Triple nomination for Roy Keane bestseller
Bobby Moore: The Man in Full also named in three categories
Trueman author Waters in contention with 10 for 10
Townsend's The Sure Thing stands out among racing books
The shortlists for the 2015 British Sports Book Awards include some predictable nominations as well as some that did not make the bestseller lists but win some well deserved recognition.
Familiar titles include The Second Half, the memoir penned on Roy Keane's behalf by Booker Prize-winning novelist Roddy Doyle, which is nominated in three categories.
Other well-known names among this year's 10 categories include rugby stars Brian O’Driscoll, whose The Test is shortlisted for Rugby Book of the Year and Autobiography sections, and Gareth Thomas, also nominated in Rugby and Autobiography for Proud, on which he collaborated with Michael Calvin, whose own book, The Nowhere Men, won the Football category and the vote for overall Sports Book of the Year in 2014.
Motorcycling champion and TV presenter Guy Martin, whose autobiography was one of the publishing sensations of 2014, makes the Autobiography shortlist along with Ryder Cup golfer Ian Poulter and two cycling champions, Tour de France winner Chris Froome and Olympic champion Nicola Cooke.
No surprise either to see Matt Dickinson's excellent biography Bobby Moore: The Man in Full nominated in the Biography, Football and Outstanding General Writing categories, or for Peter Oborne's Wounded Tiger: The History of Cricket in Pakistan, to make the Cricket section.
Pleasingly, there are several authors in the running whose books did not attract such attention but are no less worthy of their place among the candidates.
These include Chris Waters, cricket correspondent of The Yorkshire Post, who won Cricket Book of the Year in 2012 for his excellent biography of Fred Trueman and is shortlisted in that grouping for 10 for 10: Hedley Verity and the Story of Cricket's Greatest Bowling Feat.
Bill Jones, who was Best New Writer in 2012 for Ghost Runner, is nominated in the Biography and Outstanding General Writing lists for Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry.
John Carlin, a fine journalist with expertise in politics and sport and an intimate knowledge of Spain and South Africa, is nominated in the Biography category for his portrait of Oscar Pistorius, from his remarkable rise to his dramatic fall.
The Biography nominations also include the late Jonathan Rendall's posthumously published Scream: The Tyson Tapes, based on a manuscript for a full biography of world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson that he never completed, which was discovered in a bin bag of his possessions after his death.
David Goldblatt's The Game of Our Lives is another that stands out among those put forward in the Outstanding General Writing category. Goldblatt presents a history of football in post-Thatcher Britain, based on his own personal observations as well as much detailed research, in what is a superbly crafted analysis of the game, where it has been and where it is now, set in a socio-economic as well as sporting context.
Special mention needs to be made, too, in the Horse Racing category of Nick Townsend's The Sure Thing: The Greatest Coup in Horse Racing History, in which he tells the story of renowned gambler Barney Curley, who took the bookmakers for £300,000 with a famous coup in 1975, and who decided 35 years later he would plan another spectacular event, this time collecting close to £4 million.
And last but not least there is Stuck in a Moment: The Ballad of Paul Vaessen, the Arsenal player who scored one of the most famous goals in the club's history at the age of 18 but then suffered a career-ending injury, which forced him out of the game and into a life of drug addiction and petty crime that led to his death, penniless, at just 39. Stewart Taylor's superbly researched and beautifully written portrait puts him in the running for New Writer of the Year, in which Night Games, which won the 2014 William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize for Australian author Anna Klein, is also a contender.
For the first time in the awards’ 13 years history there will be an award for Cycling Book of the Year, recognising the huge rise in sports writing in this area. Among the contenders for this award are Richard Moore’s Étape, Ned Boulting’s 101 Damnations, and The Race Against the Stasi by Herbie Sykes.
The awards have a new sponsor this year in Cross, the makers of high quality writing instruments. Winners will be announced at a ceremony hosted by BBC Cricket Correspondent Jonathan Agnew at Lord’s Cricket Ground on Wednesday, June 3. An hour-long highlights show will be shown on Sky Sports after June 7.
The shortlists in full:
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Guy Martin: My Autobiography
No Limits: My Autobiography
Proud: My Autobiography
The Breakaway: My Story
The Climb: The Autobiography
The Second Half
BIOGRAPHY
Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry
Bobby Moore: The Man in Full
Chase Your Shadow: The Trials of Oscar Pistorius
One Day as A Tiger: Alex Macintyre and the Birth of Light and Fast Alpinism
Scream: The Tyson Tapes
Shadows on the Road: Life at the Heart of the Peloton, from US Postal to Team Sky
FOOTBALL BOOK
Bobby Moore: The Man in Full
I Don't Know What It Is But I Love It: Liverpool's Unforgettable 1983-84 Season
The Boy in Brazil: Living, Loving and Learning in the Land of Football
Fergie Rises: How Britain's Greatest Football Manager Was Made At Aberdeen
The Second Half
Thirty-One Nil: On the Road With Football's Outsiders
In Search of Duncan Ferguson: The Life and Crimes of a Footballing Enigma
RUGBY BOOK
Beyond the Horizon: Extreme Adventures at the Edge of the World
Behind the Rose: Playing Rugby for England
The Test: My Autobiography
Proud: My Autobiography
The Secret Life of Twickenham: The Story of Rugby Union's Iconic Fortress, The Players, Staff and Fans
Undefeated - The Story of the 1974 Lions
CRICKET BOOK
10 for 10: Hedley Verity and the Story of Cricket's Greatest Bowling Feat
Britain's Lost Cricket Festivals: The Idyllic Club Grounds that Will Never Again Host the World's Best Players
Field of Shadows: The English Cricket Tour of Nazi Germany 1937
The Final Over: The Cricketers of Summer 1914
Wisden on the Great War: The Lives of Cricket's Fallen 1914-1918
Wounded Tiger: A History of Cricket in Pakistan
HORSE RACING BOOK
Burrough Hill Lad: The Making of a Champion Racehorse
Cheltenham et AL: The Best of Alastair Down
If Horses Could Talk
McCoy: In the Frame
The Sure Thing: The Greatest Coup in Horse Racing History
William Hill: The Man & The Business
CYCLING BOOK
Climbs and Punishment
Etape: The untold stories of the Tour de France's defining stages
Gironimo!: Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy
Great British Cycling: The History of British Bike Racing
The Race Against the Stasi: The Incredible Story of Dieter Wiedemann, The Iron Curtain and The Greatest Cycling Race on Earth
101 Damnations: Dispatches from the 101st Tour de France
OUTSTANDING GENERAL WRITING
Alone: The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry
Bobby Moore: The Man in Full
The Second Half
O, Louis: In Search of Louis van Gaal
The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football
The Race Against the Stasi: The Incredible Story of Dieter Wiedemann, The Iron Curtain and The Greatest Cycling Race on Earth, by Herbie Sykes (Aurum Press)
NEW WRITER
Driven
Finding My Feet: Claire Lomas
Night Games: Sex, Power and a Journey into the Dark Heart of Sport
Salt, Sweat, Tears: The Men Who Rowed the Oceans
Sol Campbell - The Authorised Biography
Stuck in a Moment: The Ballad of Paul Vaessen
ILLUSTRATED BOOK
The Age of Innocence. Football in the 1970s
The Arsenal Shirt: The History of the Iconic Gunners Jersey Told Through an Extraordinary Collection of Match Worn Shirts
The Art of Sports Photography
Formula One Circuits From Above
Golf’s Royal Clubs, by Scott Macpherson (R & A)
Parkrun: A Celebration, by Paul Warrington, Rob Kemp, Julian Ward and Paul Duke (Parkrun Press)
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