A Premier League referee since 1991 and 10 years as an international referee, Graham Poll has handled some of the toughest games in the Premiership involving Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Chelsea, as well as European Championships and World Cups—in total more than 1500 matches. What is it like to referee the biggest matches in international football? What really goes on between the players in the tunnel before a match and in the dressing room after? Who are the nastiest footballers? And the funniest? Who is the smartest manager? And are the bureaucrats ruining the beautiful game? Controversial and opinionated, Poll has crossed swords with some of the biggest names in world football and shares private conversations with the likes of Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Sepp Blatter, and Steve McClaren, and the inside story behind controversial incidents involving Roy Keane, David Beckham, Patrick Vieira, and current England captain John Terry, among others. Poll also talks about the infamous 2006 World Cup match when he failed to send off a Croatian player after three yellow cards in a crucial tie against Australia, returning home early in disgrace and with his career in meltdown. The games, the players, the managers, the suits—the most outspoken referee in the modern game tells it as it really is.

    The Art of Smart Football is an eye-opening, fascinating and accessible contribution to our understanding of America’s favorite sport. The Art of Smart Football features analysis of football's top strategists and schemes, including: Pete Carroll's aggressive defense Chip Kelly's spread offense and new-school methods The roots of Bill Belichick's defensive genius Gus Malzahn's up-tempo offense The strategies Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers use to shred defenses Art Briles and Baylor's wide open attack Nick Saban's defensive evolution The book also includes explorations of the newest trends in football, including "packaged plays" that combine runs and passes into one play, "pattern match" defenses that blend man-to-man and zone pass coverages, how defenses are responding to the spread offense, and much more. Praise for The Art of Smart Football: "The Art of Smart Football made me a smarter football writer . . . Football, as presented by these coaches and by Brown, is such an imaginative game. It’s a great read: Go buy it." -- Peter King, The MMQB/Sports Illustrated"A must read if you are a football junkie." -- Trent Dilfer, ESPN/13-year NFL Veteran Quarterback"The best analysis in the game today."-- Rolling Stone"Awesome stuff. I recommend The Art of Smart Football to any coach or fan." -- Matt Bowen, ESPN Columnist/NFL Veteran"When Chris B. Brown releases a book, you should buy it."-- Bill Barnwell, Grantland/ESPN"A deep dive into football. Highly recommended."-- Field Yates, ESPN"The Art of Smart Football is a perfect read for anyone looking to take their knowledge of the game up a notch."-- ElevenWarriors.com

    After building the Buffalo Bills team that went to four consecutive Super Bowls and taking the expansion Carolina Panthers to the NFC Championship just two years after the team’s creation, he was responsible for the Indianapolis Colts drafting Peyton Manning with the first overall pick in 1998 and oversaw the team’s victory in Super Bowl XLI. Now, Polian shares his blueprint for building a successful football team in The Game Plan. He details the decisions both a team needs to make in the regular season and the offseason to bring teams to the postseason and the NFL’s ultimate test of a well-built team: the Super Bowl.

    Exciting. Instead I’ve ended up living across the street from Johnny. Star footballer, charmer, intelligent. Perfect, right? Wrong! I have no intention of being this line-backer’s latest conquest. Staying far away from him is my only choice. Even if every little thing he does makes me swoon. Johnny Baker is bad news for any girl. He’s a player and no girl will change that. Only he wasn’t. He began to capture my attention more and more until all I thought of was him.He was my missing piece…JohnnyBeing the line-backer is easy. Especially when it gets me a different girl in my bed every night. That’s exactly what Tillie was supposed to be. Just another conquest. Wham and bam! She would be easy. I had never been with an art geek before but every other female fell at my feet or more accurately into my bed. Only she didn’t. Tillie Jacobs came into my world and blew it apart. Every little thing she did; every laugh, every moment… she possessed me.She was my missing piece…

    Can they reconnect and overcome the misunderstandings, secrets, and heartbreak? Jag Parros left Lonepeak Valley to become a hockey superstar. He thought Faith Summers would wait for him but she writes him off and breaks his heart. Ten years later he comes back for Christmas hoping for a break from a snarky reporter and quality time with his family. When he runs into Faith again he falls instantly back in love and is willing to do anything to put the misunderstandings behind them. Little does he know the secret he’s trying to hide will be revealed and Faith might never be his. Don’t miss this second chance Christmas romance full of heartbreak and swoon-worthy kisses. Strong Family Romance Don’t Date Your Brother’s Best Friend Her Loyal Protector Don’t Fall for a Fugitive Her Hockey Superstar Fake Fiance

    New York City newspapers reported his death on their front pages. ("Crimson Tears," read the headline in the New York Post, "Nation weeps over death of legendary Bear Bryant, 69.") Three days later, America watched in awe as an estimated quarter of a million mourners lined the fifty-five mile stretch from Tuscaloosa to a Birmingham cemetery to pay their respects as his three-mile long funeral cortege drove by.President Reagan and the three former American presidents sent flowers, as did people as diverse as Bob Hope, ABC's Roone Arledge, advice columnist Ann Landers and the Reverend Billy Graham. Scores of Bryant's former players, including Joe Namath, Lee Roy Jordan, Ken Stabler and Ozzie Newsome, were in attendance. So were Bryant's most distinguished colleagues, the greatest living football coaches, including Southern Cal's John McKay, who said, "It was like a presidential funeral procession. No coach in America could have gotten that. No coach but him. But then, he wasn't just a coach. He was the coach."Bryant's passing was noted with the kind of reverence our country reserved for statesmen or military leaders, though Paul "Bear" Bryant had insisted for much of his life that he was "just a football coach." For millions he was much more, he was the greatest coach the game ever saw, the heir to the tradition established by Knute Rockne. He took his Alabama Crimson Tide teams to an unmatched six national championships. But to the players, journalists and fans whose lives he touched in his more than half a century as a player and coach, he was the last symbol of values that transcended football—courage, discipline, loyalty, and hard work.To his critics, Bryant represented the dark side of big-time college football—brutality, fanaticism and blind adherence to authority. The real Bear Bryant was far more complex than either his admirers or detractors knew. While maintaining a public friendship with Alabama governor George Wallace, he continually sought ways to undermine the governor's segregationist policies, finally forcing a legendary football game in Birmingham with the University of Southern California that opened the floodgates to the integration of football at the University of Alabama, including its coaching staff. Old fashioned in his politics, he was nonetheless an admirer of Robert Kennedy, whom he planning to vote for in 1968.Allen Barra's The Last Coach traces Paul Bryant's rise from a family of truck farmers to recognition as the most successful and influential coach in the game's history. The eleventh of thirteen children, Bryant was born in tiny Moro Bottom, Arkansas in 1913 and grew up in nearby Fordyce—where his legend was born when he wrestled a live bear on the stage of a local theater. Paul was raised by his mother, who barely managed to keep him out of trouble and on the Fordyce High School Redbugs long enough to get a football scholarship at Alabama, where he would meet and marry the love of his life, campus beauty queen Mary Harmon Black.At the height of the Depression, football took Bryant to the Rose Bowl with Alabama's 1934 national champions and on to a career as an assistant and, finally, a head football coach, where he matched wit and grit with the greatest coaches of two generations, men like Tennessee's General Robert Neyland, Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson, Notre Dame's Ara Parseghian, Ohio State's Woody Hayes, and Penn State's Joe Paterno. Along the way, he stirred controversy with his infamous "Junction Boys" training camp in 1954, during which almost two-thirds of the Texas A football team quit; his legal battle with The Saturday Evening Post over the accusation that he had conspired to fix a college football game, a trial which rocked the sports world; and his pursuit of Amos Alonzo Stagg's all-time record for college coaching victories.Through it all, Bryant's influence has not only endured but prevailed as his former players and assistants continue to define the best in not only college but professional football. A USA Today and Washington Post Best Sports Book.

    What does the offense’s formation tell you about the play that’s about to be run? When a quarterback throws a pass toward the sideline and the wide receiver cuts inside, which player is to blame? Why does a defensive end look like a Hall of Famer one week and a candidate for the practice squad the next? These questions and more are addressed in Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0, a book that takes readers deep inside the perpetual chess match between offense and defense. This book provides clear and simple explanations to the intricacies and nuances that affect the outcomes of every NFL game. This updated edition contains recent innovations from the 2015 NFL season.

    It is a standalone contemporary sports romance novel.Kiernan Kelly and Brooks McCarthy were each born into football royalty. One fateful meeting changes the course of both their lives.Everyone at Cambria University knows that the most popular, handsome and talented guy at the school is destined for the National Football League - alone. His father, Rhett, not only passed on his DNA, work ethic and love for the game, but a set of rules to keep his son unattainable.Kiernan on the other hand tries to hide her famous lineage as she dazzles everyone with her skill on the softball field. As the daughter of Hall of Fame quarterback, John Kelly, she inherited his athleticism, but not his lust for the spotlight or the public persona he works so hard to protect. She has a plan for her life that does not include falling in love. Love makes you weak. Weak like her mother. But fate has other plans for the stunning athlete.Will Kiernan finally not let fear control her? Has Brooks finally met the exception to his rules? Do their families really have their best interest at heart? If their love can survive the first year then it can survive anything.

     In his fifty years of coaching football at Penn State, Joe Paterno has become one of the most popular figures in American sports. Only one other coach has won more football games than Paterno; his team has won more bowl games than any other; and he does it all the way it was meant to be done, with his players succeeding in the classroom as well as on the field and in the pro ranks. Along the way, Paterno has transformed a once obscure agricultural college into a huge research university in the Big Ten, whose endowment now exceeds $1 billion, tens of millions of which "JoePa" has personally helped to raise. But lately the tide seems to have turned in Happy Valley. Since 2000, Paterno’s Nittany Lions have lost more games than they’ve won, and accusations of off-the-field crimes have tarnished his program’s reputation. Award-winning sports reporter Frank Fitzgerald followed Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lions through the 2004 season, from fundraisers in State College to the sidelines at Beaver Stadium. The Lion in Autumn delivers the complete story of this frustrating, tormenting, and ultimately exhilarating turning-point season and the history that led up to it. This is the chronicle of fifty phenomenal years—including the dynasties of undefeated and national championship teams that came before—and a riveting fight to reclaim a legacy.

    His passing was marked by a minutes silence at both the Derby County and Nottingham Forest grounds and provoked a wave of tributes from across the sporting spectrum. A memorial service due to be held at Derby Cathedral had to be moved to Pride Park to accommodate the fans demand for tickets. This overwhelming affection and respect was fully deserved for the man who was often described as being controversial, outspoken and opinionated. His achievements in football speak for themselves: he took two lowly Midlands sides to the very top, winning two consecutive European Cups, with unfashionable Nottingham Forest, in a feat that will surely never be matched by a club of similar stature. died, which offer his candid and entertaining views on club directors and chairmen and on Newcastles treatment of Sir Bobby Robson, as well as his scathing analysis of Englands recent performances. Cloughie also talks honestly about his battles with alcohol and the liver transplant that gave him 21 months of health and happiness.

    When he meets Seve Ballesteros for the first time and makes the cut in the Martini International, he looks set for success. Then reality kicks in at Royal Birkdale in the PGA Championships.This is a true story of how someone has to deal with life's ups and downs. After topping a shot in front of Seve, shanking in front of Sandy Lyle and almost hitting Greg Norman with a monumental slice, John has to deal with the brutality of championship golf. With confidence in tatters John sets out on a quest to find a golf swing that will work and stand the ultimate test of playing in The Open - his dream. But there are no psychologists or coaches to help. Like the rest of the young pros, he has to find the solution himself and no stone is left unturned.From trying crazy superstitions to simply copying the top players like Tom Watson and Nick Faldo, this book shows the difference between the modern day tour pro and the young men who went into battle with blindfolds on.The account of John Hoskison's life on tour is funny, sad and brutally honest. This book will be a fascinating read for all keen golfers or sportsman and the sting in the tail will surprise everyone who reads it.Excerpt from the book:Just before driving home the chairman of West Surrey came to shake my hand. 'John - you're a star,' he said. I smiled. I had felt like one all day. The Titleist Tour clothes designer, proving himself a colour-blind schizophrenic, had far outstripped his previous three design attempts taking 'conspicuous' to new heights. The pattern on my sweater that day was literally stunning. I knew it was power dressing by the reaction of the players in front of me when I had earlier stepped onto the first tee and whipped off my waterproof jacket. Both Craig Stadler and Tom Weiskopf looked stunned. 'Wow,' said Craig. 'You should warn people before you do that.'

    I'd just finished my junior year, been named one of the best college football players in the country, and had a smokin' hot girl on my lap in the back of my buddy's SUV on our way to a party at the cabin. Now I'm living in my own personal hell, reliving that night, my busted-up leg a constant reminder of what I'm trying to forget. Everyone in this damn town is holding their breath to see if I'll play again, as if that even matters anymore. My future in the pros? The money? The media attention? I don't give a shit about any of it anymore.All I want is to be left alone so I'm pissed when my mom goes and hires some damn cleaning lady for the house I've been renting. I'm expecting some old lady and that's who I get until one day she doesn't show up. Instead I get a girl with a beautiful face, soulful eyes, and a body I can't stop looking at.Her name is Becca and she's hot as hell but the girl asks a lot of damn questions. Questions I don't want to answer. But when she's gone, I miss her like you wouldn't believe. Sometimes I'll make the house extra messy just so she'll stay longer. It's pathetic, I know, but this is what I've become.I'm Ethan Baxter. And I'm barely holding on. -----(Full-length standalone with an HEA)

    In researching the first book to cover the complete history of Liverpool FC using a linear narrative, the author was given access to the club's original minute books John Williams explores the origins and divisive politics of soccer in the city of Liverpool and profiles the key men behind the emergence of the club and its early successes in this unique and exhaustively researched history of Liverpool Football Club. This is the definitive history of a remarkable club from its formation in 1892 to the present day, told in the wider context of the social and cultural development of the city of Liverpool and its people.

    They fought scores of pitched battles with rival 'firms' until they were arrested by the police in the most successful undercover operation of its kind.

     Two good feet. Stamina. Decent in the air. He could run, shoot, pass, dribble, read the game, track back, tackle and score goals, brilliant goals, and one – a bicycle kick at Grimsby Town in 2002 – still rated as Leicester City’s greatest-ever goal. A half-English/half-Turkish kid from London’s East End, Izzet learned his trade the hard way; in kids’ leagues, playing against youngsters two or three years older, then as a young pro at Chelsea, kicked all over the Southern Counties League. When it looked like he couldn’t get a break, he contemplated jacking in the only thing he could do – the only thing he wanted to do – to go roofing with his old man. Enter Martin O’Neill and Leicester City… Inspired by the Northern Irishman’s unique motivational methods, Muzzy flourished in a side littered with big characters who worked hard and played hard, established names like Steve Walsh and Garry Parker who helped new faces like Neil Lennon, Robbie Savage and Emile Heskey. This is more than just a football book. It’s about what happened in the changing room, in the bar, being banned from La Manga – not once, but twice – and what happened when O’Neill’s side was dismantled, the club was relegated and, later, fell into administration. Muzzy was there for it all – the good times, the bad, the bits in between. Then there was Turkey. The dressing room rite of passage that spared no blushes and the secret drama behind the World Cup semi-final… Funny, unflinching and occasionally heartbreaking, Muzzy: My Story lifts the lid on 1990s football and a Leicester City legend, remembered fondly by all those who saw him.