High quality shortlist for autobiography prize as the countdown begins ahead of 2017 Cross Sports Book Awards

The shortlist announced in the autobiography section of the Cross Sports Book Awards for 2017 features two footballers, two Olympic athletes, a cricketer and a Formula One world champion.

Those hoping to clinch the top prize when the winners are announced at Lord’s Cricket Ground next month are:

• No Nonsense: The Autobiography, by Joey Barton (Simon & Schuster)
• Watching the Wheels: My Autobiography, by Damon Hill (Macmillan)
• This Mum Runs, by Jo Pavey (Yellow Jersey, PRH)
• Unexpected: The Autobiography, by Greg Rutherford (Simon & Schuster)
• Unguarded: My Autobiography, by Jonathan Trott (Sphere, Little Brown)
• A Life in Football: My Autobiography, by Ian Wright (Constable, Little Brown)

The titles from the longlist that missed the cut were: Triumphs & Turbulence, by Chris Boardman (Ebury, PRH); What Doesn’t Kill You… by Johnny Herbert (Transworld); Firestarter, by Ben Stokes (Headline); The Inside Track, by Laura Trott & Jason Kenny (Michael O’Mara); From Nowhere, by Jamie Vardy (Ebury, PRH) and The Man in the Middle, by Howard Webb (Simon & Schuster).

There is some great reading among the six books on the list, all of which reflect the need for a modern sports autobiography to be somewhat more than a catalogue of highlights and anecdotes to persuade the reader to part with his or her cash.



Ian Wright

None of the titles on the list reflects this more than Ian Wright’s autobiography, A Life in Football, in which ghost writer Lloyd Bradley translates the natural intelligence and observational astuteness of the former tearaway into considered analysis of many aspects of the game that gave him his living, from tactics and training methods to fellow players and managers. His assessment of Arsène Wenger, man and coach, offers a particularly interesting insight, as does his honest appraisal of his own career.

Joey Barton’s thoughts in his book, crafted by the expert hand of Michael Calvin – who ghosted the 2015 category winner, Proud, for rugby star Gareth Thomas, and is an award-winner in his own right – are as forthright as you would expect from a character no stranger to controversy.

Cricketer Jonathan Trott opens up on his mental breakdown in Unguarded, written with the help of another perceptive craftsman of the journalistic trade in ESPN Cricinfo's George Dobell, while Greg Rutherford, the long-jumper whose gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012 was somewhat overshadowed as the spotlight focussed on Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah, reveals more of the personality viewers of Strictly Come Dancing warmed to last year in Unexpected, written with The Guardian’s Sean Ingle.



Athlete and mum Jo Pavey

Jo Pavey’s book, which is ghosted by Sarah Edworthy, as well as being a warm human story of how an inspirational athlete won a European championship gold medal just 10 months after giving birth to her second child, offers much insight as to how it feels to be cheated out of glory by rivals using drugs, while racing driver Damon Hill – the only one of the six to write the book entirely by himself – takes the reader to some dark places as his explores his inner demons in Watching the Wheels.

The 15th Cross Sports Book Awards will take place at Lord’s Cricket Ground on the evening of May 24 and will be hosted by Sky Sports News host Mike Wedderburn and Test Match Special’s Alison Mitchell.

This year’s panel of judges for the prestigious best autobiography award include former England rugby star Brian Moore, Olympic rowing gold medallist Dame Katherine Grainger, National Hunt champion trainer Paul Nicholls, Sky Sports La Liga pundit Guillem Balague, sports editor of the Mail on Sunday Alison Kervin and Middlesex and England cricketer Nick Compton.

David Willis Chairman of the Sports Book Awards, commented: “Once again we have a great group of nominees in what is always a hugely competitive category.”

Sponsored by major international manufacturer of quality writing instruments AT Cross, the Autobiography of the Year Award celebrates and promotes the best memoirs from the previous twelve months.

Nicola Shepherd, Marketing Director at AT Cross said: “The power of putting pen to paper is clearly demonstrated by this group of elite sportsmen and women and I look forward to celebrating the winner who has truly made their mark at the awards ceremony.”

 

More reading:

All the winners from the 2016 Cross Sports Book Awards

Cricket Society-MCC 2017 Book of the Year shortlist announced

How Barbarian Days won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2016



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Six on shortlist for the 2017 Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award

Books 'reflect passion and knowledge' - judges' chair Vic Marks

The shortlist of six for the 2017 Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award shortlist has been announced.

The list comprises books by cricket presenter Mark Nicholas and journalist Emma John, who both write about their love for and fascination with cricket, a couple of titles by ex-England players in Graeme Fowler and Alan Butcher, the latest from the brilliant Gideon Haigh and a portrait of Pakistan cricket by Peter Oborne and Richard Heller.

Chair of judges Vic Marks said: “There is some good writing here. All six books reflect passion for and knowledge about their subject matter.  I look forward to lively discussion at the judges’ final meeting; there is no doubt we will come up with a worthy winner."

The competition, run by the Cricket Society since 1970 and in partnership with MCC since 2009, is for books nominated by MCC and Cricket Society Members, and is highly regarded by writers and publishers.

Last year’s winner was Simon Lister’s Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet. Dan Waddell won in 2015 with Field of Shadows: The English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany 1937.

The six books on the shortlist are:

The Good Murunghu (Pitch Publishing), in which former England batsman Alan Butcher writes about his experiences as a coach amid the wreckage of cricket in Zimbabwe.

Graeme Fowler’s Absolutely Foxed (Simon & Schuster), in which the ex-England opener recalls his career as a player, talks about his more recent time as a university centre of excellence coach and also opens up about his struggle to live with depression.

Gideon Haigh’s Stroke of Genius (Simon & Schuster), a wonderful portrait of Victor Trumper, generally regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, the title of which draws on the iconic image captured by the English cricketer abnd photographer George Beldam in 1905, which appears on the cover, of Trumper striding forward to drive.

Richard Heller and Peter Oborne’s White on Green: A Portrait of Pakistan Cricket (Simon & Schuster), a enjoyable collection of stories about Pakistan cricket and cricketers, notably for the depth of background research and some remarkable interviews.

Emma John’s Following On: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession and Terrible Cricket (Wisden), in which the author, now deputy editor of the Observer magazine, goes back to the fascination with cricket that helped launch her career.  A fine writer, Emma was the first woman to win an award for sports journalism.

Finally, Mark Nicholas’ A Beautiful Game, My love affair with cricket (Allen & Unwin), in which the former Hampshire captain and accomplished cricket broadcaster looks back on how the game has shaped his life.

Eleven books – nominated by either Cricket Society or MCC members (not publishers) – were accepted for the long list.

They were whittled down to six by a panel of judges independently chaired by writer, broadcaster and former England and Somerset cricketer Marks.  The other judges are David Kynaston and Stephen Fay for the MCC, and John Symons and Chris Lowe for the The Cricket Society.  Nigel Hancock, chairman of The Cricket Society, is the competition’s administrator.

The five books that did not make the cut were Aravind Adiga’s Selection Day (Pan Macmillan), Keith and Jennifer Booth’s Rebel with a Cause, The Life and Times of Jack Crawford (Chequered Flag), Jon Hotten’s The Meaning of Cricket (Yellow Jersey Press), Andrew Murtagh’s Test of Character (Pitch Publishing) and Jonathan Trott's Unguarded: My Autobiography (Sphere Little, Brown), written with George Dobell.

The £3,000 prize for the winner, and certificates for all the shortlisted books, will be presented at an awards evening in the Long Room at Lord’s on Wednesday April 19 in front of an audience of 200 people, which will comprise members of the Cricket Society and MCC, the shortlisted authors and publishers, as well as some of today’s finest cricket writers and journalists.

The Cricket Society – www.cricketsociety.com and Twitter @CricketSociety – encourages a love of cricket through playing, watching, reading and listening.  It supports young cricketers, makes annual awards, holds regular meetings, publishes an acclaimed Journal and Bulletin and has its own cricket team.

MCC is the custodian of the Laws and Spirit of Cricket, an innovative independent voice in world cricket, and a passionate promoter of the game.  It is also the world’s most active cricket-playing club and the owner of Lord’s – the Home of Cricket.

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William Finnegan's surfing tour de force Barbarian Days adds the Bookie Prize to his Pulitzer Prize

WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016

The winner is announced

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.

By William Finnegan (Corsair) £9.99

William Finnegan  (centre) shows off the 2016 William Hill
 Sports Book of the Year Award, flanked by (left-to-right)
 judges Graham Sharpe, Alyson Rudd, Hugh McIlvanney,
Mark Lawson, John Inverdale and Clarke Carlisle.

Surfing memoir Barbarian Days, described as “compelling, elegiac and profound” by the chair of the judging panel, has won the 2016 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for American author William Finnegan.

The book, which has already won a Pulitzer Prize for the veteran New Yorker magazine writer, tells the story of Finnegan life through the prism of his 50-year obsession with surfing, from his childhood days in California and Hawaii to the present day.

Barbarian Days beat a particularly strong field to land the £28,000 cash prize that goes with the award, which also comes with a leather-bound commemorative copy of the book, a £2,500 free bet with the sponsors and a day at the races.

Finnegan's work was chosen from a shortlist that judges' chair and co-founder of the award Graham Sharpe dubbed "a ‘Magnificent Seven’ of sporting books".

The list comprised Diana Nyad's long-distance swimming memoir Find a Way,  Rick Broadbent’s Endurance, a biography of Czech Olympic runner Emil Zátopek, Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge’s Chasing Shadows, an investigation into the life and death of cricketer and journalist Peter Roebuck, Oliver Kay’s Forever Young, a biography of "football’s lost genius" Adrian Doherty, Rory Smith’s Mister, a study of how English coaches managers taught the world how to play football, and Christopher McGrath’s Mr Darley's Arabian, a history of horse racing through the lives of 25 horses united by one bloodline.

But it was Barbarian Days that impressed the judges the most.  In some ways a controversial inclusion on the shortlist, in that there is no element of competition either with other surfers or the record books, it won them over for the sheer brilliance of Finnegan's prose and the sharpness of his insights as he pursues a compelling quest to find the finest surf on the planet.

Broadcaster John Inverdale, who presented Finnegan with the award at a ceremony at BAFTA in central London, said that the decision of the judges had been unanimous.

“People thought this was a genuinely extraordinary book, about life – about a certain kind of life. It’s a bit hedonistic. It’s a bit reckless. A lot of people will identify with it. A lot of people will envy it.

"If you read it with an open mind, you will realise what an amazing thing life is and having some kind of engagement and passion for sport enables you to live life to the full.”

Another judge, the journalist and broadcaster Mark Lawson, endorsed Inverdale's words, although he admitted that some on the panel had needed to be convinced that surfing should be considered as a sport.

"Although the author himself acknowledges the scepticism of some about whether surfing is a sport, the judges felt that Finnegan's account of the physical and psychological drive to achieve athletic perfection make Barbarian Days a worthy winner of the award.

"The autobiographical detail and precision of the writing also make it rewarding to those who might think they would struggle to get on board with surfing as a subject."

Finnegan, who now lives in Manhattan yet still surfs regularly off Long Island, has been a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine for nearly 30 years, often travelling to conflict zones and his previous books reflect that.

William Finnegan enjoys his triumph at the awards
ceremony at BAFTA in central London

Two have been rooted in his experiences in South Africa in the days of apartheid, another is about conflict in Mozambique and his most recent, Cold New World, shines a light into the bleak lives of disadvantaged American teenagers growing up hopeless and desperate in their own country.

Veteran William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe, who co-founded the award with the late John Gaustad, said of the winning entry: “Compelling, elegiac and profound throughout, Barbarian Days offers a revelatory and often dramatic study of the elegant art of surfing. As we follow William Finnegan’s story we see not just the maturing of a boy into a man, but of a rebellious soul coming to terms with society on his own terms.

"We also see, as we so often do, how sport reflects politics, economics and an ever-shrinking world, as surfers fight to protect their hidden beaches and continue their search for new waves to master.

"It’s a widescreen, technicolour winner. With a Pulitzer Prize and now the Bookie Prize to its name, surely Hollywood cannot be far behind.”

In addition to Sharpe, Lawson and Inverdale, the judging panel for this year’s award consisted of former chairman of the Professional Footballer’s Association chair Clarke Carlisle, broadcaster Danny Kelly, doyen of sportswriters Hugh McIlvanney, and Times writer and author Alyson Rudd.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan

Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith

Read reviews of all the shortlisted titles:

Mister: The Men Who Taught the World How to Beat England at Their Own Game, by Rory Smith (Simon & Schuster), £18.99

Mr Darley's Arabian: High Life, Low Life. Sporting Life: A History of Racing in 25 Horses, by Christopher McGrath (John Murray)

Endurance: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Emil Zátopek, by Rick Broadbent (Wisden Sports Writing)

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan (Corsair)

Chasing Shadows: The Life and Death of Peter Roebuck, by Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge (Hardie Grant)

Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty - Football's Lost Genius, by Oliver Kay (Quercus)

Find a Way: One Untamed and Courageous Life, by Diana Nyad (Macmillan)

More reading:

And then there were seven - the full shortlist for the 2016 William Hill Sports Book of the Year

William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2016: the longlist in full

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Chasing Shadows: who was the real Peter Roebuck and what happened to make him fall to his death from a hotel window?

WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016

On the shortlist:

Chasing Shadows: The Life and Death of Peter Roebuck.

by Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge (Hardie Grant)

Review by Jon Culley

Peter Roebuck: Journalist was
 being questioned by police

On November 12, 2011, Peter Roebuck returned to his hotel in Cape Town, having watched Australia humbled by South Africa in an extraordinary Test match at Newlands, which he had been reporting for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

According to witnesses, Roebuck, a brilliant writer and commentator but as an individual something of an enigma, was reportedly in good spirits.  Waiting for him in the lobby of the hotel, however, were two police officers.

They were investigating an accusation of sexual assault made against Roebuck by a Zimbabwean man whom he had supposedly met at the same hotel a few days earlier.

The officers accompanied Roebuck to his sixth-floor room to talk to him about the allegation. During the course of the interview, the 55-year-old Cambridge-educated former Somerset captain fell to his death from a window.  The officers said that he had committed suicide but many questions remain unanswered about what happened in the room and in the preceding days.

Australian journalists Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge have attempted to fill in some of the gaps. Given that the real Roebuck was a mystery to many even close acquaintances, they have not done a bad job, although they still do not manage to penetrate far beneath the surface of his character.

Feud with Viv Richards and Ian Botham 

Roebuck's stance over Viv Richards and
Joel Garner caused a rift at Somerset

The book covers Roebuck's career with Somerset, for whom he scored more than 25,000 runs, which provided controversy enough in the feud with Viv Richards and Ian Botham that developed following Roebuck's role in the county's decision not to renew the contracts of either Richards or Joel Garner, which prompted Botham to leave for Worcestershire.

Most interest, inevitably, will focus on the nature of Roebuck's private life and his work with disadvantaged young African men.

In 2001 he was convicted of common assault following allegations that he caned three such men who were living at his home in Taunton, after which he became increasingly estranged from the country of his birth.  An Australian citizen, he subsequently divided his time between homes in Sydney and Pietermaritzburg, where he provided shelter and education for many of the young men, mostly Zimbabweans, who he set out to help.

Lane -- a colleague at ABC for many years -- and his co-author have assembled an impressive cast of character witnesses, including ex-cricketers Mike Atherton, Jonathan Agnew, Steve Waugh, Ian Chappell and Rahul Dravid, his broadcasting colleague Jim Maxwell, and the journalist Matthew Engel.

They reproduce, too, in graphic detail, the testimony of his Cape Town accuser, Gondo Itai, which was included somewhat controversially while the Roebuck family's lawyers were still pushing for an open inquest to take place, the only ruling at that time on cause of death having taken place in private.

An unlikely romance

Peter Roebuck in his playing days

The most moving and illuminating chapter, though, concerns Roebuck's two-year romance with Julia Horne, a young Australian woman, the daughter of a prominent author and academic, whose recounting of their relationship is handled with great sensitivity by the authors and shows a side to Roebuck many might not have guessed existed.

The only love of Roebuck's life, it seems, Julia met him in Sydney in 1981 when she was studying at the University of New South Wales. It took him two years to invite her to dinner, after which he returned to England to continue his career. They wrote to one another often, Roebuck apparently eager for the relationship to continue, explaining his wish to settle down.

For a while, when he was next in Australia, they blossomed as a couple.  But complications were never far from the surface with Roebuck and after Horne made a return visit to England during the cricket season, the relationship ended.  He had made a decision, for one reason or another, to withdraw into the closed world he occupied previously.

The book has not been immune to criticism.  Some feel there is a lack of attention to cricket itself, to the way Roebuck played, to the players he admired and what that might have said about him, and also to his writing, the character of which is said to have changed the way the game was presented, particularly in Australia, making other writers feel more free to express themselves, and taking cricket journalism to a new level.

There is no arguing with the depth of the authors' research, however, and if fails ultimately to reach as deeply into Roebuck's psyche as they doubtless hoped they could, the book offers as much as anyone was able to unravel even among those closest to him.

Chasing Shadows: The The Life and Death of Peter Roebuck, by Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge (Hardie Grant)

Buy from Amazon or WH Smith

More reading:

Also shortlisted: Oliver Kay's Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty - lost genius of Manchester United's golden generation

And then there were seven - full details of the shortlist for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2016

William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2016: The full longlist



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And then there were seven - shortlist revealed for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2016

The shortlist for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award – the world’s richest and longest-running prize for sports writing – has been revealed following the deliberations of the judging panel, who have whittled down a longlist of 17 to a shortlist of seven.

Six sports are represented on the list, the majority sharing a common theme in that they dig deep into the psyche of their subjects, showing how their strengths and weaknesses helped and hindered them in the pursuit of their dreams.

This is demonstrated in two memoirs set against the backdrop of the sea - Barbarian Days, by journalist William Finnegan, and Find a Way, by swimmer Diana Nyad.

Barbarian Days, surfing’s first appearance in the 'Bookie Prize' field and already a Pulitzer Prize-winner, tells the story of a restless young man whose sport both anchors him and takes him around the world as he becomes an adult.

Diana Nyad’s memoir is a testimony to the indomitability of the human spirit: a world class swimmer at a very young age, Nyad first attempted to swim the 100 miles between Havana, Cuba and the coast of Florida without a shark cage aged 28 and achieved the feat - the first person to complete the treacherous crossing - over three decades later, aged 64.

Oliver Kay’s Forever Young investigates the short life of eccentric football prodigy Adrian Doherty, who was offered a five-year contract with Manchester United on his 17th birthday, yet died in unexplained circumstances having never realised his true potential.

The unpredictable character of former cricketer, writer and broadcaster Peter Roebuck, another figure who died tragically young, comes under the microscope in Tim Lane and Elliott Cartledge’s Chasing Shadows.

Rick Broadbent is on the shortlist for the third time with Endurance, which looks at the life of Olympic track legend Emil Zátopek. The greatest runner of his generation, Zátopek’s character was sorely tested as he fell from favour with his country’s Communist rulers, suffering countless indignities before coming in from the cold following Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.

Rounding off the list are Rory Smith’s Mister, which looks at how pioneer Englishmen helped export football to the world, and Christopher McGrath’s Mr Darley’s Arabian, which tells the story of horse racing by following the bloodline of twenty-five thoroughbreds, from a colt bought from Bedouin tribesmen over 300 years ago, to the modern champion, Frankel.

The seven titles in the running to be crowned the winner of the £28,000 prize are:

• Endurance: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Emil Zátopek, by Rick Broadbent (Wisden). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith
• Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan (Corsair). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith
• Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty, Football’s Lost Genius, by Oliver Kay (Quercus). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith
• Chasing Shadows: The Life & Death of Peter Roebuck, by Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge (Hardie Grant Books). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith
• Mr Darley’s Arabian: High Life, Low Life, Sporting Life – A History of Racing in 25 Horses, by Christopher McGrath (John Murray), Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith
• Find a Way: One Untamed and Courageous Life, by Diana Nyad (Macmillan). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith
• Mister: The Men Who Taught the World How to Beat England at Their Own Game, by Rory Smith (Simon & Schuster). Buy from Amazon, Waterstones or WH Smith

William Hill spokesman, judges' chair and co-founder of the award, Graham Sharpe, said:

“From an incredibly strong longlist a ‘Magnificent Seven’ of sporting books go forward, but from here on in the race is wide open.

"What is striking in this year’s selection is how the authors uncover the inner sportsman and sportswoman, revealing their hidden souls and proving that they are not just great athletes but also complex, driven people. These are brilliant, revelatory stories that our panel of experts will have a tough time judging.”

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world’s longest established and most valuable sports writing prize. As well as a £28,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a free £2,500 William Hill bet, and a day at the races.

The judging panel comprises journalist and broadcaster Mark Lawson; ex-player and former chairman of the Professional Footballer’s Association, Clarke Carlisle; broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; broadcaster Danny Kelly; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; and The Times columnist and author, Alyson Rudd.

Graham Sharpe succeeds the late John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop, as chairman.  John retired following the 2015 Award and sadly passed away earlier this year.

The winner will be announced at an afternoon reception at BAFTA, in central London, on Thursday November 24.

More reading:

Longlist announced for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2016


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Speed Kings by Andy Bull and Ed Caesar's Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon among winners at 2016 Cross Sports Book Awards

• Max Mosley, Guillem Balague, Ronda Rousey and David Millar also take prizes
• Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge worthy winners of Cricket award for Peter Roebuck biography Chasing Shadows

Andy Bull's Speed Kings and Ed Caesar's Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon were among the outstanding books to be recognised as winners at the 2016 Cross British Sports Book Awards.

The Times Biography of the Year prize went to Guardian journalist Bull, whose Speed Kings (Bantam Press) is the story of the four maverick adventurers who came together from disparate backgrounds to form the United States team who were four-man bobsleigh champions at the 1932 Winter Olympics.

Caesar was named Freshtime New Writer of the Year for Two Hours (Viking), an engaging study of elite marathon runners from around the world and the challenge of covering the classic distance of 26 miles 385 yards in less than two hours.

As in previous years, a public vote on the 10 winners of the book categories will determine which is named the overall Cross Sports Book of the Year for 2016.  To cast your vote, visit www.sportsbookawards.com and complete an online form between now and midnight on 16 June.  Each vote will earn the chance to win £100 worth of book tokens in a draw.

Guillem Balague's life story of the Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo (Orion) was a popular winner of the Barclays Football Book of the Year, pipping a field that included past winner Michael Calvin's Living on the Volcano and James Lawton's excellent Forever Boys.

William Finnegan won the Blink Publishing Outstanding Sports Writing award for Barbarian Days (Little, Brown), in which he recounts a life spent chasing waves around the world as a member of the enduring brotherhood of surfers. The book is this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for biography.

The Littlehampton Book Services Cricket Book of the Year was won by Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge for Chasing Shadows: The Life and Death of Peter Roebuck (Hardie Grant), in which Australian journalists Lane and Cartledge charted the life of the controversial English cricketer-turned-writer and examined the dramatic circumstances of his death in a fall from a hotel window in Cape Town, where he was being interviewed by police over an allegation of sexual assault.

The Cross Autobiography of the Year award went to the colourful former Formula One boss Max Mosley for his life story Formula One and Beyond (Simon & Schuster), a book that might disappoint some in that it is mainly about motor racing, but which does at least touch on his roots - he is the son of former Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley - and devotes several chapters to the newspaper revelations about his private life that led him first to bring a successful legal action against the News of the World and subsequently to become a campaigner against media intrusion into private lives.

Ronda Rousey, the former Olympic judo medallist who became a world champion at Ultimate Fighting, won the Cross International Autobiography of the Year award for My Fight, Your Fight (Arrow).

The Cycling Book of the Year is The Racer (Yellow Jersey), by David Millar, in which the Scottish former professional cyclist, who wrote about his return from a two-year doping ban in Racing Through the Dark, describes his final year on the circuit before retirement.

The Arbuthnot Latham Rugby Book of the Year is No Borders: Playing Rugby for Ireland (Arena Sport), Tom English's superb history of Irish rugby told through the words of the 115 present and former players he interviewed, a story that describes not only great victories and crushing defeats but the profound impact of politics and religion on Irish sport.

Winner of the Illustrated Book of the Year was Bob Martin for 1/1000th: The Sports Photography of Bob Martin (Vision Sports).

The Publicity Campaign of the Year went to Fiona Murphy from Quercus, who looked after The World of Cycling According to G, by Geraint Thomas.

The awards were announced during a gala dinner at Lord's cricket ground in London, where the proceedings also included some moving words by former Arsenal and Scotland goalkeeper Bob Wilson on behalf of the Cross Sports Book Awards charity partner Willow, the charity Bob and his wife Meg set up in memory of their daughter Anna, who died of cancer aged 31.  Willow helps seriously ill young adults, aged between 16 and 40, enjoy unforgettable experiences by providing Special Days.

Wilson also presented a special award made to veteran football writer Brian Glanville, who was honoured for his Outstanding Contribution to Sports Writing after a career that spans an incredible 67 years.  Now 84, Glanville began writing for newspapers at the age of 17 and had his first book published aged 19, while working for the Italian sports daily, Corriere dello Sport.  He spent 33 years as correspondent for the Sunday Times, for whom he still writes regular match reports.

To see who these winners beat to the big prizes, read our post on the full shortlists.

Follow these links to buy any of the winning titles

Autobiography of the Year: Max Mosley: Formula One and Beyond
Biography of the Year: Speed Kings, by Andy Bull
International Autobiography of the Year: My Fight Your Fight, by Ronda Rousey
Football Book of the Year: Cristiano Ronaldo: The Biography, by Guillem Hague
Cricket Book of the Year: Chasing Shadows: The Life and Death of Peter Roebuck, by Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge
Rugby Book of the Year: No Borders: Playing Rugby for Ireland, by Tom English
Cycling Book of the Year: The Racer: The Inside Story of Life on the Road, by David Millar
New Writer of the Year: Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon, by Ed Caesar
Outstanding General Sports Writing: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan
Illustrated Book of the Year: 1/1000th: The Sports Photography of Bob Martin

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Judges pondering over 10 shortlists for Cross Sports Book Awards 2016

The judges are pondering over 10 shortlists for the 2016 Cross Sports Book Awards ahead of the awards ceremony on 1 June.

In addition to the titles under consideration for Autobiography of the Year, the longlist for which was revealed in January, the contenders in nine other categories have been named, including the new award for International Autobiography of the Year.

Gareth Thomas won the 2015 Sports
Book of the Year award for Proud

As in previous years, after the individual category winners have been announced, each will go forward to an online public vote to determine the overall Cross Sports Book of the Year. Everyone that takes part in the public vote will be entered into a draw to win National Book Tokens.

Michael Calvin, who won the overall prize in 2014 with The Nowhere Men and was the ghostwriter behind rugby star Gareth Thomas's 2015 winner Proud, has the chance to complete a hat-trick with Living on the Volcano, his study of what it takes to survive as a football manager, which is shortlisted for Football Book of the Year.

Ronald Reng, the German sports journalist who won Biography of the Year in 2004 with Keeper of Dreams and Football Book of the Year in 2012 with A Life Too Short, is shortlisted in the football category again with Matchdays: The Hidden Story of the Bundesliga.

John Cross's Arsene Wenger and Guillem Balague's Cristiano Ronaldo go head to head in both the Biography and Football categories, while Richard Tomlinson's Amazing Grace: The Man Who was WG is shortlisted for Cricket Book of the Year as well as the biography prize.

Stephen Chalke, author of the 2009 Cricket Book of the Year winner The Way it Was, is a contender for that prize again with Summer's Crown: The Story of Cricket's County Championship.

Donald McRae, who collaborated with Steven Gerrard on his shortlisted Autobiography My Story, is shortlisted also for Biography of the Year with A Man's World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith.

And Ed Caesar is in the running for the New Writer award and the Outstanding Sports Writing award for Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon.

The 2016 awards will be presented by Sky Sports News presenter Mike Wedderburn and Test Match Special’s Alison Mitchell after a dinner at Lord’s Cricket Ground on 1 June. An hour-long highlights show will be shown on Sky Sports. with multiple repeat shows on 4 and 5 June.

The shortlists in full:

Cross Autobiography of the Year

Steve Davis: Interesting (Ebury)
Steven Gerrard: My Story (Penguin)
David Lloyd: Last in the Tin Bath  (Simon & Schuster)
Nigel Mansell: Staying on Track (Simon & Schuster)
AP McCoy: Winner (Orion)
Max Mosley: Formula One and Beyond (Simon & Schuster)

The Times Biography of the Year

Guillem Balague: Cristiano Ronaldo (Orion)
Andy Bull: Speed Kings (Bantam Press)
John Cross: Arsene Wenger (Simon & Schuster)
Donald McRae: A Man's World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith (Simon & Schuster)
Richard Tomlinson: Amazing Grace: The Man Who was W.G.(Little, Brown)
Luke G. Williams: Richmond Unchained: The Biography of the World's First Black Sporting Superstar (Amberley)

Littlehampton Book Services Cricket Book of the Year

Scyld Berry: Cricket: The Game of Life (Hodder & Stoughton)
Stephen Chalke: Summer's Crown: The Story of Cricket's County Championship (Fairfield Books)
Steve James: The Art of Centuries (Bantam Press)
Tim Lane and Elliot Cartledge: Chasing Shadows: The Life and Death of Peter Roebuck (Hardie Grant Books)
Simon Lister: Fire in Babylon (Yellow Jersey Press)
Richard Tomlinson: Amazing Grace: The Man Who was WG (Little, Brown)

Cycling Book of the Year

Peter Cossins: Alpe d'Huez: The Story of Pro Cycling's Greatest Climb (Aurum Press)
William Fotheringham: Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling(Yellow Jersey Press)
Ian MacGregor: To Hell on a Bike (Bantam Press)
David Millar: The Racer (Yellow Jersey Press)
Edward Pickering: The Yellow Jersey Club (Bantam Press)
Geraint Thomas: The World of Cycling According to G (Quercus)

Barclays Football Book of the Year

Guillem Balague: Cristiano Ronaldo (Orion)
Michael Calvin: Living on the Volcano (Century)
John Cross: Arsene Wenger (Simon & Schuster)
Andrew Jennings: The Dirty Game: Uncovering the Scandal at FIFA (Century)
James Lawton: Forever Boys (Wisden)
Ronald Reng: Matchdays: The Hidden Story of the Bundesliga (Simon & Schuster)

Blink Publishing General Outstanding Sports Writing Award

Darren Barker with Ian Ridley: A Dazzling Darkness: The Darren Barker Story (Floodlit Dreams)
Ed Caesar: Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon (Viking)
John Daniell: The Fixer (Saltway)
Willie Finnegan: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (Little, Brown)
Richard Moore: The Bolt Supremacy (Yellow Jersey Press)
William Skidelsky: Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession (Yellow Jersey Press)

Illustrated Book of the Year

Matthew Baird: Triathlon!: A tribute to the world's greatest triathletes, courses and gear (Aurum Press)
Paul Connolly: Richie Benaud: Those Summers of Cricket 1930-2015 (Hardie Grant Books)
Tour de France 2015:The Official Review (Vision Sports Publishing)
Bob Martin: 1/1000th: The Sports Photography of Bob Martin (Vision Sports Publishing)
Roger McStravick: St Andrews in the Footsteps of Old Tom Morris (St Andrews Press)
Mark Platt: This is Anfield (Carlton Books)

Cross International Autobiography of the Year Award

Dan Carter: Dan Carter: The Autobiography of an All Blacks Legend (Headline)
Didier Drogba: Commitment: My Autobiography (Hodder & Stoughton)
Michael Lynagh and Mark Eglinton: Blindsided (HarperSport)
Marco Negri with Jeff Holmes: Moody Blue: The Story of Mysterious Marco (Pitch Publishing)
Ronda Rousey: My Fight Your Fight (Arrow)
Mark Webber: Aussie Grit: My Formula One Journey (Pan Macmillan)

Freshtime New Writer of the Year

Emily Bullock: The Longest Fight (Myriad Editions)
Ed Caesar: Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon (Viking)
Lucy Fry: Run, Ride, Sink or Swim: A Rookie's Year in Women's Triathlon (Faber & Faber)
Martin Hardy: Touching Distance (DeCoubertin Books)
Lizzy Hawker: Runner: A Short Story About a Long Run (Aurum Press)
Anne Lauppe-Dunbar: Dark Mermaids (Seren Books)

Arbuthnot Latham Rugby Book of the Year

Tony Collins: The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby (Bloomsbury)
Stephen Cooper: After the Final Whistle (History Press)
Tom English: No Borders: Playing Rugby for Ireland (Arena Sport)
Stephen Ferris: Man and Ball (Transworld Ireland)
Adam Jones: Bomb: My Autobiography (Headline)
Phil Larder with Nicholas Bishop: The Iron Curtain: My Rugby Journey from League to Union (Pitch Publishing)

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