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[[Category:New Reviews|Sport]]{{adsense2}}__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John D BarrowHurst_Norfolk|title=Mathletics|rating=3.5|genre=Sport|summary=As a sports fan and a maths teacher, I was thrilled to get the chance to read a book which claims to give us 'surprising and enlightening insights into the world of sports'. This is rather a frustrating read because it seems to have got the balance wrong in many cases. There are some chapters which are so short as to be barely worth reading – one merely points out that while humans can’t run as fast as cheetahs or perform gymnastics as amazing as that of a monkey, we’re better all-rounders than any other animal. This is true, but hardly seems worth wasting a page on, it’s so obvious. Then there are other chapters, like the interesting one detailing the points scoring system in the decathlon, which are good but could have been much better given more space. The decathlon one is a prime example of this – it’s five pages, so one of the book’s longer sections, but could surely have been excellent if it had gone into more detail. I can’t help thinking that dropping half of the sections and doubling the other half in length might have been the way to go here.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584239</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewOn My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks|author=Gavin Mortimer|title=A History of Cricket in 100 ObjectsJohn Hurst

|genre=SportArt|summary=[[A History of Football in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer|A History of Football in 100 Objects]] It was pure serendipity: after a brave attemptfive-hour drive, we were, but annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was slightly let down by being an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a little too clinical. Being a game imbued with passion, the book lacked this which took some display of the edge off itmost gorgeous pictures. CricketI'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, whilst inspiring passion amongst devotees, has a slightly more laid back following; one but thought that may work better in this format. That said, being I would have to make do with a game that has been played for five centuries, narrowing couple of greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for football.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689406</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen RocheIgnotofsky_Sport|title=Born Women in Sport: Fifty Fearless Athletes Who Played to Ride: The Autobiography of Stephen RocheWin|author=Rachel Ignotofsky|rating=45|genre=SportChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=With all the revelations about the systemised doping culture surrounding Lance Armstrong's team 'Women in the 1990s, it was interesting Sport'' is coming to read a story of a time us just before cycling was embroiled the Winter Olympics in South Korea in one drugs scandal after anotherFebruary 2018. Although perhaps not It celebrates a century and a half of the development of women's sport by looking at fifty of its highest achievers, covering sports as memorable diverse as Armstrong's careerswimming, fencing, Stephen Roche's will hold a place in cycling history for 1987riding, when he became only the second man to win the Tour de Franceskating, the Giro D'Italia and the World Championships in the same seasonmuch more. A quarter Think of a century after that remarkable feat, Roche has produced his autobiography, ''Born to Ride''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091905</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gavin Mortimer|title=A History of Football in 100 Objects|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=Given how long it's been played sport and how many books have been written about a pioneering woman succeeding at it, any new history of football needs to have some kind of hook to make it stand out. Gavin Mortimer may have found that, by presenting his history as ''A History of Football is probably in 100 Objects''this book somewhere. This prompts the question as to whether the whole of football could be reduced down to Each entry is a double-page spread with a mere century of objects. But then, if [[From 0 to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring]] can make brief biography and a history of maths worth reading, I guess anything is possiblestriking portrait.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250618</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin KelnerBurrell_12|title=Sit Down Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Cheer: A History Recollections of Sport on TV, Setting Twelve Verified World Records|author=Stuart Burrell

|summary=Like many English sports fansThe first of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, the majority of the calories I burn are used up first two, actually, as he's not a man to do things by halves, came about by shouting at accident. There had been a plan to raise some money for the TV Children in Need Charity and occasionally going quite late on the people who were to have been the shops for more beer main attraction got a better offer and crispsBurrell is not a man to let people down. Sports books tend to What could be about the sport itself or biographies of those who expended great effort done to reach the top of their chosen sport. But bring people in Martin Kelner's 'Sit Down and Cheer: A History raise some money? Most of us would have thought of Sport on TV'jumble sales and cake bakes, there is finally but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea of a book sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002, he went for the less energetic among usFastest Handcuff Escape world record and immediately afterwards Most Handcuffs Escaped in One Hour. Both were successful and more than £300 was raised for Children in Need.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140812923X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clare BaldingLandreth_Swell|title=My Animals and Other FamilySwell |author=Jenny Landreth

|summary=Nothing divides opinion quite like football I love Jenny's own description of her book as a waterbiography and no-one expresses their joy and disappointment like football fansI love her encouragement that we should each write our own. For many fans, the most important matches This is more than just (I say ''just''!) a recollection of their entire season are the ones against their local rivalsauthor's own encounters with water; it's also a history of women's fight for the derby matchesright to swim. English football has That sounds absurd until you start reading about it, then it becomes serious. Not too serious though – because Jenny Landreth is clearly a lover of the absurd. Not a number lover of thesebook blurbs myself, but only the matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid I do always seek to give a shout-out to those who get it dead right: in Spain have elevated themselves above mere derby status and earned their own name: this case, I'm definitely with Alexandra Heminsley'El Clásicos '' – giggles-on-the Classic-commute funny''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408158795</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=The Secret FootballerOakeshott_Derby|title=I Am The Secret FootballerA Guide to the Classics: Lifting The Lid On The Beautiful GameOr How to Pick the Derby Winner|author=Guy Griffith and Michael Oakeshott|rating=4.5

|summary=In It's not often that you get a glimpse into the 2012 Olympic Games personal, youthful interests of one of the UK delighted in the skills shown by our athletes. We were - naturally - pleased by greatest Conservative philosophers of the medalstwentieth century, but what impressed was ''A Guide to the training and dedication of people who were frequently fitting what they did around Classics'' co-authored by Michael Oakeshott is a light-hearted look at how to pick the day job or studyDerby winner. For the most part they weren't reaping much Originally written in the way of financial rewards from what they did - but they shone1936 it is, amazingly, as relevant today as it was then. The exceptions were In fact, the footballers. I forget (techniques and that might well be Freudian) ''exactly'' who beat us, but I doubt that there are many people pleased analysis employed by the show they made. It's now the beginning authors were way ahead of the Premier League season their time and ''I Am the Secret Footballer'' has arrived at the perfect momenthave only come into general use relatively recently.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852653085</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Tyers and BeachGibbons_Game|title=I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League WisdomBeautiful Game|author=Alan Gibbons

|summary=You remember Ronnie Matthews, don't you? He's Football is all about its colours. And even if I write in the footballer who celebrated his season when one – and so farteam in blue knocks another team in blue from the throne of English football, only – international match by booing his way through the Faroe Islandsit' national anthem, then getting a s common knowledge that red card for chatting up is the lineswoman. He still thinks he contributed well more successful colour to a vital friendly, howeverwear. He's But is that flame red? Blood red? The red of the player whose career Sun cover banner when it falsely declared 96 Liverpool FC fans were fatally caught up in piddling his way through continuously lesser a tragedy – and lesser clubs for far too long has only that it had been matched in the recent game by Steve Claridge. one of their own making? And still hewhile we's bucking re on about colour, where were the trend – he's people of colour in football in the only author smart enough olden days? There are so many darker sides to realise that four-hundred page, ghost-written biogs are unnecessary, for hefootball's crammed all his life, career, philosophy and response to Twitter into an hourhistory it's read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832763</amazonuk>enough to make a young lad question the whole game…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Leo McKinstryAskwith_Today|title=Jack HobbsToday We Die a Little: England's Greatest CricketerEmil Zatopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War Hero|author=Richard Askwith|rating=54

|summary=Back in the early 1920sAs a runner myself, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South AfricaI often look for sources of inspiration. In the summer of 2012Training is rewarding, both nations have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one but every so often a day cricket and South Africa about to start a test series to determine the best Test nation in the worldcomes along when I question whether it is all worth it or not. Given Zatopek proves that history is repeating itself, indeed, all worth it seems appropriate that a new biography . He put copious amounts of Jack Hobbseffort into his training, England's greatest run scorer and the number of races he won over his career as a man who repeatedly blunted professional athlete clearly shows the bowling attacks results of both nations, should become available nowit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Beth RaymerPavey_Mum|title=Lay the Favourite: A True Story about Playing to Win in the Gambling Underworld|rating=4.5|genre=Autobiography|summary=It was a dream which brought Beth Raymer to Las Vegas, but the reality was that she ended up waiting tables in a low-end diner and living in a distinctly unsavoury motel. A chance meeting brought her into contact with Dink, the self-styled king of the city's sports betting and she moved into what was very much a man's world - of high-stakes gambling and a lot of people you wouldn't necessarily want your daughter to know. This is the story of how Beth learned the trade and moved into the world of the big money where gambling regulations don't apply. Being sharp was what it was all about.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555395</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMum Runs|author=Paul Watson|title=Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to gloryJo Pavey

|summary=I'm am something of a huge fan self-confessed running addict: I think nothing of both football hitting the roads for 50 miles a week, and readingspend much of my time searching for races to run all over the country. That is, until I wound up with a persistent sports injury, so hung up my running shoes for nearly a book about football is always likely to appeal year, and switched the road to me as the best way of combining pool. At the two. Recently, time I've read books set at thought nothing could alleviate the pinnacle misery of the game in [[Life with Sir Alex: A Fannot being able to run; but now I wish I had had Jo Pavey's Story of Fergusonautobiography, 's 25 Years at Manchester United by Will Tidey]] and about one man's struggle to bring football to a foreign land in [[Bamboo Goalposts by Rowan Simons]]. This Mum Runs''Up'' ''Pohnpei'' is firmly , to keep me company because the elite athlete’s account of the Olympics, injury, family, and life, in the latter categorygeneral, treading very similar ground to Simons' bookfalls nothing short of inspirational.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668501X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Will TideyLee_Lean|title=Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester UnitedLean Gains|author=Jonathan S Lee

|summary=In his 25 years as manager of Manchester United Football Club, Sir Alex Ferguson has won everything, most of them more than onceI don't often begin a book by telling you what it ''isn't'' but in this case I think it's important. HeIf you's taken his team re a fairly sedentary person or a casual sportsman or woman looking to shed a few pounds then you won't get the top best out of English football with this book. You'll find some lavish purchases, some expert man management and good advice about diet but I'm afraid that much of it is going to go over your head. Of course you could always take up a ruthless dedication to his club and his playerssport seriously... Depending which side of On the fence other hand, if you sit on, this has made him either ''are'' a serious sportsman then you could find that the most popular, or most hated, man advice in English football. I'm in 'Lean Gains'' could lift you up to the latter group. I'm a Liverpool fannext level of performance.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408149516</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark KreidlerLong_Mock|title=The Voodoo Wave - Inside a Season of Triumph and Tumult at Maverick'sMock Olympian|author=Michael Long

|summary=MaverickIt started with an idle conversation just before the 2012 London Olympics: Michael Long's is one friend Sarah gave him a book as part of his birthday present. It was Time Out's guide to the biggest, nastiest, jaw droppingly huge waves in history of the Pacific Ocean Olympics and as such has become something it covered each of a Mecca for the worldsummer Olympics in chronological order from the inaugural games in Athens in 1896. Sarah's top surfers. Situated off boyfriend James commented that with all the coast running Michael did, he'd probably have run in most of Northern California its freezing cold conditions make it the Olympic cities. Although Long had done a far cry from the sun drenched breaks in Hawaiigoodly number of runs, Mexico bike rides and South Africa with triathlons he'd only competed in two of the number twenty-three cities - London and Athens. Now most of surfers adequately qualified (us would have left it at that, but that's not the Michael Long you're going to come to know and love. He saw it as a challenge and fearless enough) to take on the cliff like drops probably numbering less than 100what's more, he blogged about it and then wrote this book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393065359</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian RidleyRoberts_Home|title=There's A Golden Sky: How 20 years of the Premier League has changed football forever|rating=5|genre=Sport|summary=Twenty years ago the Premier League was founded, changing English football irreversibly. Also 20 years ago, journalist Ian Ridley wrote the classic ''Season In The Cold'', a snapshot of the game at the time. Since then, clubs have risen Home and fallen, players have become legends, and Ridley himself has become chairman of not one but two non-league clubs – first Weymouth, from 2003-2004 (and again briefly in 2009) and more recently St Albans City. In this stunning follow-up to Season In The Cold, Ridley explore the effect that the changes in the sport have had at all levels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408130408</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAway|author=David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton|title=How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros – an instant initiation to every sportDave Roberts

|summary=Are For most football fans, non-league clubs (that is, teams who play outside the top four divisions of English football) are like a distant relative fallen on hard times; you planning an Olympic telefest for 're vaguely aware of their existence but have no particular wish to visit them. Apart from a few weeks in July 2012? Are you one early January, when the odd non-league club reaches the third round of the lucky people who have tickets to their chosen events? Or are you one FA cup and embarks on a spot of those many people who are genuinely confused by the rulesgiant-killing, or the scoring and who would lower leagues receive almost no attention outside their small groups of devoted supporters. So what's it like to know support a little more so that they can understand what it's all aboutnon-league team? If soEnter Dave Roberts, you should look no further. We have a fan of Bromley FC who are currently plying their trade in the Vanarama National League – the book for youfifth tier of English football. Whether youIn ''Home and Away''re heading for London or going no further than , Dave documents the television we have highs and lows of travelling the background to country watching Bromley during the sports2015/2016 season.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684757</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin MitchellMcgrath_Darley|title=Jacobs BeachMr Darley's Arabian: The MobHigh Life, the GardenLow Life, and the Golden Age Sporting Life: A History of BoxingRacing in 25 Horses|author=Christopher McGrath

|summary=Despite not being All thoroughbred racehorses are descended from one of just three stallions which came to England about three hundred years ago; The Byerley Turk, The Darley Arabian and The Godolphin Arabian. The last century or so has seen a particular fan of decline in the lines from the sport first and last of boxingthese stallions, Kevin Mitchell's compelling knowledge to the extent that some 95% of the personalities involved in the fight game all thoroughbreds worldwide - not just in the 20th centuryEngland - are descended from The Darley Arabian, coupled with a staccato writing style which got my attention quickly was originally bought in Aleppo from Bedouin tribesmen and kept it shipped to the very last pageYorkshire in 1704, by Thomas Darley, who died, meant this book actually rose far above my expectationsin difficult financial circumstances before he could follow his horse home.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224075098</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Scott Murray and Simon FarnabyMills_Top|title=Top Of The Phantom of The Open: Maurice Flitcroft, the World's Worst GolferLeague|author=Andrea Mills|rating=43.5

|summary=Maurice Flitcroft Football is known as the beautiful game and when I was forty six when he played his first round younger I kind of golfbelieved this. Most golfers start on the local course I would spend my free time playing Heads and Volleys with my mates and then go home to try and hack around until they develop some skillcomplete my Panini sticker album. Not Maurice. That wasn't his way. He borrowed some books on golf from There was even the library and decided that he was going to enter halcyon days when Blackburn Rovers won the Opentitle. Yes – the OpenAs I have grown older, my cynicism has grown too. No starting at Leicester may be champions, but the bottom and working his way up – Maurice went straight day I feel that a group of multimillionaires beating a group of slightly richer multimillionaires is a win for the big everyman, will be a sad one. He ran up a score Perhaps the love of football still burns bright in the youth of 121 and today? ''Top Of the R&A (thatLeague's Royal and Ancient if you're not a golf fan) went ballistic. It might be said that they lacked a sense certainly hopes so as it is full of humour but golf at this level is a serious game facts and Maurice was banned for lifefigures all about the ball they call foot.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083171</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Susan CaseyBradbury_Walks|title=The Wave: In Pursuit of the Oceans' Greatest FuriesUnforgettable Walks|author=Julia Bradbury

|summary=TheyI're powerful enough to capsize unsinkable ships, wrench oil rigs from their moorings and can destroy vast swathes ve long been a fan of coastal regions, flattening everything Julia Bradbury's walking programmes on television - I credit her with sparking my own interest in their path walking - so the news that there would shortly be another series of programmes and killing thousands of people in a book to accompany the processseries was music to my ears. So what is it that makes some menThis time she's looking at Britain's best walks with a view and she roams through Dorset, the Cotswolds, Anglesey, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lakes, Cumbria, the South Downs and it is mostly men, go the Peak District. Unless you're in search of these oceanic monsters? That is what Susan Casey tries Scotland there's something reasonably close to find out in this engagingjust about everyone, often awe inspiring and sometimes terrifying look at with a good spread around all points of the world of big wave surfingcompass.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531763</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Bateman and Jeff Hill (Editors)Martin_When|title=The Cambridge Companion to CricketWhen You Dead, You Dead|author=Guy Martin

|summary=Cricket has an international reach which can be rivaled by few other team sportsIt's a little depressing when a 34-year-old is publishing his second autobiography, and but that's what this book looks at the history is, and Martin proves he's certainly not short on material. The author, for those of the game going from England around the world to the other major Test-playing nations. While you who don't know, is a mechanic who dabbles in TV presenting and motorcycle racing, though it's packed full of initially rather dauntingly dense prose, none of the 17 chapters are particularly long – latter for which he will be most weighing in at well-known. As an F1 widow to a little under 20 pages – boy who likes all things fast, I thought he might like this book and the writing styles of all of the various authors are very accessibleso, perhaps unusually, I chose it with someone else in mind but made myself read it first.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521167876</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Victoria CorenMccoy_Winner|title=For Richer, For PoorerWinner: Confessions of a PlayerMy Racing Life|author=A P McCoy|rating=54|genre=AutobiographySport|summary=Some things In any walk of life, there are people who are in the blood. For Victoria Coren it was cards. As a child she and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack universally known by their grandfatherfirst names alone. He called it Pontoon but the most valuable lesson was that grandfather was In flat racing, everyone knows who 'Frankie'alwaysis and in National Hunt, you need to say no more than 'A.P.' Legend is an over-used word but not when it comes to the dealer and achievements of Tony ''always'' the winnerA.P. Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gamblerMcCoy. Victoria was one of lifeHe's risk-takers been champion jockey an unprecedented twenty times and she leant to the more adventurous side his career record of her father's family4,348 wins may never be beaten. She was unhappy at schoolIn fact, preferring the company of her brotherit's straight-talking friends tempting to the bitchy all-girl atmosphere at schoolsay that it will ''never'' be beaten. In the intervening twenty years sheHe's won the Grand National, the Irish Grand National, two Cheltenham Gold Cups and won the Champion Hurdle three times. Unusually for a million dollarsjockey, but for her ithe's never also been about BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He achieved all this by the moneyage of forty one when he retired from racing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847672930</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Fordyce and Ben DirsKrien_Night|title=We Could be HeroesNight Games: One Van, Two Blokes and Twelve World ChampionshipsA Journey to the Dark Side of Sport|author=Anna Krien|rating=4.5

|summary=Meet Ben Dirs. Apart from Mere mortals relax by having one a game of footy of the most unfortunate names on record, he’s a fairly laid-back guy whose daily breakfast consists weekend and a couple of two cigarettes. Compared to Dirsdrinks, his BBC colleague Tom Fordyce – but what does a keen amateur triathlete – professional sportsman do to cut loose? What do they do when they go out en masse? Investigative journalist Anna Krien looks like Daley Thompson in his prime. But Tom’s ambition at a rape trial of winning a worldchampionship is still completely unachievablean Australian Rules footballer, surely? You don’t go from BBC blogger just into his twenties and follows the case as it goes to 100m champion, football World Cup winnercourt, interviewing some of those directly or even indirectly involved and digressing into related areas. In deference to the number 1 snooker player on Earthfact that the woman had automatic anonymity, after all. On she's chosen to give the other hand, there are some more obscure Championships out there… could these two unlikely heroes make their dreams come true, and be recognised as man who was charged the best shin kickers name of 'Justin Dyer' in an attempt to level the world? Not if Rory McGrath has anything playing field, so to do speak. You could Google the facts and come up with it! In addition to the Cotswold Olympicks and their shin-kickingcorrect name, Dirs and Fordyce try snail racing, wife carrying, nettle eating, and many more weird and wonderful eventsbut this isn't a book of gossip about particular people. The only thing they have in common is the humour It's an investigation of a culture which the pair see in all of themhas increasingly treated women as sexual commodities.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230736157</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jakob LovstadScott_Born|title=Going Mental: Reaching Your Goals in Business and Sports - Full Contact NLP Coaching from a Full Contact FighterBorn to Rumble|author=Jeff Scott

|summary=Some books seem determined to put you off''Rumble''. Unless itIt's literary fiction an odd word, isn'Going Mentalt it, with that sense of a noise like thunder (or even of a motorcycle engine) ' suggests something that I've gone to great lengths to avoid. The man on the cover is bald, bloodied and apparently screaming. I've been avoiding men like that too' of a street fight between rival gangs. '…not Author Jeff Scott has picked the perfect title for his journey around various speedway venues looking at those occasions when the soft combination of brakeless bikes, adrenalin, ridiculous speeds and sensitive!' it says and whilst I wouldn't describe myself as either I do wonder whether allowing Jakob Lovstad to mess with my head is not a lot of space explode into a confrontation on or off the wisest thing I've ever donetrack. When I realise It's hardly surprising that heit happens - in fact, it's a cage fighter I'm ready to run. What has that got to do with my business? Because surprising thatit doesn's what this book is about – reaching your goals in business t happen more often given the competitive nature of the sport and sportsthe diva-like qualities of some of the top riders.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685588</amazonuk>