Counting down to William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2015 Announcement

The winner of the 2015 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed at a lunchtime ceremony at BAFTA in London on Thursday.  Here is a reminder of the six titles shortlisted for the award.

Speed Kings: The 1932 Winter Olympics and the Fastest Men in the World, by Andy Bull (Bantam Press)

The early days of bobsleigh were dominated by rich and adventurous young men drawn to the thrill of hurtling along sheer ice tracks at breakneck speeds, typified by the disparate group that came together to win the four-man bob titles for America at the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1932.  Andy Bull traces their back stories in a tale of loose living, risk taking and hell raising from a golden age of decadence.

"Hollywood stars, politicians, royalty, gangsters and other denizens of the demi-monde – hedonists and hucksters, harlots and heroes – flicker through a well-paced narrative," wrote Richard Williams in The Guardian, commenting that although none of the quartet survived to talk to Bull, "such is the diligence of his research and his sensitivity to the story in all its many dimensions that few could feel that he has not done justice to their world."

Also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

Living on the Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager, by Michael Calvin (Century)

Award-winning author and journalist Michael Calvin interviewed more than 20 football managers from the Premier League to League Two in an attempt to discover just what it is like to attempt survival in one of the most pressurised and insecure professions in any walk of life, extracting some extraordinary and sometimes harrowing insights into the life of his interviewees, one of whom underwent electric shock treatment in a desperate bid to overcome stress-induced depression.

"Calvin is an exquisite writer but he is also a “proper” journalist," wrote Janine Self at www.sportsjournalists.co.uk. "If a manager wants to keep talking, thus revealing far more than he perhaps intended, Calvin sits back and allow the dictaphone to take the strain then lets the quotes run."

Also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire, by Martin Fletcher (Bloomsbury)

Bradford fire survivor Martin Fletcher tells the gripping, heart-rending story of unthinkable loss following a spring afternoon at a football match, of how 56 people died, and of the truths he unearthed as an adult looking into the circumstances of a tragedy that claimed the lives of his father and brother, his grandfather and an uncle. This is the story – 30 years on – of the disaster football has never properly acknowledged.

Ian Herbert wrote in The Independent: “Above all else, it is a beautifully observed and incredibly detailed memoir of a son's relationship with the father he lost at the age of 12."

Also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football, by David Goldblatt (Viking)

David Goldblatt takes a look at the ways in which British football reflects the changes and fortunes of society. He writes of how English football, once a dying working-class game that reflected the nation's declining fortunes, became the richest, most popular form of entertainment in the country.

"A refreshingly candid view of the English game as the intersection of the scepter'd island's two greatest traditions: tribalism and your puffy-coated-spiv’s fascination with money." --Timothy Spangler for www.forbes.com.


Also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet, by Simon Lister (Yellow Jersey)

Simon Lister explores how the 1970s West Indies cricket team became one of the most successful in history, and how this success, in a sport traditionally associated with British colonialism and racial suppression, fostered a sense of pride among in the independent Caribbean islands and in the West Indian community in Britain.

Nicholas Hogg wrote at www.espncricinfo.com -- "By entwining a social history of the West Indies, especially the post-war exodus to Britain, with the cricketing journey of the Caribbean, Lister has produced an authoritative and at times thrilling text."

Also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

A Man's World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith, by Donald McRae (Simon & Schuster)

In this biography of the five-time world champion boxer, Emile Griffith, Donald McRae --twice a previous winner of this award -- writes of the struggles Griffith faced as a gay, black man in an era of deep-seated racism and homophobia. Griffith, taunted at the weigh-in before one title fight, beat up his opponent so severely he subsequently died.  Later, Griffith would speak of the irony of being forgiven for killing a man but persecuted for loving one.

"McRae's work always mixes top-notch research, equally key insights and stellar writing. This book is no different." -- Thomas Gerbasi for www.boxingscene.com



Also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, now in its 27th year, is the world's longest established and most valuable sportswriting prize. As well as a £27,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a free £2,500 William Hill bet and a day at the races.

Making up this year's judging panel are: retired player and former chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association Clarke Carlisle; broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; broadcaster Danny Kelly; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; and columnist and author Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the judging panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the Award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop.

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Donald McRae 'triple' still on as A Man's World makes shortlist of six for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2015

Donald McRae's chance to become the first triple winner of William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award remains intact after the shortlist for 27th edition of the richest and longest-running prize for sportswriting was revealed.

The author and Guardian journalist, who has twice won the prize for books with boxing at their heart, returns to the subject with A Man's World, his biography of the US boxer Emile Griffith, who became a world champion while fighting deep-seated prejudices on two counts, not only as a black man but because he was gay at a time when the American Medical Association still regarded homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder.

McRae -- who ghosted Steven Gerrard's bestselling autobiography My Story -- won previously in 1996 with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing and in 2002 for In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens.

The only other double winner of the William Hill prize is Duncan Hamilton.

Three football books are among the five titles attempting to deny a McRae hat-trick.

Michael Calvin, who helped rugby star Gareth Thomas win this year's Cross Sports Book of the Year with his co-writing of Thomas's autobiography, Proud, makes the shortlist with Living on the Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager.

Also in contention is Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire, written by Martin Fletcher, who survived the 1985 disaster but numbered his father, brother, uncle and grandfather among the 56 who died at Bradford City's Valley Parade ground.

Third in the football trio is David Goldblatt’s The Game of Our Lives, an in-depth look at the modern English football world, how it became the huge business it is and how it reflects Britain's wider society.

Cricket is represented by Simon Lister’s Fire in Babylon, which explores how a game once associated with British Colonialism became an icon of West Indian independence.

Completing the list is Speed Kings, in which Andy Bull tells the story of how four unknown Americans from disparate backgrounds teamed up to win the bobsleigh gold medal at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics.

The award's co-founder, William Hill veteran Graham Sharpe, reached for a boxing analogy to describe the contest.

“Five brave writers are stepping into the ring with Donald McRae but the outcome is far from certain," he said. "These books represent non-fiction writing at its best, with truly exceptional writers casting light on stories of triumph and tragedy from the world of sport. Our judges have a tough job ahead of them.”

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable sportswriting prize. As well as a £27,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a free £2,500 William Hill bet and a day at the races.

Making up this year's judging panel are: retired player and former chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association Clarke Carlisle; broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; broadcaster Danny Kelly; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; and columnist and author Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the judging panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the Award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop.

The winner will be announced at an afternoon reception at BAFTA, in central London, on Thursday November 27.

The six titles in the running to be crowned the winner of the £27,000 prize are as follows (alphabetically by author surname):

• Speed Kings, by Andy Bull (Bantam Press). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.
• Living on the Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager, by Michael Calvin (Century). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.
• Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire, by Martin Fletcher (Bloomsbury). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.
• The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football, by David Goldblatt (Viking). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones orWHSmith.
• Fire in Babylon: How a West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet, by Simon Lister (Yellow Jersey). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.
• A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith, by Donald McRae (Simon & Schuster). Buy from Amazon , Waterstones or WHSmith.

Read also: Longlist announced for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2015

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Donald McRae in running to be first writer to win William Hill Sports Book of the Year for third time as 2015 longlist is unveiled

Donald McRae, the Guardian writer who is one of only two authors to have won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award twice, is in contention to take sports writing's richest literary prize for a third time.

A Man's World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith (Simon & Schuster) is named on a longlist of 14 titles for the 2015 edition of the award, the winner of which will be revealed in November.

In A Man's World, McRae tells the story of the American boxer who became world champion in both welterweight and middleweight divisions during a 19-year career but was also gay at a time when homosexuality was a crime in all but one of the American states and still classified by the American Medical Association as a 'psychiatric disorder'.

McRae's ability to draw the reader into the story is particularly strong in his recounting of the rivalry between Griffith and Benny "Kid" Paret, the Cuban fighter against whom he battled for the world welterweight crown three times, winning once and losing once in 1961 but winning again in April of the following year when Paret used the Hispanic term for 'faggot' to insult Griffith at the weigh-in, then took such a hammering in the ring that he died in hospital 10 days later.

The South African-born McRae won the William Hill prize in 1996 with Dark Trade, the journey into the murky world of professional boxing that established him as a writer of note, and again in 2002 with In Black and White, about the friendship between Olympic champion Jesse Owens and another boxing world champion, Joe Louis, two black American icons who rose above poverty and racial divisions.

Also on the list is another boxing writer, Mark Turley, whose intriguing book, Journeymen: The Other Side of the Boxing Business (Pitch Publishing), is deservedly recognised.  Turley's subjects are not the headline-making winners but the considerable cast of fighters who make their living from losing, the men whose job is simply to be in the opposite corner to potential future stars, well paid but with no purpose other than to be beaten as latest box-office prospect sharpens his skills on the way to the top of the bill.

The longlist, which will be whittled down further before the shortlist is announced on October 27, has a strong football content, as is to be expected.

These include Living on the Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager (Century), which is based on a series of interviews conducted by award-winning journalist Michael Calvin, which reveal how even the fierce heat of the media spotlight does not always reveal the full, devastating effect of trying to handle the pressures of being the man in charge.

The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup (Simon & Schuster), by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert, makes the list, deservedly so after the fine work painstakingly carried out by the authors in exposing corruption at the highest level of football.

There is a place, too, for Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire (Bloomsbury), in which survivor Martin Fletcher, who lost several family members in the Valley Parade inferno in 1985, not only recalls the horror of that May afternoon but raises many unanswered questions about what happened and why.

David Goldblatt, whose global history of football, The Ball is Round, won enormous acclaim when it was published in 2006, can expect to be in the running with The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football (Viking), in which the football writer and sociologist turns his analytical attention to the last two decades at home and how football has developed in time with the social, economic and political changes of the post-Thatcherite era.

A diverse field this year includes titles on cycling, bobsleigh, running, cricket and even chess.

Another Guardian regular, Andy Bull, makes the list with Speed Kings (Bantam Press), his the story of the disparate group of outsiders who formed the United States team that became bobsleigh champions at the 1932 Winter Olympics.

My Fight/Your Fight (Century) is the hard-hitting autobiography of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) champion Ronda Rousey, while A King in Hiding (Icon) tells the story of Fahim, an eight year old refugee who became a world chess champion after settling in his new home of Paris.

Runner: A Short Story About a Long Run (Aurum Press) is endurance athlete Lizzy Hawker's tale about the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a grueling 8,600 metres of ascent and descent over 158 kilometres of the most challenging terrain, which the London-born runner has won an incredible five times.

Chess has rarely been in the public eye since the great rivalry between the Russian giants Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in the 1980s and 90s and before that through the political symbolism attached to American Bobby Fischer's defeat of Russia's Boris Spassky to win the world championship in 1972.  It has caught the attention now through the story of Mohammad Fahim, a child refugee from Bangladesh who lived as an illegal immigrant in Paris yet despite all the barriers before him became world under-13 student chess champion.  A King in Hiding (Icon), translated from the French publication written by author Sophie le Callannec and chess coach Xavier Parmentier, tells Fahim's story.

Simon Lister does a fine job in Fire in Babylon (Yellow Jersey) of describing and understanding the dominance of the West Indies cricket team in the 1970s and 1980s and the effect it had on the people of the region, while Richard Moore delves into another great sporting passion of the Caribbean in The Bolt Supremacy: Inside the Jamaican Sprint Factory (Yellow Jersey).

In King's of the Road: A Journey into the Heart of British Cycling (Aurum Press), cycling journalist Robert Dineen delivers a personal take on the ups and downs in the history of British cycling, interviewing many of the most influential figures in the evolution of the sport in this country and interweaving his own experiences on the club cycling scene.

Finally, John Carlin, who has written some fine books about sport and politics in Spain and South Africa, makes the line-up with Chase Your Shadow: The Trials of Oscar Pistorius, a superb account of the complexities and contradictions not only in the character of the champion paralympic athlete convicted of killing his girlfriend but in the South African nation.

The full William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2015 longlist is as follows:

• The Ugly Game: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup, by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert (Simon & Schuster) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Speed Kings, by Andy Bull (Bantam Press) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Living on the Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager, by Michael Calvin (Century) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Chase Your Shadow: The Trials of Oscar Pistorius, by John Carlin (Atlantic Books) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Kings of the Road: A Journey into the Heart of British Cycling, by Robert Dineen (Aurum Press) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• A King in Hiding: How a Child Refugee Became a World Chess Champion, by Fahim, Sophie Le Callennec, Xavier Parmentier and Barbara Mellor (translator) (Icon) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire, by Martin Fletcher (Bloomsbury) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football, by David Goldblatt (Viking) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Runner: A Short Story About A Long Run, by Lizzy Hawker (Aurum Press) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Fire in Babylon, by Simon Lister (Yellow Jersey) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith, by Donald McRae (Simon & Schuster) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• The Bolt Supremacy, by Richard Moore (Yellow Jersey) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• My Fight/Your Fight: The Official Ronda Rousey Autobiography, by Ronda Rousey and Maria Burns Ortiz (Century) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith
• Journeymen: The Other Side of the Boxing Business, by Mark Turley (Pitch) Buy from: Amazon  Waterstones  WHSmith

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Simon & Schuster re-release three classics from acclaimed sports writer Donald McRae

Fans of the Guardian writer Donald McRae will be delighted to discover that three of his classic sports books have been reissued by Simon & Schuster.

Dark Trade, originally published by Mainstream, established McRae as a sports writer of distinction when it won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1996.

Written over a five-year period, it was based on a series of encounters with boxers, including Mike Tyson, James "Lights Out" Toney, Oscar de la Hoya, Roy Jones Jr, Michael Watson and Chris Eubank. Nine out of the 10 publishers to whom he submitted his proposal rejected it before Mainstream saw its potential.

Two years later, by which time the South African-born McRae had given up his office job in London to write full time, he was shortlisted for the William Hill prize again for Winter Colours, also published by Mainstream.

In Winter Colours, McRae explored the place occupied by rugby union in the culture of the different countries in which it is played, inspired by his meetings with James Small, the winger who was part of the South Africa team that was part of one of sport's great iconic moments at Ellis Park in Johannesburg in 1995, when they won the World Cup in the presence of Nelson Mandela.

The third classic reissue is In Black and White, William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2002, which tells the story of the friendship between Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, Olympic gold medallist and World champion boxer, black American icons born into an era when their country was still riven by poverty and racial divisions.

All three have been updated with new chapters and stylish cover designs.

McRae returns to boxing next year with a new book entitled A Man's World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith, which tells the story of an American boxer who not only managed to managed to conceal his homosexuality while pursuing a successful career in the fight game but also spoke out against apartheid in South Africa in the 70s.

Buy Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.

Buy Winter Colours: The Changing Seasons of Rugby from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith

Buy In Black and White: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Joe Louis from Amazon, Waterstones or WHSmith.

Donald McRae has also written about the London sex trade in Nothing Personal, the extraordinary race between four heart surgeons to carry out the first heart transplant in Every Second Counts and the great 1920s American lawyer Clarence Darrow in The Old Devil. Find out more.

He collaborated with Olympic cycling champion Victoria Pendleton on her autobiography Between the Lines and wrote a personal memoir of growing up in the South Africa of apartheid, Under Our Skin.

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Hamilton and McRae go head to head in battle for sports literature's annual 'bookie prize'

BIOGRAPHIES OF VICTORIA PENDLETON, JONNY WILKINSON, RICHARD HUGHES, CHRISSIE WELLINGTON, SIMON JORDAN AND JAMES WILLSTROP ON 2012 WILLIAM HILL LONGLIST

Sportswriters Duncan Hamilton and Donald McRae are pitted head to head in a bid to make history by becoming the first to win the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year for a third time.  Both have made the longlist - just announced - for the 2012 award and a £24,000 cash prize.  

McRae, who won in 1996 with Dark Trade, his exploration of the shadier sides of professional boxing, and again in 2002 for In Black and White, his joint biography of iconic black athletes Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, is in the running as co-author of British Olympic cycling champion Victoria Pendleton's autobiography Between The Lines. 

Hamilton, winner of the award in 2007 with Provided You Don't Kiss Me, his account of his day-to-day dealings with Brian Clough as a local newspaper reporter, and again two years later with his biography of Bodyline fast bowler Harold Larwood, has been nominated for The Footballer Who Could Fly, which charts the progress of post-war British football as well as exploring how a mutual love of the game provided a bond between father and son that might otherwise have not existed.

Other longlist titles include

• Fibber in the Heat by comedian and actor Miles Jupp, one of the stars of political satire The Thick of It, who bluffed his way into the press corps during England’s Test series in India.
• Jonny: My Autobiography, in which rugby star Jonny Wilkinson reveals how he overcame his own psychological barriers to reach the top in his sport.
• Be Careful What You Wish For, the story of Simon Jordan, the life-long Crystal Palace fan who bought the club with his self-made millions, only to lose almost everything when it went into administration in 2010. 
• That Near Death Thing, Rick Broadbent's journey to the heart of the extraordinarily dangerous Isle of Man TT motorcycle race through the story of four riders.
• A Life Without Limits, the story of Chrissie Wellington, the triathlete from Norfolk who became four-times female world champion in the almost impossibly-demanding Ironman event, which combines a 2.4-mile swim with an 112-mile bike ride and a full 26.2 miles marathon run, back-to-back, without a break.

 The list in full comprises (click on the links for more information at amazon.co.uk)

1. That Near Death Thing: Inside the Most Dangerous Race in the World, by Rick Broadbent (Orion)
2. Running with the Kenyans: Discovering the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth, by Adharanand Finn (Faber)
3. Iron War: Dave Scott, Mark Allen, and the Greatest Race Ever Run, by Matt Fitzgerald (Quercus)
4. The Footballer Who Could Fly, by Duncan Hamilton (Century)
5. The Secret Race - Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs, by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle (Bantam Press)
6. A Weight Off My Mind: My Autobiography, by Richard Hughes, with Lee Mottershead (Racing Post)
7. Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan (Yellow Jersey)
8. Fibber in the Heat, by Miles Jupp (Ebury Press)
9. The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100m Final, by Richard Moore (Wisden Sports Writing)
10. Between the Lines: My Autobiography, by Victoria Pendleton with Donald McRae (HarperSport)
11. Swimming Studies, by Leanne Shapton (Particular Books)
12. A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey, by Chrissie Wellington, with Michael Aylwin (Constable & Robinson)
13. Jonny: My Autobiography, by Jonny Wilkinson, with Owen Slot (Headline)
14. Shot and a Ghost: A Year in the Brutal World of Professional Squash, by James Willstrop (Rod Gilmour)

Graham Sharpe, William Hill spokesman and founder of the Award, said: “2012 was a memorable sporting year thanks to the Olympics and the Paralympics, the Ryder Cup and the US Open tennis to name but a few of the highlights, and it is a year which has also produced a strong crop of memorable sporting books.

"It has been difficult enough to narrow the contenders down to a manageable longlist of 14 titles, and with sports like squash, swimming and Ironman racing represented for the first time, this is the most diverse longlist we have yet seen.”

Now in its 24th year, the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable literary sports-writing prize. As well as a £24,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a £2,000 William Hill bet, a specially-commissioned hand-bound copy of their book, and a day at the races.

The judging panel for this year’s award consists of broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; footballer and chairman of the Professional Footballer’s Association, Clarke Carlisle, who joins the judging panel for the first time; broadcaster Danny Kelly; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; plus columnist and author, Alyson Rudd.

Chairman of the judging panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop.

The shortlist is scheduled to be announced on October 26. The winner will be announced at a lunchtime reception at Waterstones Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookstore, on Monday, November 26.

More reading...
A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke win 2011 William Hill Sports Book of Year Award

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