Difference between revisions of "Newest Sport Reviews"

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[[Category:Sport|*]]
 
[[Category:Sport|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Sport]]
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|isbn=Hurst_Norfolk
{{newreview
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|title=On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks
|title=Twirlymen: The Unlikley History of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers
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|author=John Hurst
|author=Amol Rajan
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|rating=4
|rating=3.5
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|genre=Art
|genre=Sport
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|summary=It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a display of the most gorgeous picturesI'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw ''On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks'' and I couldn't resist buying it.
|summary=Although they may lack the bang and bluster of the fast bowlers, the three leading wicket takers of all time in Test cricket are all spinners.  They may look calmer in their run ups and action, but the effect they put on the ball can be incredibleRather than blasting a batsman out, they bamboozle them.  That's why Amol Rajan thinks them deserving of a book all of their own, and ''Twirlymen'' is the result of that belief.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083252</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Ignotofsky_Sport
|author=John D Barrow
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|title=Women in Sport: Fifty Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win
|title=Mathletics
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|author=Rachel Ignotofsky
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Sport
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|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.
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|summary=''Women in Sport'' is coming to us just before the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February 2018. 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 diverse as swimming, fencing, riding, skating, and much more. Think of a sport and a pioneering woman succeeding at it is probably in this book somewhere. Each entry is a double-page spread with a brief biography and a striking portrait.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099584239</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Burrell_12
|author=Gavin Mortimer
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|title=Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records
|title=A History of Cricket in 100 Objects
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|author=Stuart Burrell
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=[[A History of Football in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer|A History of Football in 100 Objects]] was a brave attempt, but was slightly let down by being a little too clinical. Being a game imbued with passion, the book lacked this which took some of the edge off it. Cricket, whilst inspiring passion amongst devotees, has a slightly more laid back following; one that may work better in this format.   That said, being a game that has been played for five centuries, narrowing it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for football.
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|summary=The first of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, the first two, actually, as he's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accident. There had been a plan to raise some money for the Children in Need Charity and quite late on the people who were to have been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not a man to let people down. What could be done to bring people in and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakes, but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002, he went for the Fastest 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>1846689406</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Landreth_Swell
|author=Stephen Roche
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|title=Swell
|title=Born to Ride: The Autobiography of Stephen Roche
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|author=Jenny Landreth
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=With all the revelations about the systemised doping culture surrounding Lance Armstrong's team in the 1990s, it was interesting to read a story of a time before cycling was embroiled in one drugs scandal after anotherAlthough perhaps not as memorable as Armstrong's career, Stephen Roche's will hold a place in cycling history for 1987, when he became only the second man to win the Tour de France, the Giro D'Italia and the World Championships in the same seasonA quarter of a century after that remarkable feat, Roche has produced his autobiography, ''Born to Ride''.
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|summary=I love Jenny's own description of her book as a waterbiography and I love her encouragement that we should each write our ownThis is more than just (I say ''just''!) a recollection of the author's own encounters with water; it's also a history of women's fight for the right to swim.  That sounds absurd until you start reading about it, then it becomes seriousNot too serious though – because Jenny Landreth is clearly a lover of the absurd. Not a lover of book blurbs myself, I do always seek to give a shout-out to those who get it dead right: in this case, I'm definitely with Alexandra Heminsley's ''giggles-on-the-commute funny''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224091905</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Oakeshott_Derby
|author=Gavin Mortimer
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|title=A Guide to the Classics: Or How to Pick the Derby Winner
|title=A History of Football in 100 Objects
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|author=Guy Griffith and Michael Oakeshott
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Given how long it's been played and how many books have been written about 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 in 100 Objects''.  This prompts the question as to whether the whole of football could be reduced down to a mere century of objects. But then, if [[From 0 to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring]] can make a history of maths worth reading, I guess anything is possible.
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|summary=It's not often that you get a glimpse into the personal, youthful interests of one of the greatest Conservative philosophers of the twentieth century, but ''A Guide to the Classics'' co-authored by Michael Oakeshott is a light-hearted look at how to pick the Derby winner. Originally written in 1936 it is, amazingly, as relevant today as it was then. In fact, the techniques and analysis employed by the authors were way ahead of their time and have only come into general use relatively recently.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250618</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Gibbons_Game
|author=Martin Kelner
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|title=The Beautiful Game
|title=Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV
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|author=Alan Gibbons
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Like many English sports fans, the majority of the calories I burn are used up by shouting at the TV and occasionally going to the shops for more beer and crisps.  Sports books tend to be about the sport itself or biographies of those who expended great effort to reach the top of their chosen sport.  But in Martin Kelner's 'Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV', there is finally a book for the less energetic among us.
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|summary=Football is all about its colours. And even if I write in the season when one team in blue knocks another team in blue from the throne of English football, it's common knowledge that red is the more successful colour to wear. But is that flame red? Blood red? The red of the Sun cover banner when it falsely declared 96 Liverpool FC fans were fatally caught up in a tragedy – and that it had been one of their own making? And while we're on about colour, where were the people of colour in football in the olden days? There are so many darker sides to football's history it's enough to make a young lad question the whole game…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140812923X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Askwith_Today
|author=Clare Balding
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|title=Today We Die a Little: Emil Zatopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War Hero
|title=My Animals and Other Family
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|author=Richard Askwith
|rating=5
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|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Clare Balding was born into a racing family - her father, Ian, was the trainer of Mill Reef who won the Derby in 1971, the same year that Clare was born.  Whilst her father would never forget the year that his horse won the Derby he would usually fail to remember that it was also the year of his daughter's birth. Horses came first and they were the priority in Ian Balding's life: the family had to adjust accordingly. He was a gifted and successful trainer who understood the animals in his care and his record, including Mill Reef's Derby success speaks for itself.  Clare's childhood was separate from the life of the racing stable but she inherited her family's love of animals.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670921467</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Richard Fitzpatrick
 
|title=El Clasico - Barcelona v Real Madrid: Football's Greatest Rivalry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=Nothing divides opinion quite like football and no-one expresses their joy and disappointment like football fans.  For many fans, the most important matches of their entire season are the ones against their local rivals; the derby matches.  English football has a number of these, but only the matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain have elevated themselves above mere derby status and earned their own name: ''El Clásico'' – the Classic.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408158795</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=The Secret Footballer
 
|title=I Am The Secret Footballer: Lifting The Lid On The Beautiful Game
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=In the 2012 Olympic Games the UK delighted in the skills shown by our athletes. We were - naturally - pleased by the medals, but what impressed was the training and dedication of people who were frequently fitting what they did around the day job or study.  For the most part they weren't reaping much in the way of financial rewards from what they did - but they shone. The exceptions were the footballers.  I forget (and that might well be Freudian) ''exactly'' who beat us, but I doubt that there are many people pleased by the show they made. It's now the beginning of the Premier League season and ''I Am the Secret Footballer'' has arrived at the perfect moment.
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|summary=As a runner myself, I often look for sources of inspiration. Training is rewarding, but every so often a day comes along when I question whether it is all worth it or not. Zatopek proves that is, indeed, all worth it. He put copious amounts of effort into his training, and the number of races he won over his career as a professional athlete clearly shows the results of it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852653085</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Pavey_Mum
|author=Alan Tyers and Beach
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|title=This Mum Runs
|title=I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League Wisdom
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|author=Jo Pavey
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=You remember Ronnie Matthews, don't you?  He's the footballer who celebrated his one – and so far, only – international match by booing his way through the Faroe Islands' national anthem, then getting a red card for chatting up the lineswoman.  He still thinks he contributed well to a vital friendly, however. He's the player whose career in piddling his way through continuously lesser and lesser clubs for far too long has only been matched in the recent game by Steve Claridge.  And still he's bucking the trend – he's the only author smart enough to realise that four-hundred page, ghost-written biogs are unnecessary, for he's crammed all his life, career, philosophy and response to Twitter into an hour's read.
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|summary=I am something of a self-confessed running addict: I think nothing of hitting the roads for 50 miles a week, and spend much of my time searching for races to run all over the country. That is, until I wound up with a persistent sports injury, hung up my running shoes for nearly a year, and switched the road to the pool. At the time I thought nothing could alleviate the misery of not being able to run; but now I wish I had had Jo Pavey's autobiography, ''This Mum Runs'', to keep me company because the elite athlete’s account of the Olympics, injury, family, and life, in general, falls nothing short of inspirational.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832763</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Lee_Lean
|author=Leo McKinstry
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|title=Lean Gains
|title=Jack Hobbs: England's Greatest Cricketer
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|author=Jonathan S Lee
|rating=5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=Back in the early 1920s, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa.  In the summer of 2012, both nations have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about to start a test series to determine the best Test nation in the world.  Given that history is repeating itself, it seems appropriate that a new biography of Jack Hobbs, England's greatest run scorer and a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available now.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083309</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Beth Raymer
 
|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>
 
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{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Watson
 
|title=Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=I'm a huge fan of both football and reading, so a book about football is always likely to appeal to me as the best way of combining the twoRecently, I've read books set at the pinnacle of the game in [[Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson'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]].  ''Up'' ''Pohnpei'' is firmly in the latter category, treading very similar ground to Simons' book.
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|summary=I don't often begin a book by telling you what it ''isn't'' but in this case I think it's important.  If you're a fairly sedentary person or a casual sportsman or woman looking to shed a few pounds then you won't get the best out of this bookYou'll find some 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 sport seriously..On the other hand, if you ''are'' a serious sportsman then you could find that the advice in ''Lean Gains'' could lift you up to the next level of performance.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668501X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Long_Mock
|author=Will Tidey
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|title=The Mock Olympian
|title=Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester United
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|author=Michael Long
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=In his 25 years as manager of Manchester United Football Club, Sir Alex Ferguson has won everything, most of them more than once. He's taken his team to the top of English football with some lavish purchases, some expert man management and a ruthless dedication to his club and his players.  Depending which side of the fence you sit on, this has made him either the most popular, or most hated, man in English football. I'm in the latter group. I'm a Liverpool fan.
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|summary=It started with an idle conversation just before the 2012 London Olympics: Michael Long's friend Sarah gave him a book as part of his birthday present. It was Time Out's guide to the history of the Olympics and it covered each of the summer Olympics in chronological order from the inaugural games in Athens in 1896. Sarah's boyfriend James commented that with all the running Michael did, he'd probably have run in most of the Olympic cities. Although Long had done a goodly number of runs, bike rides and triathlons he'd only competed in two of the twenty-three cities - London and Athens. Now most of 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 what's more, he blogged about it and then wrote this book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408149516</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Roberts_Home
|author=Mark Kreidler
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|title=Home and Away
|title=The Voodoo Wave - Inside a Season of Triumph and Tumult at Maverick's
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|author=Dave Roberts
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Maverick's is one of the biggest, nastiest, jaw droppingly huge waves in the Pacific Ocean and as such has become something of a Mecca for the world's top surfers. Situated off the coast of Northern California its freezing cold conditions make it a far cry from the sun drenched breaks in Hawaii, Mexico and South Africa with the number of surfers adequately qualified (and fearless enough) to take on the cliff like drops probably numbering less than 100.
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|summary=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're vaguely aware of their existence but have no particular wish to visit them. Apart from a few weeks in early January, when the odd non-league club reaches the third round of the FA cup and embarks on a spot of giant-killing, the lower leagues receive almost no attention outside their small groups of devoted supporters. So what's it like to support a non-league team? Enter Dave Roberts, a fan of Bromley FC who are currently plying their trade in the Vanarama National League – the fifth tier of English football. In ''Home and Away'', Dave documents the highs and lows of travelling the country watching Bromley during the 2015/2016 season.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393065359</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Mcgrath_Darley
|author=Ian Ridley
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|title=Mr Darley's Arabian: High Life, Low Life, Sporting Life: A History of Racing in 25 Horses
|title=There's A Golden Sky: How 20 years of the Premier League has changed football forever
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|author=Christopher McGrath
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|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 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.
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|summary=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 decline in the lines from the first and last of these stallions, to the extent that some 95% of all thoroughbreds worldwide - not just in England - are descended from The Darley Arabian, which was originally bought in Aleppo from Bedouin tribesmen and shipped to Yorkshire in 1704, by Thomas Darley, who died, in difficult financial circumstances before he could follow his horse home.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408130408</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Mills_Top
|author=David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton
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|title=Top Of The League
|title=How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros – an instant initiation to every sport
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|author=Andrea Mills
|rating=4
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Are you planning an Olympic telefest for a few weeks in July 2012? Are you one of the lucky people who have tickets to their chosen events? Or are you one of those many people who are genuinely confused by the rules, or the scoring and who would like to know a little more so that they can understand what it's all about? If so, you should look no furtherWe have the book for youWhether you're heading for London or going no further than the television we have the background to the sports.
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|summary=Football is known as the beautiful game and when I was younger I kind of believed this. I would spend my free time playing Heads and Volleys with my mates and then go home to try and complete my Panini sticker album.  There was even the halcyon days when Blackburn Rovers won the title. As I have grown older, my cynicism has grown tooLeicester may be champions, but the day I feel that a group of multimillionaires beating a group of slightly richer multimillionaires is a win for the everyman, will be a sad onePerhaps the love of football still burns bright in the youth of today?  ''Top Of the League'' certainly hopes so as it is full of facts and figures all about the ball they call foot.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684757</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Bradbury_Walks
|author=Kevin Mitchell
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|title=Unforgettable Walks
|title=Jacobs Beach: The Mob, the Garden, and the Golden Age of Boxing
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|author=Julia Bradbury
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Despite not being a particular fan of the sport of boxing, Kevin Mitchell's compelling knowledge of the personalities involved in the fight game in the 20th century, coupled with a staccato writing style which got my attention quickly and kept it to the very last page, meant this book actually rose far above my expectations.
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|summary=I've long been a fan of Julia Bradbury's walking programmes on television - I credit her with sparking my own interest in walking - so the news that there would shortly be another series of programmes and a book to accompany the series was music to my ears. This 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 the Peak District. Unless you're in Scotland there's something reasonably close to just about everyone, with a good spread around all points of the compass.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224075098</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Martin_When
|author=Scott Murray and Simon Farnaby
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|title=When You Dead, You Dead
|title=The Phantom of The Open: Maurice Flitcroft, the World's Worst Golfer
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|author=Guy Martin
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Maurice Flitcroft was forty six when he played his first round of golf.  Most golfers start on the local course and hack around until they develop some skill.  Not Maurice.  That wasn't his way.  He borrowed some books on golf from the library and decided that he was going to enter the Open.  Yes – the Open. No starting at the bottom and working his way up – Maurice went straight for the big one.  He ran up a score of 121 and the R&A (that's Royal and Ancient if you're not a golf fan) went ballistic.  It might be said that they lacked a sense of humour but golf at this level is a serious game and Maurice was banned for life.
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|summary=It's a little depressing when a 34-year-old is publishing his second autobiography, but that's what this book is, and Martin proves he's certainly not short on material. The author, for those of you who don't know, is a mechanic who dabbles in TV presenting and motorcycle racing, though it's the latter for which he will be most well-known. As an F1 widow to a boy who likes all things fast, I thought he might like this book and so, perhaps unusually, I chose it with someone else in mind but made myself read it first.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224083171</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=Mccoy_Winner
|author=Susan Casey
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|title=Winner: My Racing Life
|title=The Wave: In Pursuit of the Oceans' Greatest Furies
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|author=A P McCoy
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=They're powerful enough to capsize unsinkable ships, wrench oil rigs from their moorings and can destroy vast swathes of coastal regions, flattening everything in their path and killing thousands of people in the process. So what is it that makes some men, and it is mostly men, go in search of these oceanic monsters? That is what Susan Casey tries to find out in this engaging, often awe inspiring and sometimes terrifying look at the world of big wave surfing.
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|summary=In any walk of life, there are people who are universally known by their first names alone.  In flat racing, everyone knows who 'Frankie' is 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 achievements of Tony 'A.P.' McCoy.  He's been champion jockey an unprecedented twenty times and his career record of 4,348 wins may never be beaten. In fact, it's tempting to say that it will ''never'' be beaten.  He's won the Grand National, the Irish Grand National, two Cheltenham Gold Cups and won the Champion Hurdle three times.  Unusually for a jockey, he's also been BBC Sports Personality of the Year.  He achieved all this by the age of forty one when he retired from racing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531763</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Krien_Night
|author=Anthony Bateman and Jeff Hill (Editors)
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|title=Night Games: A Journey to the Dark Side of Sport
|title=The Cambridge Companion to Cricket
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|author=Anna Krien
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Cricket has an international reach which can be rivaled by few other team sports, and this book looks at the history of the game going from England around the world to the other major Test-playing nations. While it's packed full of initially rather dauntingly dense prose, none of the 17 chapters are particularly long – most weighing in at a little under 20 pages – and the writing styles of all of the various authors are very accessible.
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|summary=Mere mortals relax by having a game of footy of a weekend and a couple of drinks, but what does a professional sportsman do to cut loose? What do they do when they go out en masse? Investigative journalist Anna Krien looks at a rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer, just into his twenties and follows the case as it goes to court, interviewing some of those directly or indirectly involved and digressing into related areas. In deference to the fact that the woman had automatic anonymity, she's chosen to give the man who was charged the name of 'Justin Dyer' in an attempt to level the playing field, so to speak. You could Google the facts and come up with the correct name, but this isn't a book of gossip about particular people. It's an investigation of a culture which has increasingly treated women as sexual commodities.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521167876</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Scott_Born
|author=Victoria Coren
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|title=Born to Rumble
|title=For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player
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|author=Jeff Scott
|rating=5
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|rating=4
|genre=Autobiography
 
|summary=Some things are in the blood.  For Victoria Coren it was cards.  As a child she and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack by their grandfather.  He called it Pontoon but the most valuable lesson was that grandfather was ''always'' the dealer and ''always'' the winner.  Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gambler.  Victoria was one of life's risk-takers and she leant to the more adventurous side of her father's family.  She was unhappy at school, preferring the company of her brother's straight-talking friends to the bitchy all-girl atmosphere at school.  In the intervening twenty years she's won a million dollars, but for her it's never been about the money.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847672930</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tom Fordyce and Ben Dirs
 
|title=We Could be Heroes: One Van, Two Blokes and Twelve World Championships
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Sport
 
|genre=Sport
|summary=Meet Ben Dirs. Apart from having one of the most unfortunate names on record, he’s a fairly laid-back guy whose daily breakfast consists of two cigarettes. Compared to Dirs, his BBC colleague Tom Fordyce – a keen amateur triathlete – looks like Daley Thompson in his prime. But Tom’s ambition of winning a world
+
|summary=''Rumble''. It's an odd word, isn't it, with that sense of a noise like thunder (or even of a motorcycle engine) ''and'' of a street fight between rival gangs.  Author Jeff Scott has picked the perfect title for his journey around various speedway venues looking at those occasions when the combination of brakeless bikes, adrenalin, ridiculous speeds and not a lot of space explode into a confrontation on or off the track.  It's hardly surprising that it happens - in fact, it's surprising that it doesn't happen more often given the competitive nature of the sport and the diva-like qualities of some of the top riders.
championship is still completely unachievable, surely? You don’t go from BBC blogger to 100m champion, football World Cup winner, or even the number 1 snooker player on Earth, after all. On 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 the best shin kickers in the world? Not if Rory McGrath has anything to do with it! In addition to the Cotswold Olympicks and their shin-kicking, Dirs and Fordyce try snail racing, wife carrying, nettle eating, and many more weird and wonderful events. The only thing they have in common is the humour which the pair see in all of them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230736157</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Teens Reviews]]
|author=Jakob Lovstad
 
|title=Going Mental: Reaching Your Goals in Business and Sports - Full Contact NLP Coaching from a Full Contact Fighter
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=Some books seem determined to put you off.  Unless it's literary fiction 'Going Mental' 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.  '…not for the soft 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 the wisest thing I've ever done.  When I realise that he's a cage fighter I'm ready to run.  What has that got to do with my business?  Because that's what this book is about – reaching your goals in business and sports.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907685588</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 14:58, 1 September 2020

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Review of

On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks by John Hurst

4star.jpg Art

It was pure serendipity: after a five-hour drive, we were, annoyingly, left with an hour to fill in Blakeney before we could have the keys to our holiday cottage. There was an art exhibition in the church hall, so we went in - and found a display of the most gorgeous pictures. I'd cheerfully have bought every one and hung them on our walls, but thought that I would have to make do with a couple of greetings cards when I saw On My Way: Norfolk Coastal Walks and I couldn't resist buying it. Full Review

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Review of

Women in Sport: Fifty Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win by Rachel Ignotofsky

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

Women in Sport is coming to us just before the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February 2018. 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 diverse as swimming, fencing, riding, skating, and much more. Think of a sport and a pioneering woman succeeding at it is probably in this book somewhere. Each entry is a double-page spread with a brief biography and a striking portrait. Full Review

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Review of

Twelve Times To The Max: One Man's Journey to, and Recollections of, Setting Twelve Verified World Records by Stuart Burrell

4star.jpg Sport

The first of Stuart Burrell's world records, well, the first two, actually, as he's not a man to do things by halves, came about by accident. There had been a plan to raise some money for the Children in Need Charity and quite late on the people who were to have been the main attraction got a better offer and Burrell is not a man to let people down. What could be done to bring people in and raise some money? Most of us would have thought of jumble sales and cake bakes, but Burrell had made a hobby of escapology and idea of a sponsored escape had life breathed into it. On 3 November 2002, he went for the Fastest 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. Full Review

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Review of

Swell by Jenny Landreth

5star.jpg Sport

I love Jenny's own description of her book as a waterbiography and I love her encouragement that we should each write our own. This is more than just (I say just!) a recollection of the author's own encounters with water; it's also a history of women's fight for the right to swim. 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 lover of book blurbs myself, I do always seek to give a shout-out to those who get it dead right: in this case, I'm definitely with Alexandra Heminsley's giggles-on-the-commute funny. Full Review

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Review of

A Guide to the Classics: Or How to Pick the Derby Winner by Guy Griffith and Michael Oakeshott

4star.jpg Sport

It's not often that you get a glimpse into the personal, youthful interests of one of the greatest Conservative philosophers of the twentieth century, but A Guide to the Classics co-authored by Michael Oakeshott is a light-hearted look at how to pick the Derby winner. Originally written in 1936 it is, amazingly, as relevant today as it was then. In fact, the techniques and analysis employed by the authors were way ahead of their time and have only come into general use relatively recently. Full Review

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Review of

The Beautiful Game by Alan Gibbons

4star.jpg Sport

Football is all about its colours. And even if I write in the season when one team in blue knocks another team in blue from the throne of English football, it's common knowledge that red is the more successful colour to wear. But is that flame red? Blood red? The red of the Sun cover banner when it falsely declared 96 Liverpool FC fans were fatally caught up in a tragedy – and that it had been one of their own making? And while we're on about colour, where were the people of colour in football in the olden days? There are so many darker sides to football's history it's enough to make a young lad question the whole game… Full Review

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Review of

Today We Die a Little: Emil Zatopek, Olympic Legend to Cold War Hero by Richard Askwith

4star.jpg Sport

As a runner myself, I often look for sources of inspiration. Training is rewarding, but every so often a day comes along when I question whether it is all worth it or not. Zatopek proves that is, indeed, all worth it. He put copious amounts of effort into his training, and the number of races he won over his career as a professional athlete clearly shows the results of it. Full Review

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Review of

This Mum Runs by Jo Pavey

4star.jpg Sport

I am something of a self-confessed running addict: I think nothing of hitting the roads for 50 miles a week, and spend much of my time searching for races to run all over the country. That is, until I wound up with a persistent sports injury, hung up my running shoes for nearly a year, and switched the road to the pool. At the time I thought nothing could alleviate the misery of not being able to run; but now I wish I had had Jo Pavey's autobiography, This Mum Runs, to keep me company because the elite athlete’s account of the Olympics, injury, family, and life, in general, falls nothing short of inspirational. Full Review

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Review of

Lean Gains by Jonathan S Lee

4star.jpg Sport

I don't often begin a book by telling you what it isn't but in this case I think it's important. If you're a fairly sedentary person or a casual sportsman or woman looking to shed a few pounds then you won't get the best out of this book. You'll find some 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 sport seriously... On the other hand, if you are a serious sportsman then you could find that the advice in Lean Gains could lift you up to the next level of performance. Full Review

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Review of

The Mock Olympian by Michael Long

4star.jpg Sport

It started with an idle conversation just before the 2012 London Olympics: Michael Long's friend Sarah gave him a book as part of his birthday present. It was Time Out's guide to the history of the Olympics and it covered each of the summer Olympics in chronological order from the inaugural games in Athens in 1896. Sarah's boyfriend James commented that with all the running Michael did, he'd probably have run in most of the Olympic cities. Although Long had done a goodly number of runs, bike rides and triathlons he'd only competed in two of the twenty-three cities - London and Athens. Now most of 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 what's more, he blogged about it and then wrote this book. Full Review

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Review of

Home and Away by Dave Roberts

4star.jpg Sport

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're vaguely aware of their existence but have no particular wish to visit them. Apart from a few weeks in early January, when the odd non-league club reaches the third round of the FA cup and embarks on a spot of giant-killing, the lower leagues receive almost no attention outside their small groups of devoted supporters. So what's it like to support a non-league team? Enter Dave Roberts, a fan of Bromley FC who are currently plying their trade in the Vanarama National League – the fifth tier of English football. In Home and Away, Dave documents the highs and lows of travelling the country watching Bromley during the 2015/2016 season. Full Review

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Review of

Mr Darley's Arabian: High Life, Low Life, Sporting Life: A History of Racing in 25 Horses by Christopher McGrath

5star.jpg Sport

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 decline in the lines from the first and last of these stallions, to the extent that some 95% of all thoroughbreds worldwide - not just in England - are descended from The Darley Arabian, which was originally bought in Aleppo from Bedouin tribesmen and shipped to Yorkshire in 1704, by Thomas Darley, who died, in difficult financial circumstances before he could follow his horse home. Full Review

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Review of

Top Of The League by Andrea Mills

3.5star.jpg Sport

Football is known as the beautiful game and when I was younger I kind of believed this. I would spend my free time playing Heads and Volleys with my mates and then go home to try and complete my Panini sticker album. There was even the halcyon days when Blackburn Rovers won the title. As I have grown older, my cynicism has grown too. Leicester may be champions, but the day I feel that a group of multimillionaires beating a group of slightly richer multimillionaires is a win for the everyman, will be a sad one. Perhaps the love of football still burns bright in the youth of today? Top Of the League certainly hopes so as it is full of facts and figures all about the ball they call foot. Full Review

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Review of

Unforgettable Walks by Julia Bradbury

4star.jpg Sport

I've long been a fan of Julia Bradbury's walking programmes on television - I credit her with sparking my own interest in walking - so the news that there would shortly be another series of programmes and a book to accompany the series was music to my ears. This 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 the Peak District. Unless you're in Scotland there's something reasonably close to just about everyone, with a good spread around all points of the compass. Full Review

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Review of

When You Dead, You Dead by Guy Martin

4.5star.jpg Sport

It's a little depressing when a 34-year-old is publishing his second autobiography, but that's what this book is, and Martin proves he's certainly not short on material. The author, for those of you who don't know, is a mechanic who dabbles in TV presenting and motorcycle racing, though it's the latter for which he will be most well-known. As an F1 widow to a boy who likes all things fast, I thought he might like this book and so, perhaps unusually, I chose it with someone else in mind but made myself read it first. Full Review

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Review of

Winner: My Racing Life by A P McCoy

4star.jpg Sport

In any walk of life, there are people who are universally known by their first names alone. In flat racing, everyone knows who 'Frankie' is 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 achievements of Tony 'A.P.' McCoy. He's been champion jockey an unprecedented twenty times and his career record of 4,348 wins may never be beaten. In fact, it's tempting to say that it will never be beaten. He's won the Grand National, the Irish Grand National, two Cheltenham Gold Cups and won the Champion Hurdle three times. Unusually for a jockey, he's also been BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He achieved all this by the age of forty one when he retired from racing. Full Review

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Review of

Night Games: A Journey to the Dark Side of Sport by Anna Krien

4.5star.jpg Sport

Mere mortals relax by having a game of footy of a weekend and a couple of drinks, but what does a professional sportsman do to cut loose? What do they do when they go out en masse? Investigative journalist Anna Krien looks at a rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer, just into his twenties and follows the case as it goes to court, interviewing some of those directly or indirectly involved and digressing into related areas. In deference to the fact that the woman had automatic anonymity, she's chosen to give the man who was charged the name of 'Justin Dyer' in an attempt to level the playing field, so to speak. You could Google the facts and come up with the correct name, but this isn't a book of gossip about particular people. It's an investigation of a culture which has increasingly treated women as sexual commodities. Full Review

Scott Born.jpg

Review of

Born to Rumble by Jeff Scott

4star.jpg Sport

Rumble. It's an odd word, isn't it, with that sense of a noise like thunder (or even of a motorcycle engine) and of a street fight between rival gangs. Author Jeff Scott has picked the perfect title for his journey around various speedway venues looking at those occasions when the combination of brakeless bikes, adrenalin, ridiculous speeds and not a lot of space explode into a confrontation on or off the track. It's hardly surprising that it happens - in fact, it's surprising that it doesn't happen more often given the competitive nature of the sport and the diva-like qualities of some of the top riders. Full Review

Move on to Newest Teens Reviews