Book picks similar to
The Emmitt Zone by Emmitt Smith
sports
football
biography
biographies
Who Ate All The Pies? The Life and Times of Mick Quinn
Mick Quinn - 2003
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.
Fighter
Andy Lee - 2018
Leaving home for the dust and faded glamour of Detroit, over the next ten years, under the guidance of the legendary Emamuel Steward, he set about honing his craft, winning fight after fight and slowly climbing the professional ranks.Then, in 2012, his star ascendant, Lee suffered two devastating blows in quick succession: defeat in his first World Championship bout and the sudden loss of Steward, his guide and confidant. Bereft, his career in jeopardy, the path to redemption would test every hard-won lesson of the previous decade …Fighter is a lyrical and philosophical memoir about resilience, bravery and the wisdom to be found at the limits of human experience.
The Coach
Patrick Mouratoglou - 2017
The Coach is Patrick Mouratoglou's hugely motivational and inspirational story. As a child, he was full of suffering, enduring anxiety attacks at night. In his own words "puny and very timid, paralysed by the shame of not being able to do better". Now, as one of the world's leading tennis coaches he is responsible for transforming the career of Serena Williams and helping her become the greatest of all times. His story is a great example of trial over adversity.
Line and Strength: The Complete Story by Glenn McGrath and Daniel Lane
Glen McGrath - 2009
Now, following his retirement from international cricket, McGrath tells his complete story - on and off the field.The man known as 'Pigeon' won his baggy green cap in Perth in 1993 and went on to forge a brilliant career, eventually becoming cricket's most successful fast bowler with 563 Test wickets. McGrath entered Ashes folklore in 1997 when he destroyed England by taking 8 for 38 at Lords, and he even scored a Test half-century with the bat. With leg spinner Shane Warne, he formed the most devastating bowling combination in Test history.Glenn McGrath's most meaningful achievements, however, have been off the field. With his wife, Jane, he established the McGrath Foundation, a major funder for and supporter of breast cancer sufferers. Here, in their own words, the McGraths discuss their battles with the disease and Jane's tragic death. Line and Strength is the tell-all story of an Australian country boy who took on the world.
Robbie Fowler: My Life In Football: Goals, Glory & The Lessons I've Learnt
Robbie Fowler - 2019
He is the sixth-highest goal scorer in the history of the Premier League and notched 183 goals for Liverpool alone.But before all of that, he was a Liverpool lad who loved the game, the Kop and everything that came with it. My Life In Football is the story of a boy who became a legend.Born in Liverpool in 1975, Robbie Fowler became a club icon by the time he was 18. Now, he takes us through the games that have shaped his life and football philosophy, over 25 years after he first signed as a professional for Liverpool.Engaging, personal and revealing, Robbie opens up about his astounding achievements, the price of fame and the regrets and struggles of being a professional footballer. From Hillsborough to Madrid, via the cup treble, that goal line celebration, hundreds of goals, Houllier, Benítez, Klopp and more, Robbie explains his thinking about the modern game. Inviting readers inside the dressing room, he shares stories of legendary teammates like Rush, Owen and Gerrard, as well as his rise to football's top table. How did he get back up so many times after the injuries that blighted his career? What gave him the drive to keep going and pursue his dreams?Robbie's My Life In Football harks back to a simpler time when fans and players shared the same story, and when the local boy really could dream of scoring a hat-trick for his home club when Saturday came.
Feed The Beast: Jon Parkin
Jon Parkin - 2018
Overpaid. Ungrateful. Removed from reality. These words are often used to describe modern day footballers. None of them apply to Jon Parkin. The South Yorkshire boy has seen and done it all in a footballing life that peaked with promotion to the Premier League and plummeted to the National League North, taking in spells with no fewer than 14 different clubs. His story is one of a natural goalscorer whose talent is always in demand. His unconventional frame and liking for a lager or ten meant pre-season was always a struggle. His straight-talking style and knack of finding himself in trouble resulted in countless bust-ups with managers. But when patience, cash or contracts ran out, there was always another club ready to take a chance on him. Along the way there have been battles with booze, betting and depression. Marital breakdown and brushes with the law didn’t help, while thousands of motorway miles were covered in a bid to stay in touch with his Barnsley roots and his beloved son. There’s also been plenty of mischief. One holidaymaker in Magaluf won’t easily forget what she found in Parkin’s bath while there’s a golf towel in a hospital car park that nobody would want to find. FEED THE BEAST will feed your curiosity about the real life of a footballer.
Ronan O'Gara: Unguarded: My Life in Rugby
Ronan O'Gara - 2013
Ronan O'Gara has been at the heart of Munster and Irish rugby for the past fifteen years. Now, as he comes to the end of a glittering playing career, it is time for him to reflect on those many successes and occasional failures with the straight-talking attitude that has become his trademark. Never one to shy away from the truth, the result is Ronan O'Gara: Unguarded. Packed full of anecdotes and analysis of the teammates O'Gara has been proud to share the shirt with, and of the coaches he has played under -- often in controversial circumstances -- this is the definitive record of an era when Munster rose to triumph in Europe, and Ireland to win the Grand Slam, before crashing down to earth again. It is simply the must-have rugby book of the year.
Laker Girl
Jeanie Buss - 2010
Yet despite all the championship banners the team has put on the walls of Staples Center, and despite all the books the Lakers have put on the shelves of fans - featuring everybody from Jerry West to Magic Johnson to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Phil Jackson to Chick Hearn - there has never been a book on the Lakers from the Buss family. Until now. Until Laker Girl.
Frank: Fighting Back
Frank Bruno - 2005
Part biography, part catharsis, the story of how a tearaway kid became heavyweight champion of the world, and one of Britain’s best-loved sports stars; his descent into mental illness and his slow and painful journey back to health.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Shay – Any Given Saturday: : The Autobiography
Shay Given - 2017
He has played in World Cups and FA Cup finals; shared a dressing room with football greats like Roy Keane, Alan Shearer and Robbie Keane and worked under celebrated managers like Kenny Dalglish, Bobby Robson and Martin O’Neill. But Shay has had to show courage and strength of mind to get where he wanted in life. At four years old, he cruelly lost his mother to cancer at the age of just 41. Mum Agnes’s dying wish was that Dad Seamus would keep the family together. Seamus kept his word and the Given clan watched with pride as Shay forged a record-breaking career in the sport he loved. From Donegal to Saipan, Glasgow to Wembley and Tyneside to Paris, it’s been some journey. Shay has seen it all. Glorious highs and desperate lows. Dressing room wind-ups and team-bonding punch-ups. Brutal injuries and crippling self-doubt. Along the way, he has made so many friends. When one of his closest pals, Gary Speed, died suddenly in 2011, he was devastated. He played on, doing the only thing he knew to get him through the pain – pulling on a shirt and a pair of gloves. Shay loves football – for him, nothing can beat the buzz of a Saturday afternoon or the thrill of a big match night under lights. But he has never lost touch with the fans who make the game what it is. Entertaining, opinionated and inspirational, his long-awaited autobiography ANY GIVEN SATURDAY features a stellar cast of famous football names from the past 25 years. It tugs at the heart strings, bubbles with banter and lets slip secrets behind the big stories. This is a rare journey behind the scenes as told by one of our own.
Stan: Tackling My Demons
Stan Collymore - 2004
Exposes the dark and often seedy world shrouded behind the glamorous facade of professional football. 'I was a mess. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't structure my day properly. I couldn't face having a shower or getting dressed. Those all seemed like major events I didn't want to confront.' Once the most charismatic and expensive player in the new Premiership flooded with cash, Stan Collymore had, by the age of 28, booked himself into The Priory to treat his depression, close to self-destruction and unable to get his head round playing at all. Along the way, he had been the goalscorer nobody wanted to congratulate, the centre-forward no one knew how to manage, a deeply reluctant star in a tabloid culture that saw him make the front pages as often as the back, and that waited for him to crack up or lash out. When he eventually did, it was, infamously, inevitably, at his then celebrity girlfriend, Ulrika Jonsson.But then retired from football in 2001 and finding himself in the commentary box, he proved he did care about the game, rather too much perhaps, sounding like a fan as much as an ex-player -- and at a stroke he had more in common with the rest of the nation. He knew it was all so much more than a game, and what happened on the field was only a reflection of what was going on inside players' heads. The contradictions remain. A man, who had a steady stream of celebrity women falling at his feet, shamed by his voyeurism in a Cannock car park; a star with everything who was once discovered by his wife tightening a belt around his neck; a loving dad of two whose own father walked out of the marital home and who Collymore continues to blot from his memory to this day; a footballer who abstains from drink and drugs, yet who needs therapy at Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous; the loner slated for his aloofness who found critical acclaim as a football pundit on national prime-time radio. This is Stan Collymore's own life story, the real person on his flawed character and personal demons, telling it like you have never seen before -- raw and uncut.
Becoming A Lion
Johnny Sexton - 2013
As of May 2009, Johnny Sexton was the little-known backup fly-half for Leinster, the chronically underachieving Irish province. But when Felipe Contepomi went down with an injury early in the Heineken Cup semi-final against a dominant Munster team, Sexton came on, nailed a penalty with his first touch of the game, and helped Leinster to a crushing victory. Four years, three Heineken Cups later and one British and Irish Lions tour victory later, Sexton is by some distance the leading fly-half in the northern hemisphere. When the 2013 Lions squad was selected, there was almost universal agreement that Sexton was the most important single player heading to Australia. And over the course of the Lions' first victorious Test series in sixteen years, Sexton was the man pulling the strings. His try in the third test was the decisive blow, and his joyous celebrations after scoring were echoed in homes across Britain and Ireland. Becoming a Lion is an intimate portrait of life at the highest levels of the professional game - at Leinster, with Ireland, and on tour with the Lions.
The Secret Footballer: What the Physio Saw...
The Secret Footballer - 2018
The Secret Footballer has teamed up with one of the most highly respected physios in the game to bring you the stories of a football season through the eyes of someone who has covered over 1000 games in his career and who knows the most intimate details about every player he treats.From the pre-season pressures of a new manager and players who have overindulged on their summer breaks, to witnessing some truly horrific (and sometimes career-ending) injuries; from star players who think nothing of using him as their personal family doctor to revealing some of the more unconventional treatments players choose to experiment with, the physio has truly seen it all.Alongside this privileged glimpse into the physio's world, The Secret Footballer will be telling his own tales of injury, pain and perseverance with his trademark insight and wit.
Positively Page: The Diamond Dallas Page Journey
Diamond Dallas Page - 2000
From his earliest recollections, Page Falkinburg wanted to be like the Saturday afternoon heroes that he watched on TV from the floor of his grandmother's living room. He defied the odds and swayed his critics along the way, climbing the ladder of the largest spectator entertainment sports production in the world today. It was in 1985 that I met a guy who told me his name was Page ... like a book. Like most people who meet him, I knew that there was something very different about Page Falkinburg. He is cocky, and at the same time, he's humble. He is "over the top," but somehow remains "down to earth." One of the toughest "sons of bitches" you'll ever meet, Page can shock you with his sensitivity and compassion. He is an example of good old-fashioned hard work and personal commitment, but at the same time, is able to help create and better the futures of others. Almost fifteen years later, Positively Page serves as a look at that unforgettable guy who possessed the power to rise above adversity and reach his dream.
Mastermind: How Dave Brailsford Reinvented the Wheel
Richard Moore - 2013
Leading cycling writer Richard Moore's profile of Dave Brailsford, the head of Team Sky and the man who masterminded the British Cycling revolution, gives a unique insight into the psychology of one of the most fascinating figures in world sport.