible for the team's
precipitous decline. Callaghan is pitched into the Premier League
during the last months of the 1996-1997 season, where - among
reputations more gilded than his own - he finds himself pitted
against the likes of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, chasing
their fourth title in five years, and also one of the newest
recruits to the English game, Arsene Wenger. Can Callaghan save his
club from what seems the inevitability of the drop? Does Mallory -
eccentric, inspirational and manipulative - even want him to
succeed? What if the prize of a personal triumph isn't worth it in
the end? Injury Time is the first novel from the multiple
award-winning sportswriter Duncan Hamilton.
'Eric Liddell deserves a definitive biography. This is it.' Sunday
Times, Books of the Year Faster. Higher. Stronger. No one has
embodied the ideals of the Olympic movement quite like Eric
Liddell, star of the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. After
refusing to compete on religious principle in the event in which he
was favourite, the 100 metres, at the 1924 Games in Paris, Liddell
won an astonishing gold medal in the 400 metres. But instead of
pursuing a path of global fame and fortune, he chose to follow his
calling as a missionary in the country of his birth, China, a land
which then fell under the iron grip of a brutal Japanese army.
Liddell became the inspirational leader of the work camp in which
he, like many thousands, was interned, and For the Glory is the
full story of his life, of his family, of his fellow prisoners and
the terrible hardships and atrocities they experienced in the Far
East. This is the tale of a sporting icon, a man of honour and
principle who paid the ultimate sacrifice while becoming the moral
centre of an otherwise unbearable world.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND WINNER OF THE 2019 WILLIAM HILL
SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR Duncan Hamilton is already a multiple
award-winning sports writer, but it is hard to imagine he will
write a better book than this superb, elegiac portrait of the
sociable, feted, but ultimately unknowable, man who virtually
invented modern sports writing...This is writing every bit the
equal of Cardus himself. - Daily Mail 'Hamilton is a worthy
biographer... as much sublime writing comes from his keyboard as
from Cardus's pen.' The Times 'With its verve, insight and
generosity of sympathy, this is by some way the best full-length
life of a cricket writer, perhaps even of any sports writer.'
Guardian Neville Cardus described how one majestic stroke-maker
'made music' and 'spread beauty' with his bat. Between two world
wars, he became the laureate of cricket by doing the same with
words. In The Great Romantic, award-winning author Duncan Hamilton
demonstrates how Cardus changed sports journalism for ever. While
popularising cricket - while appealing, in Cardus' words to people
who 'didn't know a leg-break from the pavilion cat at Lord's'- he
became a star in his own right with exquisite phrase-making,
disdain for statistics and a penchant for literary and musical
allusions. Among those who venerated Cardus were PG Wodehouse, John
Arlott, Harold Pinter, JB Priestley and Don Bradman. However,
behind the rhapsody in blue skies, green grass and colourful
characters, this richly evocative biography finds that Cardus'
mother was a prostitute, he never knew his father and he received
negligible education. Infatuations with younger women ran parallel
to a decidedly unromantic marriage. And, astonishingly, the supreme
stylist's aversion to factual accuracy led to his reporting on
matches he never attended. Yet Cardus also belied his impoverished
origins to prosper in a second class-conscious profession, becoming
a music critic of international renown. The Great Romantic uncovers
the dark enigma within a golden age.
Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, this is the
first ever biography of Harold Larwood. Larwood, one of the most
talented, accurate and intimidating fast bowlers of all time is
mainly remembered for his role in the infamous Bodyline series of
1932-3 which brought Anglo-Australian diplomatic relations to the
brink of collapse. Larwood was made the scapegoat - and despite the
fact he was simply following his captain's instructions, he never
played cricket for England again. Devastated by this betrayal, he
eventually emigrated to Australia, where he was accepted by the
country that had once despised him. Acclaimed author Duncan
Hamilton has gained unprecedented access to the late sportsman's
family and archives to tell the story of a true working-class hero
and cricketing legend.
*A MULTIPLE AWARD-WINNING SPORTS WRITER* 'Hamilton's book is a
marvel . . . I'm not sure he could write a dull sentence if he
tried' Spectator One of Duncan Hamilton's favourite writers on
cricket, Edmund Blunden, wrote how he felt going to watch a game:
'You arrive early, earlier even than you meant . . . and you feel a
little guilty at the thought of the day you propose to give up to
sheer luxury'. Following Neville Cardus's assertion that 'there can
be no summer in this land without cricket', Hamilton plotted the
games he would see in 2019 and write down reflectively on some of
the cricket that blessed his own sight. It would be captured in the
context of the coming season in case subsequent summers and the
imminent arrival of The Hundred made that impossible. He would
write in the belief that after this season the game might never be
quite the same again. He visits Welbeck Colliery Cricket Club to
see Nottinghamshire play Hampshire at the tiny ground of Sookholme,
gifted to the club by a local philanthropist who takes money on the
gate; his village team at Menston in Yorkshire; the county ground
at Hove; watches Ben Stokes's heroics at Headingley, marvels at
Jofra Archer's gift of speed in a Second XI fixture for Sussex
against Gloucestershire in front of 74 people and three
well-behaved dogs; and realises when he reaches the last afternoon
of the final county match of the season at Taunton, 'How blessed I
am to have been born here. How I never want to live anywhere else.
How much I love cricket.' One Long and Beautiful Summer forms a
companion volume to Hamilton's 2009 classic, A Last English Summer.
It is sports writing at its most accomplished and evocative,
confirming his reputation as the finest contemporary chronicler of
the game.
'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.
Combining reportage, anecdote, biography, history, and personal
recollection, "A Last English Summer" is an honest and passionate
reflection on cricket's past, present, and future. In 2009 the
county system looked directionless and obsolete; more than ever,
the players blessed with central contracts seemed separate from,
rather than a part of, the domestic game. The home Ashes series was
for the first time only available on cable TV and, of course, the
juggernaut of Twenty20 threatened to flatten all but the Test form
of the game, suggesting it may soon eclipse even that as well.
Duncan Hamilton has preserved this seminal, convulsing season,
which in years to come may be seen as a turning point in the
history of cricket. In the process he embarks on a journey--often a
deeply personal one--through the history and spirit of the game.
Yorkshire County Cricket Club is by far the most successful county
cricket club in history. Since the County Championship was
constituted in 1890, Yorkshire has, in addition to one shared
Championship, won it outright on 30 occasions and Yorkshire cricket
supporters take great pride in the county's cricketing history. As
well as the club's successes, there have been 42 Yorkshire players
chosen as Wisden Cricketers of the Year. Many have been world-class
cricketers such as Wilfred Rhodes, Len Hutton, Fred Trueman and
Geoffrey Boycott, with distinguished England careers. Many
thousands of Wisden pages have been filled with Yorkshire cricket,
Yorkshire cricketers and Tests in Yorkshire. Wisden on Yorkshire is
a fascinating journey mixing great matches, personalities, feats,
controversies and unusual occurrences. Presenting the best
Yorkshire info from the Almanack archives, Wisden on Yorkshire
includes: Focus on the iconic Yorkshire players, such as Truman and
Boycott Cricketers of the Year and Obituaries The County's history,
highlighting significant years and extracts from reviews of those
years Fascinating stories of both the highs and lows in the club's
history colour plate section containing superb classic images
Detailed records, match reports and scorecards
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