It covered 2,000 kilometres and was raced in appalling conditions across the battlefields of the Western Front, otherwise known as the Zone Rouge. The race was so tough that only 21 riders finished, and it was never staged again.With one of the most demanding routes ever to feature in a bicycle race, and plagued by appalling weather conditions, the Circuit des Champs de Bataille was beyond gruelling, but today its extraordinary story is largely forgotten. Many of the riders came to the event straight from the army and had to ride 18-hour stages through sleet and snow across the battlefields on which they had fought, and lost friends and family, only a few months before. But in addition to the hellish conditions there were moments of high comedy, even farce.The rediscovered story of the Circuit des Champs de Bataille is an epic tale of human endurance, suffering and triumph over extreme adversity.

    In doing so, he identifies the pivotal moments in the club's rise to being one of the foremost teams of the twentieth century.With his trademark tactical acumen, Wilson goes back to the matches themselves and subjects them to forensic examination, re-evaluating and reassessing, and going beyond the white noise of banal player quotes and instant judgements to discover why what happened happened. It is in this way, as far as possible, a football history of a great club.And because this is Manchester United, there is additional resonance. From the completion of Old Trafford in 1910, United have had a significant financial advantage. Yet their past has not been one of sustained success. As such, their history is also, to an extent, a history of English football, with all of its possibilities and frustrations.

    It's belly-laughing funny but it's also a hymn to the grand and complex game delivered with a narrative pace and ability I'm afraid most Test players don't have. For anyone who ever dreamed of excelling at a sport but never quite made it but still gave it your life, this is the story. A great read!' Tom Keneally'The Grade Cricketer has taken us so far inside a district club dressing room that you feel like a locker. Ligaments could not be closer to the bone than some of his observations.' Kerry O'Keeffe 'The Grade Cricketer is strange and, I suspect, brilliant'. Wisden

    In this classic summation of half a lifetime spent playing, watching and writing about the sport, he recounts the story of his overriding passion and tells us of the players whom he knew and loved, exploring the game's psychology and aesthetics, and the issues of class, race and politics that surround it.Part memoir of a West Indian boyhood, part passionate celebration and defence of cricket as an art form, part indictment of colonialism, Beyond a Boundary addresses not just a sport but a whole culture and asks the question, 'What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?

    While The Damned United was a fictional account of Clough’s short-lived but controversial reign at the club, this book reveals the true story, as told by the players he managed at the time. Vividly recreating the atmosphere of the era, the book features candid contributions from legendary names such as Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray, and Norman Hunter. They reveal what it was like to make the transition from the relatively smooth management style of former manager Don Revie, who helped the club achieve success in Europe, to a constant crossing of swords with the outspoken Brian Clough, who left the club flailing at the foot of the league upon his premature departure. This explosive account covers all the drama that ensued from the moment Clough was earmarked by the club directors as the favorite to succeed Revie to his exit less than two months later, saddled with the knowledge that he had been the club’s most unsuccessful manager ever. Told from the perspective of those who experienced Clough’s dictatorial managerial methods at Leeds at first hand, We are the Damned United tells it how it really was rather than how it might have been.

    A veritable Hall of Fame list of competitors had gathered that spring in Augusta, Georgia, for the game's most famous event, including Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin, Billy Casper, and Sam Snead. The lead-up had been dominated by Lee Elder, the first black golfer ever invited to the exclusive club's tourney. But by the weekend, the tournament turned into a showdown between the three heavyweights of the time: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, and Tom Weiskopf. Never before had golf's top three players of the moment summoned the best golf of their lives in the same major championship. Their back-and-forth battle would rivet the sporting world and dramatically culminate in one of the greatest finishes in golf history.In The Magnificent Masters, Gil Capps, a twenty-two-year veteran of the golf industry with NBC Sports and Golf Channel, recaptures hole-by-hole the thrilling drama of this singular event during golf's golden era, from the media-crazed build-up and intertwined careers of the three combatants to the tournament's final dramatic putts that would change the game of golf forever.

     What happened at Essendon, what happened at Cronulla, is only part of the story. From the basement office of a suburban football club to the seedy corners of Peptide Alley to the polished corridors of Parliament House, The Straight Dope is an inside account of the politics, greed and personal feuds which fuelled an extraordinary saga. A football club and coach determined to win, a sports scientist who doesn't play by the rules, an AFL administration hell bent on control, an anti-doping authority out of its depth, a generation of footballers held hostage by scandal and an unpopular government that just wants it to end; for two tumultuous seasons this was the biggest game of all.

    They said Mick had a sixth sense for great accuracy in his playing days - he could find a party from any range. Quinn says he only put £50 on each horse race - but liked to stay in the bookies for twenty races a day!Sentenced in 1987 to three weeks in prison for twice driving whilst banned, Mick's been accused of punching Peter Schmeichel on the football pitch and John Fashanu off it. On retirement, though, Quinn switched to horse racing, the Sport of Kings, but controversy led the blue bloods of racing to hang the scouse oik out to dry and he was suspended from training for two and a half years.Who Ate All The Pies? is the funniest and most honest football book you'll read for a long, long time.

    1 bestselling author of The Cow Book.

    This is it. This is really the end. I was now a matter of seconds away from the moment all the numbers stopped for ever. My career total of National Hunt winners would remain at 4,348 after this, my 17,546th ride. All the stats, the numbers that had governed my life for the last two decades, they were just a few hundred yards from being stilled for ever. My whole career, my whole adult life, had been built on making those numbers click upwards as fast as I could, but in a couple of furlongs they would never move again.Deciding to retire was the most difficult decision I've ever had to make. Fortunately I was able to go out at the very top, and being able to say that makes me a very, very lucky man indeed. And now, in this book, I've been able to look back over my entire career - both good and bad moments - and see it in its entirety: the biggest wins, the disappointments, the injuries and the tragedies, my wonderful family, and the amazing horses and the fantastic personalities I've worked with.18,000 people turned up to that final race at Sandown, and I can now look back on my career with immense pride and gratitude. But that chapter of my life is closed. This book is the final word on my riding career - it's time to move forward.

    Robert Anasi took up boxing in his twenties to keep in shape, attract women, and sharpen his knuckles for the odd bar fight. He thought of entering "the Gloves," but put it off. Finally, at age thirty-two-his last year of eligibility-he vowed to fight, although he was an old man in a sport of teenagers and a light man who had to be even lighter (125 pounds) to fight others his size.So begins Anasi's obsessive preparation for the Golden Gloves. He finds Milton, a wily and abusive trainer, and joins Milton's "Supreme Team": a black teenager who used to deal guns in Harlem, a bus driver with five kids, a hard-hitting woman champion who becomes his sparring partner. Meanwhile, he observes the changing world of amateur boxing, in which investment bankers spar with ex-convicts and everyone dreads a fatal blow to the head. With the Supreme Team, he goes to the tournament, whose outcome, it seems, is rigged, like so much in boxing life today. Robert Anasi tells his story not as a journalist on assignment but as a man in the midst of one of the great adventures of his life. The Gloves, his first book, has the feel of a contemporary classic.

    From its humble beginnings in Canton, Ohio, to its emergence as a sport cherished by millions, all the key moments and famous athletes are honored within the pages of this handsomely produced book. In addition to the lively text, and action and portrait photography, the story of the game and the context in which it grew are animated by original lists, charts, creative statistics, and infographics, along with beautiful photos of the evolving equipment and artifacts essential to the story of the sport. A perfect gift, NFL: 100 Years will be cherished by every football fan, new or old.

    They may even have a point. But to build something so successful, so popular, so inescapable, you've got to have mighty strong foundations.Prior to 1992, the old First Division was England's premier prize. Its rich tapestry winds back to 1888 and the formation of the Football League. A grand century-long tradition in danger of being lost in the wake of Premier League year zero.No more! In The Title Scott Murray tells the lively, cherry-picked story of English football through the prism of the First Division. Rich with humour yet underpinned with solid research, this is a glorious meander across our national sport's varied terrain.With as much about Burnley, Wolves, West Brom and Portsmouth as the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, we learn the less well-known stories the sport has to tell, such as the plight of Glossop, the smallest club to ever play top-flight football, and final day drama involving Huddersfield and Cardiff that knocks Michael Thomas into a cocked hat. We bask in the managerial genius of Tom Watson, the bowler-hatted Victorian Mourinho; celebrate the joy of the Busby Babes; discover the shameless showmanship of George Allison; embark on righteous escapades with Hughie Gallacher; and meet some old favourites in Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough.At turns exciting, surprising, witty and bittersweet, The Title is a highly informed, fresh and affectionate love-letter to the English game, and a delight for any football fan.

    Osman Samiuddin captures the jazba of the men who played for Pakistan, celebrates their headiest moments and many upheavals, and brings to life some of their most famous—and infamous—contests, tours and moments.Ambitious, spirited and often heartbreaking, 'The Unquiet Ones' is a comprehensive portrait of not just a Pakistani sport, but a national majboori, a compulsion whose outcome can surprise and shock, and can become the barometer of everyday life in Pakistan, tailing its ups and downs, its moods and character.

    And their fans had ulcers. Now, veteran sports columnist Terry Pluto explains why everything kept going wrong. This detailed report on two decades of disappointment takes a behind-the-scenes look at upheaval in the front office, frustration on the field, and headaches and heartache in the stands. His earlier book False Start: How the New Browns Were Set Up to Fail told how the NFL hamstrung the new franchise. Who could have predicted the limping would last 19 years? This book picks up the story. Season after season began with hope in spring for the NFL draft (“the Browns’ version of the Super Bowl,” a fan called it) . . . often a new coach or GM or quarterback (or all three) . . . then the losses . . . and back to rebuilding. Pluto reviews all the major moves—draft choices and deals, hiring and firing and reshuffling—and the results. If you’re a Browns fan who wants to understand what went wrong with your team, this is the place to start. Includes heartfelt and humorous opinions contributed by fans.