Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas


Tom Callahan - 2006
    Rejected by Notre Dame, discarded by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he started on a Pennsylvania sandlot making six dollars a game and ended as the most commanding presence in the National Football League, calling the critical plays and completing the crucial passes at the moment his sport came of age.Johnny U is the first authoritative biography of Unitas, based on hundreds of hours of interviews with teammates and opponents, coaches, family and friends. The depth of Tom Callahan’s research allows him to present something more than a biography, something approaching an oral history of a bygone sporting era. It was a time when players were paid a pittance and superstars painted houses and tiled floors in the off-season—when ex-soldiers and marines like Gino Marchetti, Art Donovan, and “Big Daddy” Lipscomb fell in behind a special field general in Baltimore. Few took more punishment than Unitas. His refusal to leave the field, even when savagely bloodied by opposing linemen, won his teammates’ respect. His insistence on taking the blame for others’ mistakes inspired their love. His encyclopedic football mind, in which he’d filed every play the Colts had ever run, was a wonder.In the seminal championship game of 1958, when Unitas led the Colts over the Giants in the NFL’s first sudden-death overtime, Sundays changed. John didn’t. As one teammate said, “It was one of the best things about him.”

Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls: From McMahon to McMahon


James J. Dillon - 2005
    Dillon.

Rebels for the Cause: The Alternative History of Arsenal Football Club


Jon Spurling - 2003
    But what has never been written before is the equally remarkable history of Arsenal's rebels, both on and off the pitch. Spanning almost 120 years, and set against a backdrop of turbulent social and political change, Rebels for the Cause assesses the legacy and impact of Arsenal's most controversial players, officials and matches. From hard men like '30s player Wilf Copping to the reformed wild ones of recent years such as Tony Adams, Jon Spurling highlights the infamous figures whose refusal to conform has made them terrace legends. Mavericks such as '80s star Charlie Nicholas and the 'King of Highbury' Charlie George are here, as are '70s lads Alan Hudson and Malcolm Macdonald. The book also focuses on the club's revolutionary founding fathers, David Danskin and Jack Humble, the terrifying '20s 'soccer Tsar' Sir Henry Norris and David Dein's controversial introduction of free-market economics to Highbury in the regressive '80s. Also investigated are the stories behind Arsenal's most infamous tabloid exposés. Featuring extensive interviews with 15 former players, Rebels for the Cause is an indispensable guide to the alternative history of Arsenal Football Club, shedding new light on the origins of the rivalry with Tottenham, on many of Highbury's cult heroes and on the struggle of several players to adapt to life outside the game.

Fearless: How Leicester City Shook the Premier League, and What it Means for Sport


Jonathan Northcroft - 2016
    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.

This is Our Story


Wendi Adelson - 2011
    Their experiences with the underbelly of globalization here in our own backyard, and the legal battles they wage against their traffickers with their immigration attorney, Lily, are told in their own voices, and hers, in vivid and compelling detail.

NFL Confidential: True Confessions from the Gutter of Football


Johnny Anonymous - 2015
    I’m going to be honest.”Johnny Anonymous' life goal was to be nothing greater or less than the Best NFL Back-Up of All Time™. For two years, he was content earning hundreds of thousands of dollars to stand on the sidelines doing absolutely nothing. But early in his third year, a starting lineman is injured, and he suddenly finds himself on the field.For most players, this moment is a dream come true. But not so for our author, one of the incredibly rare birds in football who reach the highest echelons, but who actually hate America’s favorite game. That’s right. Johnny Anonymous hates football. He hates what it does to his body, his brain, his life. Luckily, he can see the humor in his own situation, but also in the machinations of the NFL.Part truth-telling narrative, part whip-smart commentary that only a true insider could bring, part hilarious, NFL Confidential gives football fans a look at a world most would give anything to see, and gives non-fans a wild ride through the strange, and sometimes disturbing customs and realities of football today. Here is a truly unaffiliated look at the nation’s biggest, most lucrative pastime over the course of one of its most transformative seasons.From hard-to-stomach diets, showdowns in the weight room, shenanigans in the locker room, the looming dread of being cut from the team, the racial issues that still exist in modern-day football, the rock-star lifestyle that players find themselves able to afford and sometimes enjoy a little too much, the notion of being lauded in a league plagued by controversy and the sharp contrast between the love/hate of the game and the reality of the job, Johnny reveals a never-before-seen side of the NFL.

Mr Unbelievable


Chris Kamara - 2010
    As a player, Kammy trawled football's outposts with the likes of Bradford City, Stoke City and Portsmouth where he suffered the slings, arrows and hurled bananas of racial abuse. Later, during the autumn of his career, he played in Howard Wilkinson's swashbuckling Leeds team where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Eric Cantona and Lee Chapman.On hanging up his boots, he moved into the dugouts at Bradford and Sunderland as manager before joining the Sky football revolution as roving reporter on Soccer Saturday and Goal On Sunday's eagle-eyed analyst, amassing a raft of catchphrases along the way.Mr Unbelievable is a hugely entertaining, moving, shocking and laugh out loud funny story of a genuine cult hero.

The Secret Player


Anonymous - 2013
    Based on the hugely popular The Player columns in FourFourTwo magazine, the book gives a warts-and-all insight into the daily life of professional footballers. Month by month, it chronicles the oscillating rhythms of the season, from the trudge of pre-season to the "squeaky-bum time" of promotion and relegation. The player himself has played at all levels of English football, from Premier League to a season of non-League, and represented England (alongside David Backham) at U21 level.

Champions League Dreams


Rafa Benítez - 2012
    Rafa expertly navigates fans through intriguing European adventures that embrace the triumph and despair of two Champions League finals, three semi-finals and five quarter-finals in what was a golden era for the Anfield club - an era that supporters felt gave them their pride back after years in the wilderness. What sets Champions League Dreams apart is the unique ways in which Rafa allows fans into his high-pressured world, the fascinating glimpses he offers of a top manager's thought processes and decision making during the cut and thrust of a high-octane European campaign. Understand how a great manager prepares for, then executes, a master-plan for European success.

I'm (No Longer) a Mormon: A Confessional


Regina Samuelson - 2012
    This is not as easy as one would imagine: She was born in the church, educated at BYU, married in the temple, and is raising more Mormons. She faced a serious conundrum: keep quiet (and avoid losing everything dear to her), or tell the world what being raised LDS does to a person's psyche, especially when they realize that everything they were taught and everything they hoped to believe is a lie. To expose the difficulty faced by Mormons who leave the Church and to seek support for their plight, Regina offers a first-person confessional memoir recounting her many atrocious experiences, managing to weave in enough humor to keep you turning pages, and enough brutal honesty to bring you to an understanding of what it is to be a Mormon, and to try to leave it behind...

Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity


Drew Brees - 2010
    Coming Back Stronger is the ultimate comeback story, not only of one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks, but also of a city and a team that many had all but given up on. Brees’s inspiring message of hope and encouragement proves that with enough faith, determination, and heart, you can overcome any obstacle life throws your way and not only come back, but come back stronger.

The Wenger Revolution: Twenty Years of Arsenal


Amy Lawrence - 2016
    In the subsequent twenty years as manager he has transformed the club. English football's longest serving manager has overseen a period of radical change. His experience spans across the spectrum from complex challenges to historic success.The Wenger Revolution chronicles this fascinating era through the combination of distinctive photographs taken from the inner sanctum, and words from Amy Lawrence.This is a stunning photographic journey, based on the images captured by official club photographer Stuart MacFarlane, who has had exclusive access for many years. Publication coincides with the twentieth anniversary of Wenger's arrival in England.The Arsenal he joined bears little resemblance to what the club looks like as we approach 2016. A total renovation in terms of training, stadium, style, economics and a global audience has taken place under Wenger's instruction.His successes illustrate what a sensation he created in English football. He is regarded as a guru of new football methods, getting a club with a traditional English culture to give up drinking, modernize diet, embrace new training methods, and play with a panache that ripped up the stereotype of Boring Arsenal. The Wenger Revolution is worth commemorating, and this book will do so in style.

How Cav Won the Green Jersey: Short Dispatches from the 2011 Tour de France


Ned Boulting - 2012
    This is not the story of Cadel Evans. This is not the story of Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck, or Bradley Wiggins. And it's not even the story of Mark Cavendish. (Although he is in it quite a lot.) This is the story of the lesser-known heroes; the Johnny Hoogerlands, the Thomas Voecklers, the hitchhikers, the maniac press drivers, Norbert Dentressangle and the greatest ever Tour de France*. I was there. And this is what I saw. That is all. In this 20,000-word digital short, ITV's Ned Boulting, author of How I Won the Yellow Jumper, takes an honest and idiosyncratic look at the unforgettable 2011 Tour de France, when Mark Cavendish won the Green Jersey. *probably

A Life in Football: My Autobiography


Ian Wright - 2016
    From Sunday morning football directly to Crystal Palace; from 'boring, boring Arsenal' to inside the Wenger Revolution; from Saturday afternoons on the pitch to Saturday evenings on primetime television; from a week in prison to inspiring youth offenders, Ian will reveal all about his extraordinary life and career.Ian will also frankly discuss how retirement affects footballers, why George Graham deserves a statue, social media, why music matters, breaking Arsenal's goal-scoring record, racism, the unadulterated joy of playing alongside Dennis Bergkamp and, of course, what he thinks of Tottenham. Not a standard footballer's autobiography, Ian Wright's memoir is a thoughtful and gripping insight into a Highbury Hero and one of the greatest sports stars of recent years.

Mourinho


José Mourinho - 2014
    In the legendary manager's very first book, and in his own images and captions, Jose Mourinho charts the peaks and troughs of the opening fifteen years of what has been a stellar rise to the summit of the global game.Through more than 120 personally selected images (some of which are exclusive to the book), fans will relish an intimate and unmissable opportunity to understand and further appreciate this giant of the sport.