Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2005-08-01
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.95
Review Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino / Scribner:Full Time: the Secret Life of Tony Cascarino is the most praised football autobiography in a very long time. Reviewers' jaws dropped at "the searing honesty. and the breathless style" (The Saturday Times); The Observer Sport Monthly gasped "It's Angela's Ashes with half-time oranges. a footballer's autobiography like no other. The most astonishing sports book of the year. " "Autobiography" of course means ghost-written: though told in the first person it was put together by award-winning Irish journalist Paul Kimmage, whose Rough Ride won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award in 1990. [+]Making the book compulsively readable Kimmage structured it brilliantly, guarding the series of secrets that Cascarino reveals so that the reader is tantalised by cryptic glimpses then made to wait until each revelation in turn is suddenly unveiled. What are these secrets? Suffice to say that some are personal, some professional, some minor and quirky, one major enough to generate heated debate in the press. At times the book reads like the confession of a man who's lived with too much guilt for too long. Throughout, the book maintains a very high standard. It veers towards the blandness for which footballers' autobiographies are famous only when the author is discussing his friends, to whom he is commendably loyal. As for his managers, there are several memorable portraits. In the case of Jack Charlton it's open hero-worship, even when he felt hard done by. Relations with Glenn Hoddle were a very different story. "He was probably the unfunniest man I have ever known. He was also completely besotted with himself. When you stepped offside with Glenn, there was nothing to do but accept your fate and hope that you returned in the next life as talented and as perfect as him. " The Guardian said, "Compared with the standard-issue footballer's autobiography, this is Tolstoy. " Perhaps not quite, but it's brilliant storytelling, and gives a shockingly honest portrait of one footballer and his world. -David Pickering.
Publication date: 2008-11-13
RRP: £17.99
Price: £8.38
Review Not a Proper Journalist / Yellow Jersey Press:
Creator: Rick Broadbent
Publication date: 2008-07-28
RRP: £18.99
Price: £11.99
Review Rocket Men / Bantam Press:
Publication date: 2007-10-05
RRP: £18.99
Price: £4.20
Review Moments / Macmillan:
Publication date: 2008-10-08
RRP: £17.99
Price: £9.91
Review A Bhoy Called Bertie: The Bertie Auld Story / Black and White Publishing:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2002-06-06
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.07
Review French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour De France / Vintage:Comic writer Tim Moore trades his ailing Rolls Royce for a bicycle, a map and a water bottle in French Revolutions. This is a quest to pedal the route of the Tour de France, no mean feat for the fit, let alone a self-described suburban slouch. The resulting 2,256-haphazard-mile journey transforms Moore into an incredibly fit and passionately proud cyclist. Initially, Moore takes the "I will do it and it probably will kill me" approach. His normal perspective, as a stooge to life's misfortunes, plays well as he prepares to ride the route of the 2000 Tour de France. Moore is the everyman who pedalled in youth and now wouldn't ride a bike to the corner store. But unlike a traveller by car, train or plane, Moore has to navigate France under his own steam. Somewhere around the Ventoux, the world's windiest place, Moore starts to change. He becomes enraptured by the feat itself as mile by mile he realises he is no longer an accidental cyclist but a lean, mean cycling machine. Gradually, the narrative turns from travel to a personal quest. [+]Along the route, Moore's details of the heroes of the Tour make an excellent primer on this gruelling race and helps the uninitiated understand the frenzy that grips France each July as the races meanders through incidental villages, over mountains and, finally, into Paris. It is worth reading for that alone. Having survived mountains of pain, a disgusting diet and motels of dubious value, a new, muscular Moore concludes that "I might never leave my mark on the Tour, but that didn't matter. It has left its mark on me". To follow Moore's path of perspiration is certainly not a vacation. Yet, this curmudgeonly clever and inspirational book makes one want to do just that. "Old Father Time was catching up with Old Father Tim. If I didn't do it this year, I wouldn't because maybe next year I couldn't," he says before starting out. And that, as Tim Moore so surely points out, is what pushes any true traveller out the door. -Kathleen Buckley.
Creator: Martin Johnson
Publication date: 2008-09-25
RRP: £17.99
Price: £10.39
Review Rugby Union Manual: The Official Guide to Playing the Game / J H Haynes & Co Ltd:Haynes Rugby Union Manual
Creator: Rick Broadbent
Publication date: 2008-07-28
RRP: £18.99
Price: £11.99
Review Rocket Men / Bantam Press:
Authors
- Muhammad Ali
- Gavin Newsham
RRP: £30.00
Price: £10.50
Review The Treasures of Muhammad Ali / Carlton Books Ltd:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2003-07-31
Dewey code: 796
RRP: £7.99
Price: £2.60
Review Keane: The Autobiography / Penguin:The most talked about, written about and argued over sports autobiography of 2002, Keane: the Autobiography does not disappoint. This story of Manchester United and Ireland captain Roy Keane's brilliant and controversial career, written in collaboration with Irish journalist and former professional footballer Eamon Dunphy, crackles with score-settling vigour. It presents a revisionist view of a life in football that has had tabloid editors rubbing their hands with glee almost from the moment the fiery, confrontational midfielder made his British debut for Nottingham Forest under arch eccentric Brian Clough right through to his sensational bust-up with international boss Mick McCarthy and subsequent departure from the 2002 Irish World Cup squad on the eve of the finals. Amid all the wrangling and point-scoring Dunphy and Keane have written a rags-to-riches review of Keane's journey from a poor, battling background in Cork to the £50k a week highlife at Old Trafford. It's very entertaining, although an independent biographer would doubtless have put a less heroic spin on proceedings. The two key headline-grabbing stories-the war with McCarthy and the allegedly deliberate injuring of Alfie Haaland-read somewhat differently in the book from the way they did in the papers. Make no mistake about it, Keane is frank about his own failings, franker about the failings of others and prepared to spill the beans to some extent about being the odd-man-out in the Old Trafford glam-fest. But this is very much his side of the story. -Alex Hankin.
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2006-08-03
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.02
Review My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes / Yellow Jersey Press:
Publication date: 2008-08-11
RRP: £18.99
Price: £9.50
Review Boozing, Betting & Brawling, The Autobiography of Mel Sterland (Autobiography/Personalities) / Green Umbrella Publishing:
Publication date: 2008-10-01
Dewey code: 797
RRP: £20.00
Price: £12.00
Review Kelly Slater: For the Love / Chronicle Books:
Publication date: 2008-03-27
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.00
Review James Toseland: The Autobiography / Virgin Books:
Edition: New edition
Publication date: 2007-06-07
Dewey code: 796.62092
RRP: £8.99
Price: £4.37
Review Rough Ride / Yellow Jersey Press:
Publication date: 2008-10-02
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.59
Review In Search of Duncan Ferguson: The Life and Crimes of a Footballing Enigma / Mainstream Publishing:
Publication date: 2008-10-08
RRP: £17.99
Price: £9.91
Review A Bhoy Called Bertie: The Bertie Auld Story / Black and White Publishing:
Publication date: 2008-09-04
RRP: £18.99
Price: £11.09
Review Mike Summerbee: The Autobiography / Century:
Publication date: 2008-05-15
Dewey code: 796
RRP: £7.99
Price: £3.00
Review It's in the Blood: My Life / Headline:
Publication date: 2007-09-06
RRP: £20.00
Price: £0.01
Review My Manchester United Years / Headline:Manchester United My Manchester United Years: The Autobiography - Sir Bobby CharltonHard BackBobby Charlton is Manchester United through and through. He was a member of the original 'Busby Babes' and has devoted his career to the club, playing in 754 games over 17 years. During that period, he won everything the game had to offer, played alongside some of the greats such as Best and Law, suffered devastating defeats and was involved in one of the greatest football tragedies of all time. Here, for the very first time, he tells the story of those United years. With his beloved Reds, he tasted FA Cup victory in the emotional final of 1963, won three first division championships and in 1968, he reached the pinnacle of club success, winning the European Cup. Inevitably, such highs are balanced with no less dramatic lows, such as the 1957 European Cup semi-final, the highly charged 1958 FA Cup loss which followed only weeks after the horrors of the Munich Air disaster, and the 1969 European Cup defeat by Milan. He is one of the true gentlemen of football and the legacy that Bobby Charlton gives to United is beyond compare.
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Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino, Not a Proper Journalist, Rocket Men, Moments, A Bhoy Called Bertie: The Bertie Auld Story, French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour De France, Rugby Union Manual: The Official Guide to Playing the Game, Rocket Men, The Treasures of Muhammad Ali, Keane: The Autobiography, My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes, Boozing, Betting & Brawling, The Autobiography of Mel Sterland (Autobiography/Personalities), Kelly Slater: For the Love, James Toseland: The Autobiography, Rough Ride, In Search of Duncan Ferguson: The Life and Crimes of a Footballing Enigma, A Bhoy Called Bertie: The Bertie Auld Story, Mike Summerbee: The Autobiography, It's in the Blood: My Life, My Manchester United Years |
