Henderson is that rare bird, a reporter with a fine grasp of time and place, but also a stylist of enviable quality and perception' Michael ParkinsonNeville Cardus once said there could be no summer in England without cricket.The 2019 season was supposed to be the greatest summer of cricket ever seen in England. There was a World Cup, followed by five Test matches against Australia in the latest engagement of sport's oldest rivalry. It was also the last season of county cricket before the introduction in 2020 of a new tournament, The Hundred, designed to attract an audience of younger people who have no interest in the summer game.In That Will Be England Gone, Michael Henderson revisits much-loved places to see how the game he grew up with has changed since the day in 1965 that he saw the great fast bowler Fred Trueman in his pomp. He watches schoolboys at Repton, club cricketers at Ramsbottom, and professionals on the festival grounds of Chesterfield, Cheltenham and Scarborough. The rolling English road takes him to Leicester for T20, to Lord's for the most ceremonial Test match, and to Taunton to watch an old cricketer leave the crease for the last time. He is enchanted at Trent Bridge, surprised at the Oval, and troubled at Old Trafford.'Cricket,' Henderson says, 'has always been part of my other life.' There are memories of friendships with Ken Dodd, Harold Pinter and Simon Rattle, and the book is coloured throughout by a love of landscape, poetry, paintings and music. As well as reflections on his childhood hero, Farokh Engineer, and other great players, there are digressions on subjects as various as Lancashire comedians, Viennese melancholy and the films of Michael Powell.Lyrical and elegiac, That Will Be England Gone is a deeply personal tribute to cricket, summer and England.'Admirers of Neville Cardus and A. E. Housman will warm to Michael Henderson's elegy for an ideal England. A rich roast dinner of cricket, music, topography, nostalgia and anecdote, washed down with prose as smooth and satisfying as a pint of Otter Ale' Sebastian Faulks

    Weeks later he testified against his former team mate Lance Armstrong, as part of the USADA investigation.In a stunning piece of writing, Barry explores the dreams and passion of a young, idealistic cycling fan from Toronto - what it was then like to ride as a teammate alongside such giants of the sport as Lance Armstrong, Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, and how those dreams were tainted early on in his career by a sport in crisis.But it's also the story of his eleven years riding clean, before and after his time in the notorious American Postal Team. What was it like to head for Europe at such a young age, and what was it like to escape the environment of doping, to try and start again, all the time aware that past actions may one day catch up with him?Offering a unique and elegiac insight into the life and mind of a professional sportsman - the pressures, sacrifices, fears, crashes, injuries and neuroses - Cycles of the Heart is a classic, must-read book for cycling and sports fans alike.

    With players Bobby Bonilla, Vince Coleman, Bret Saberhagen, and Howard Johnson, winning another championship seemed a mere formality. The 1992 New York Mets never made it to Cooperstown, however. Veteran newspapermen Bob Klapisch and John Harper reveal the extraordinary inside story of the Mets’ decline and fall—with the sort of detail and uncensored quotes that never run in a family newspaper. From the sex scandals that plagued the club in Florida to the puritanical, no-booze rules of manager Jeff Torborg, from bad behavior on road trips to the downright ornery practical “jokes” that big boys play, The Worst Team Money Could Buy is a grand-slam classic.

    would start a new professional league. The North American Soccer League had failed just four years prior, and the prospects of launching a new league for Americans, who didn’t share the rest of the world’s love for soccer, were both exciting and daunting.The United States of Soccer is the engaging history of MLS’s bootstrap origins prior to its 1996 launch, its near-demise in the early 2000s, its surprising resilience and growth in the following years, and its continued rise in respectability and recognition from soccer fans around the world.The book also explores the origin of a number of MLS’s best-known supporters groups – the superfans responsible for setting the tone within MLS stadiums and defining what it is to be a North American soccer fan. The book looks at how MLS helped develop the massive American audiences for the most recent men’s and women’s World Cups – peaking at 27 million for the 2015 Women’s World Cup finals – even as it looks to expand its number of franchises and grow its audience in a sports-saturated world.Phil West chronicles those fans’ voices – intermingled with league officials, former players and coaches, journalists, and newspaper accounts – to detail MLS’s remarkable journey for those new to the U.S.’s top-tier league, as well as those who think they know the full MLS story.

    I’ve been lionized by the public and the press. The world is at my feet. I’ve spread my wings and here I am, soaring above everything and everyone. But in reality, the descent has already begun.” At age 20, Thomas Dekker was already earning €100,000 a year—as an amateur bike racer. The next year, he turned pro and his salary quadrupled then rose again to €900,000 as he established his position as a super-domestique among Europe’s wealthiest superteams. The sport marveled at Dekker’s rise as the young racer set his ambitions on capturing cycling’s biggest prizes for himself. Before long, though, Dekker found himself corrupted by money, dazzled by fame, and cracking under the relentless pressure to perform at a superhuman level. In his tell-all book DESCENT: My Epic Fall from Cycling Superstardom to Doping Dead End, Dekker reveals a sordid way of life full of blood bags, drugs, prostitutes, and money. DESCENT tells the story of a yearslong bender that exposes the brutal truth of his life as a professional cyclist. And Dekker is not alone; he names those who fell with him and those who aided in his downfall. In DESCENT, we take an unflinching look at the European peloton as it roars through its modern boom years—the height of the EPO era—and what we see is shocking. You won’t be able to turn away from this page-turning read about one man’s rise, fall, and redemption and what his story reveals about professional sports.

    Prepared to be awed and inspired by Chris Froome riding on at the Tour de France with a broken wrist or Geraint Thomas finishing it with a broken pelvis.In The Hardmen the writers behind cycling superblog Velominati.com and The Rules will tell the stories and illuminate the myths of not just the greatest cyclists ever, but the toughest. From Eddy Merckx to Beryl Burton, and from Marianne Vos to Edwig Van Hooydonk, the book will lay bare the secrets of their extraordinary and inspirational endurance in the face of pain, danger and disaster. After all, suffering is one of the joys of being a cyclist. Embrace climbs, relish the descents, and get ready to harden up. . .

    Now, 40 years after sports history was made, acclaimed sports writer Mike Freeman celebrates the Dolphins’ singular achievement in Undefeated. A riveting story filled with heartbreaking injuries, miraculous finishes, and tested relationships—featuring a roster of gridiron greats, including Bob Griese, Earl Morrall, Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, Mercury Morris, Nick Buoniconti and others—Undefeated follows a underdog team on its remarkable run: 14 regular season victories, 2 postseason wins, and a Super Bowl championship. It is a book no football fan will want to miss.

    This is THE cricket biography of 2013. Michael Hussey's huge popularity does not rest solely on his incredible playing record. Popularly known as Mr Cricket, he made his Test debut against the West Indies in Brisbane in November 2005, and has scored 6,183 Test runs over 78 Tests in his career. But to his fans, it is the way he plays the game rather than simply the sum of his achievements that marks him out as one of the best-loved cricketers of his generation. He is a middle-order maestro with a batting average of 51.52, but he has always played cricket with an integrity and sense of values that is the epitome of what cricket stands for. His autobiography takes you behind the scenes to his world of cricket. From his lengthy struggle to break into the Australian side, through to his masterly achievements in the Australian team, in ODI and Indian Premier League - this book follows his extraordinary cricket career., with plenty of surprisingly frank admissions & behind the scenes dramas.

     After blowing all his cash on his previous long-distance bike ride (No Place Like Home, Thank God), Steven Primrose-Smith wants to go cycling again. Without the necessary funds, he decides to see if it's possible to travel thousands of miles on a budget of just £1 a day. Against advice, he puts together a team of complete strangers, including a fresh-faced student, a Hungarian chef, and a man with the world's worst bike, the beard of a goblin and a fetish for goats. While cycling from Liverpool to Gibraltar through England, Wales, France, Spain and Portugal, they plan to supplement their cash-strapped diet by fishing and foraging. It's just a pity no one knows anything about either. People quit, nerves are strained, and faces and bikes are both smashed. Will anyone make it to Gibraltar?

    But the 1998 Tour provided drama like no other. As the opening stages in Ireland unfolded, the Festina team's soigneur, Willy Voet, was arrested at the French-Belgian border with a carload of drugs. Raid upon police raid followed, with arrest after arrest hammering the Tour. In protest, there were riders' strikes and go-slows, with several squads withdrawing en masse and one expelled. By the time the Tour reached Paris, just 96 of the 189 starters remained, and of those 189 starters, more than a quarter were later reported to have doped. The 1998 ” “Tour de Farce's” status as one of the most scandal-struck sporting events in history was confirmed.Voet's arrest was just the beginning of cycling's biggest mass doping controversy--what became known as the Festina affair. It all but destroyed professional cycling as the credibility of the entire sport was called into question, and the cycling family began to split apart even as, ironically, the 1998 Tour was also one of the best races in years.The End of the Road is the first book in English to provide in-depth analysis and a colorful evocation of the tumultuous events of the 1998 Tour. Alasdair Fotheringham uncovers how the world's biggest bike race sank into such scandal. He explores its long-term consequences and what, if any, lessons were learned.

    Out on the pitch a lone brass player sounds the haunting Post Horn Gallop, for 80 years the home players' entrance tune. Spines tingle. Air is gulped into opposition lungs. Game time, time to begin the chase. Burning fox eyes peer down from between the decks of one of the stands. On the stadium's outside wall a royal blue LCD display says #Fearless.Welcome to Leicester City. They were always a club with a difference but in 2015-16 they created a story that in modern football stands unique. Who could believe it: from relegation certainties to champions of England? It was when, on behalf of every small club, dreams were hunted at the King Power, a season where the impossible became merely quarry.5,000-1 shots when the campaign started, Leicester's transformation has been remarkable. This is the most incredible cast of written-offs, grafters, misfits and journeymen, coming together in a special time and place to simultaneously have the season of their lives. Fearless will document Leicester's hunt of their impossible dream. It will tell the greatest football tale of the Premier League era, in loving detail, with the inside track. Now that Leicester have gone all the way and won the title, it is the best story in world sports - for years.Premier League champions. The side who'd been adrift at the bottom 12 months previously, who's started the season as relegation favourites, whose manager was favourite to be the first one sacked once the campaign got underway. A League One side only seven seasons previously. A squad of �500,000 and �1m men. Leicester. Ridiculous. Miraculous. Fearless.

    

    Known as La Vecchia Signora - "The Old Lady" - she is the perfect blend of flair, artistry and skill, combined with a ruthless determination and will to win that constantly flirts with the less savoury elements of the game.For every Michel Platini or Alessandro Del Piero to win the hearts of fans of the beautiful game, there has been a Claudio Gentile or Paolo Montero waiting their moment to launch a well-timed elbow into an opponent. For every Gianni Agnelli to woo the crowds with his sartorial elegance and well chosen words, a Luciano Moggi lurks, playing the villain and serving to heighten the levels of hate felt towards the club by rival supporters.It is all encapsulated by those starkly contrasting stripes which have become synonymous with the Turin giants.This is that story, a history in black and white.

    Sunday lunchtime kick-offs. Absurd ticket prices. Non-black boots. Football's menu of ills is long. Where has the joy gone? Why do we bother? Saturday, 3pm offers a glorious antidote. It is here to remind you that football can still sing to your heart.Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to what is good in the game. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that remain sweet and right: seeing a ground from the train, brackets on vidiprinters, ball hitting bar, Jimmy Armfield's voice, listening to the results in a traffic jam, football towns and autograph-hunters. This is fan culture at its finest, words to transport you somewhere else and identify with, words to hide away in a pub and luxuriate in.Saturday, 3pm is a book of love letters to football and a clarion call, helping us find the romance in the game all over again.

    But ‘Mr Indestructible’ – who had become the first Australian to win the Rock of Roubaix earlier that year – got back on his bike.By 2013 Stuart O’Grady had competed in 17 Tours; secured Olympic and Commonwealth Games medals; been named Australian Cyclist of the Year, and Australian Male Road Cyclist of the Year; won the inaugural Tour Down Under; and earned an Order of Australia Medal in recognition of his contribution to the sport. But then came the worst time of his life, when he announced his retirement after such an impressive cycling career and revealed that he had used the performance enhancing drug EPO before the 1998 Tour de France – a Tour marred by widespread doping.In this up-front and honest autobiography Stuey reveals all. This is his story: as candid and down-to-earth as the man himself.