A Woman's Game explores the history of women's football from the Victorian era to the present day. It is the story of a rise, fall, and rise again: from the game's first appearance in England in the late 19th century; through the incredible Dick, Kerr Ladies team that at its height in 1920 drew 53,000 spectators to Goodison Park; to its 50-year ban in the UK and the aftershocks when that ban was lifted.Now, as the women's game is once again on an unstoppable upward trend, with a record 6.3m viewers for England's match against Scotland in the 2019 World Cup, Suzanne Wrack considers what the next chapter of this incredible story might be. From its relationship to the worldwide fight against oppression, to its ability to inspire change in wider at large, this is both a history of football as played by women, and a manifesto for a better game.

BOOKS

Jim tells what it means to be an athlete, with sex, Hollywood, drugs, and women as fringe benefits

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List“Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read . . . ” —The New York Times MagazineBarbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves.Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

"One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was...just beauty, you know?"" John Jeremiah Sullivan didn't know, not really: the track had always been a place his father disappeared to once a year on business, a source of souvenir glasses and of inscrutable passions in his Kentucky relatives. So Sullivan decided to educate himself. He spent two years following horses across the country. He watched one season's juvenile crop prepare for the Triple Crown, and he tracked the animal's evolution in literature and art, from the ponies that appeared on the walls of European caves thirty thousand years ago, to the mounts that carried the Indo-European language to the edges of the Old World, to the finely tuned but fragile yearlings that are auctioned off for millions of dollars apiece every spring and fall.

The astonishing true story of the Rwandan Cycling Team.Where there is hope there can be redemption.Meet Adrien Niyonshuti, a member of the Rwandan cycling team. Adrien was seven years old when he lost his family in the 1994 genocide that tore Rwanda apart. Almost twenty years later he has a shot at representing his country at the Olympics.Meet Jock Boyer, the coach of Team Rwanda. One of the top American cyclists of all time, Jock recognises the innate talent for endurance that the Rwandans possess. A man with a dark past, Jock is in need of a second chance.Meet Tom Ritchey, the visionary inventor of the mountain bike and the U.S. money man looking to recover from a profound personal crisis.In The Land of Second Chances, Tim Lewis charts the incredible true story of the Rwandan cycling team as they overcome impossible odds to inspire a nation.

An account of the ascent of the 21,000ft Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes. Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had achieved the summit before the first disaster struck. What happened and how they dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted is the subject of this book.

Winner of the 1995 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, this work tells the story of an unusually turbulent year on the PGA tour. It profiles stars, such as Nick Price, Tom Watson and Greg Norman, and captures the non-stop pressures of a high-profile sport with virtually no off-season.

Adams writes what it's like playing with the best players in the game, from Gazza to Dennis Bergkamp; and working with some of the most successful managers, including George Graham, Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle and Arsene Wenger. But above all, his story is that of a winner, a man who has brought the intense determination he has shown on the field to his recovery from illnesses off it. Adams recalls openly his descent into alcohol addiction, which at one point saw him jailed for drink-driving. Just as he was finding his feet again after the slow rehabilitation process, problems with his marriage surfaced and soon after Adams found himself heading for a divorce. He talks honestly about that traumatic period in his life and also about the pressures and demands of being a top-class footballer in the modern era.

Paper Lion

Following the 1985 final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis, Britain found itself in the grip of a new sporting obsession. Snooker, or 'Coronation Street with balls', was suddenly big business and 1986 was set to be a crucial year. In one corner was Barry Hearn and his Romford Mafia - Davis, Taylor and Griffiths - and in the other were the bad boys - Higgins, White and Knowles - threatening the game's good name, and its earning potential. For one year, Gordon Burn travelled with this snooker circus, from Hong Kong and China to out of season resorts in the North of England and the season's finale in Sheffield. With unprecedented access to the leading players and personalities involved, Pocket Money affords a unique snapshot into an extraordinary time and place.

Provided You Dont Kiss Me

This wonderful 1980 horse racing classic never loses its luster or charm. Author Bill Barich explores explores the day-to-day internal world of horse racing― from the backside to the backstretch. This entertaining story of the lives and tribulations of various racetrack personalities is sure to extract every human emotion. The author's summer adventure after a family tragedy finds him living the life many diehard racing enthusiasts wish they could. Barich's adventure discovers more than he could ever imagine about something much bigger than racing-life itself.

Twentieth-anniversary edition of a baseball classic, with a new epilogue by Jim Bouton.When first published in 1970, Ball Four stunned the sports world. The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today, Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But his landmark book is still being read by people who don't ordinarily follow baseball.

The hugely acclaimed novel of '70s football and the turmoil of the game's most charismatic and controversial manager, from the bestselling author of GB84 and Red or Dead.In 1974 the brilliant and controversial Brian Clough made perhaps his most eccentric decision: he accepted the position of Leeds United manager. A successor to Don Revie, his bitter adversary, Clough was to last just 44 days.In one of the most acclaimed British novels of recent years - subsequently made into a film starring Michael Sheen - David Peace takes us into the mind and thoughts of Ol' Big 'Ead himself, and brings vividly to life one of football's most complex and fascinating characters.

“An amazing book…all the iconic photographs that people took of The Champ.” —Barack ObamaGREATEST OF ALL TIME: A TRIBUTE TO MUHAMMAD ALI is a book with the power, courage, depth, creativity, and dazzling energy of its extraordinary subject. Slimmed down from the heavyweight Collector’s Edition, this bantamweight edition is smaller in size, but pulls no punches on its expertise, passion, and insight on The Champ.With thousands of images, including photography, art, and memorabilia and two gatefold sequences, the book pays vivid tribute to The Greatest both in and outside of the ring. Original essays and five decades’ worth of interviews and writing explore the courage, convictions, and extraordinary image-building that made Ali one of the most recognizable and inspirational individuals on the planet, an icon not only as an extraordinary athlete, but also as an impassioned advocate of social justice, interfaith understanding, and peace.

Noted author Darius James introduces and edits the Spring 2017 editions of the Feral House Coloring Book for Adults Series. As author of the classics That's Blaxploitation and Negrophobia: An Urban Parable, James is the perfect person to co-curate the volume created in honor of Ali.As Darius says of Ali: “Just as he was for many Americans, Muhammad Ali’s appearance on the cultural landscape was a turning point in my life. The moment he proclaimed ‘I am the greatest,’ he demonstrated it was possible to speak truth to power. This is a quality Ali reflected throughout his life.”

The definitive biography of an American icon, from a New York Times best-selling author with unique access to Ali’s inner circleHe was the wittiest, the prettiest, the strongest, the bravest, and, of course, the greatest (as he told us himself). Muhammad Ali was one of the twentieth century’s most fantastic figures and arguably the most famous man on the planet.But until now, he has never been the subject of a complete, unauthorized biography. Jonathan Eig, hailed by Ken Burns as one of America’s master storytellers, radically reshapes our understanding of the complicated man who was Ali. Eig had access to all the key people in Ali’s life, including his three surviving wives and his managers. He conducted more than 500 interviews and uncovered thousands of pages of previously unreleased FBI and Justice Department files, as well dozens of hours of newly discovered audiotaped interviews from the 1960s. Collectively, they tell Ali’s story like never before—the story of a man who was flawed and uncertain and brave beyond belief.“I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me—black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.”He was born Cassius Clay in racially segregated Louisville, Kentucky, the son of a sign painter and a housekeeper. He went on to become a heavyweight boxer with a dazzling mix of power and speed, a warrior for racial pride, a comedian, a preacher, a poet, a draft resister, an actor, and a lover. Millions hated him when he changed his religion, changed his name, and refused to fight in the Vietnam War. He fought his way back, winning hearts, but at great cost. Like so many boxers, he stayed too long.Jonathan Eig’s Ali reveals Ali in the complexity he deserves, shedding important new light on his politics, religion, personal life, and neurological condition. Ali is a story about America, about race, about a brutal sport, and about a courageous man who shook up the world.

There were mythic sports figures before him--Jack Johnson, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio--but when Cassius Clay burst onto the sports scene from his native Louisville in the 1950s, he broke the mold. He changed the world of sports and went on to change the world itself. As Muhammad Ali, he would become the most recognized face on the planet. Ali was a transcendent athlete and entertainer, a heavyweight Fred Astaire, a rapper before rap was born. He was a mirror of his era, a dynamic figure in the racial and cultural battles of his time. This unforgettable story of his rise and self-creation, told by a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, places Ali in a heritage of great American originals.Cassius Clay grew up in the Jim Crow South and came of athletic age when boxers were at the mercy of the mob. From the start, Clay rebelled against everything and everyone who would keep him and his people down. He refused the old stereotypes and refused the glad hand of the mob. And, to the confusion and fury of white sportswriters, who were far more comfortable with the self-effacing Joe Louis, Clay came forward as a rebel, insistent on his political views, on his new religion, and, eventually, on a new name. His rebellion nearly cost him the chance to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world.King of the World features some of the pivotal figures of the 1960s--Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad, John F. Kennedy--and its pivotal events: the civil rights movement, political assassinations, the war in Vietnam. Muhammad Ali is a great hero and a beloved figure in American life. King of the World takes us back to the days when his life was a series of battles, inside the ring and out. A master storyteller at the height of his powers, David Remnick has written a book worthy of America's most dynamic modern hero.

Norman Mailer's, "The Fight" focuses on the 1975 World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Kinshasa, Zaire. Muhammad Ali met George Foreman in the ring. Foreman's genius employed silence, serenity and cunning. He had never been defeated. His hands were his instrument, and 'he kept them in his pockets the way a hunter lays his rifle back into its velvet case'. Together the two men made boxing history in an explosive meeting of two great minds, two iron wills and monumental egos.

The Tour de France is sport's most compelling battle -- an annual cauldron of heroism and treachery, spectacle and controversy, mind-games and endurance.But the 1986 Tour stands out as the year in which a show-stopping rivalry had spectators across the world gripped.When Greg LeMond -- a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Californian boy, dubbed 'L'American' -- won the 1986 Tour, he made history. The first non-European to win the Yellow Jersey, he broke the Old World stranglehold and changed the face of the competition.But LeMond's victory was hard won. It was seemingly snatched from the jaws of the man ominously dubbed 'The Badger'. Frenchman Bernard 'Le Blaireau' Hinault was five times winner of the Tour and as tough as boots. After winning the 1985 Tour, in which LeMond came a close second, Hinault vowed to return for one final Tour, and with a single purpose: to help LeMond win.But could Hinault be trusted? As the race circled France, he repeatedly attacked LeMond. Hinault claimed to the press that his apparent treachery was merely intended to make LeMond stronger. But LeMond, who didn't believe him, became increasingly fearful, anxious and paranoid.The Tour is renowned for its psychological complexity - but what played out in 1986 was unheard of. Why was Hinault putting his own teammate in jeopardy? Would LeMond crack under the pressure? Something sinister was going on but no one - not even LeMond -- knew quite what.Slaying the Badgerrelives the adrenaline, the agony, the camaraderie, the betrayals, and the pure exhilaration of the 1986 Tour. Richard Moore has interviewed all the key players including the story's two enigmatic, eccentric and fiercely different protagonists. As he delves behind the scenes, the biggest conundrum of Tour history is finally laid bare.

Open an autobiography. Coaxed to swing a racket while still in the crib, forced to hit hundreds of balls a day while still in grade school, Agassi resented the constant pressure even as he drove himself to become a prodigy, an inner conflict that would define him. Now, in his beautiful, haunting autobiography, Agassi tells

It was the World Cup semi-finals. On 4th July, 1990, in a stadium in Turin, Gazza cried, England lost and football changed forever.This is the inside story of Italia '90 - we meet the players, the hooligans, the agents, the journalists, the fans. Writer Pete Davies was given nine months full access to the England squad and their manager Bobby Robson. One Night in Turin is his thrilling insider account of the summer when football became the greatest show on earth.

The Twentieth Anniversary Edition As a young boy, growing up in London and watching his parents' marriage fall apart, Nick Hornby - author of High Fidelity, About a Boy and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree - had little sense of home. Then his dad took him to Highbury. Arsenal's football ground would become the source of many of the strongest feelings he'd ever have: joy, humiliation, heartbreak, frustration and hope. In this hilarious, moving and now-classic book, he vividly depicts his childhood life, his time as a teacher, and his first loves (after football), all through the prism of the game, as he insightfully and brilliantly explores obsession, and the way it can shape a life.

Described by Robert Lipsyte as 'the high point of American sports journalism', John McPhee's Levels of the Game, nominally about a tennis match between two of the greats of tennis history, redefined what it meant to be a sports writer. Written by four-times finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, Levels of the Game is the best tennis book ever written, dealing with human behaviour, race, politics and the divisions of the country, all told through a single game of tennis. Levels of the Game is a narrative of a tennis match played by Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968, beginning with the ball rising into the air for the initial serve and ending with the final point. In between, McPhee provides a brilliant, stroke-by-stroke description, while examining the backgrounds and attitudes which have molded the players' games. Arthur Ashe thinks that Clark Graebner, a middle-class white conservative dentist's son from Cleveland, plays stiff and compact Republican tennis. Graebner acknowledges that this is true, and for his part thinks that, because Ashe is black and from Richmond, Ashe's tennis game is bold, loose, liberal, flat-out Democratic, When physical assets are about equal, psychology is paramount to any game.

Through 1996 and 1997 bestselling author Joe Mc Ginniss followed the Italian football season from Castel di Sangro, a small town nestled in the Abruzzi region of Italy. The motley crew that comprised the di Sangro soccer team in the early 90s masked an unparalleled prowess for playing soccer. This is the story of a team and a town with no aspirations, just a passion for the game, and how that passion allowed this team to rise to the top of the professional Italian soccer league. With the lust for life of Robert Crichton's THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA and the sporting dreams of modern movie classic FIELDS OF DREAMS, THE MIRACLE OF CASTEL DI SANGRO is an ebullient story of how a two-hour game transformed a dot on the map into a place of magic, miracles and wonder.

Poker players Johnny Moss, Pug Pearson, and Titanic Thompson; tennis player Bobby Riggs; pool player Minnesota Fats; and backgammon player Tim Holland have come away with their pockets filled and their sense of infallibility intact. The dramatic descriptions of the ambience and the games are riveting, but more intriguingly, Jon Bradshaw deftly probes these gamblers’ minds and hearts as he attempts to define what makes some men winners and most losers.

A scorching and deeply personal autobiography lifting the lid on the life and character of one of English rugby's most successful ever players Brian Moore, or "Pitbull" as he came to be known during nearly a decade at the heart of the England rugby team's pack, established himself as one of the game's original hard men at a time when rugby was still an amateur sport. Since his retirement, he has earned a reputation as an equally uncompromising commentator, never afraid to tell it as he sees it and lash out at the money men and professionals that have made rugby into such a different beast. Yet, for all his bullishness on and off the pitch, there also appears a more unconventional, complicated side to the man. A solicitor by trade, Moore's love of fine wine, career experience as a manicurist, and preference for reading Shakespeare in the dressing room before games, mark him out as anything but the stereotypical rugby player, and in Beware of the Dog, Moore lays open with astounding frankness the shocking events, both personal and professional, that have gone towards shaping him over the years. Presenting an unparalleled insight into the mind of one of British rugby's greatest players and characters, Beware of the Dog is a uniquely engaging and upfront sporting memoir.

Diego Maradona, is arguably the greatest and certainly the most widely-known footballer of the modern age. During his tempestuous career he played for top clubs in South America and Europe, and was a central figure in four World Cups. With the fortunes he has earned from sponsorship and transfer deals, he personified football, both as popular sport and big business. Jimmy Burns pursued his research in several countries on both sides of the Atlantic, gaining access to Maradona's inner circle, and to other key witnesses, such as players, managers, trainers, doctors and officials. The result is a story straddling the international scene, from the slums of Buenos Aires, where Maradona was born, to the huge stadiums of the United States from where, in 1994, he was ignobly expelled after undergoing a positive drugs test. In his rise to fame - and notoriety - Maradona played for some of the world's greatest Boca Juniors, Napoli and Barcelona. He scored some brilliant goals - and cheated with others. He provoked fans into a mass hysteria of adulation, and his enemies into sinister campai. Now, as coach of Argentina, he is leading the country into the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. This new edition brings the story of Maradona completely up to date.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller"Lewis has such a gift for storytelling…he writes as lucidly for sports fans as for those who read him for other reasons." ―Janet Maslin, New York TimesWhen we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family’s love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback’s greatest vulnerability, his blind side.

Winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, the biography of Robert Enke, the international footballer with the world at his feet who took his own lifeHere, award-winning writer Ronald Reng pieces together the puzzle of his lost friend's life. On November 10, 2009, the German national goalkeeper, Robert Enke, stepped in front of a passing train. He was 32 years old. Viewed from the outside, Enke had it all. He was a professional goalkeeper who had played for a string of Europe's top clubs, including Jose Mourinho's Benfica and Louis Van Gaal's Barcelona, and was destined to be his country's first choice for years to come. But beneath the bright veneer of success lay a darker story. Reng brings into sharp relief the specific demands and fears faced by those who play top-level sport. Heartfelt, but never sentimental, he tells the universal tragedy of a talented man's struggles against his own demons.

The Death of Ayrton Senna

This is soccer comic-ery, but not as you know it. Welcome to the comically brilliant and politically engaging work of illustrator David Squires, artist extraordinaire. Soccer and comics. Once a hearty Saturday combination to match cartoons and cereal, in recent years they’ve drifted apart.Thankfully for us, David Squires is here to change all that. Based out of Sydney, his soccer comics have appeared everywhere from the Guardian to Pickles Magazine. In a sport full of handsome paychecks and corporate sponsors, his work casts a critical eye over corrupt backroom workings and helps pierce soccer’s overblown balloon. This book is an anthology of some of David's best work. WARNING! Is sure to ignite debate and spark hilarity.

In this compelling and sensationally honest book, Paul Kimmage strips away the public facade of an international football star. Tony Cascarino is a man scarred by childhood, haunted by indiscretion and troubled by a secret from his past. A man struggling to find answers as he speeds towards the most terrifying juncture in sport. The End.

Between 1980 and 1993, Simon Hughes was a regular on the county circuit, playing for Middlesex until 1991 before moving on to Durham at the end of his career. In that time, he played alongside some of the great characters in cricket: Mike Brearley, Mike Gatting, Phil Edmonds and Ian Botham. This is not an autobiography of a good county pro, but a look at the ups and downs, the lifestyle, the practical jokes and sheer hard yakka that make such a poorly paid, insecure job appeal to so many. Now a respected journalist and broadcaster, Simon Hughes has written a brilliant, amusing and wrily self-depracating book, packed with hilarious and embarrassing anecdotes about some of the greatest cricketers of the last 20 years.

A beautifully written and moving account of the author’s search for the man his father was, and the life he led as a well-known footballer at a time when the men who played the game, and those who watched it, led fundamentally the same lives together in the same communities.