Bradley Wiggins takes a starring role alongside Stuart Broad, Gary Lineker and Sam Warburton on publishing's Super Thursday

Today has been the publishing world's so-called Super Thursday, the October date that signals the start of the Christmas sales push. Among 97 new titles to hit the shelves, the crop of new sports books includes offerings from Stuart Broad and Gary Lineker -- and two books that will hope to benefit from the wave of popularity that has made Bradley Wiggins into a strong contender to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

We will not know the thoughts of the Tour de France winner and Olympic champion himself until November 8 -- publication date for Yellow Jersey's new Wiggins autobiography, My Time -- but in the meantime, two titles celebrating the feats of sport's most famous mod revivalist are released today.

Bradley Wiggins: The Story of Britain's Greatest Ever Cyclist, by Press Association journalist Matt McGeehan is published by Carlton Books.  The 128-page biography looks at how the Wiggins 2012 success story has been more than a decade in the making, tracing back his rise to the posters of the great Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain that adorned his bedroom wall as he grew up in inner-city London.

Cycling journalist Daniel Friebe, author of the Eddy Merckx biography, The Cannibal, and Mark Cavendish's ghostwriter on Boy Racer, offers Allez Wiggo! How Bradley Wiggins Won the Tour de France and Olympic Gold in 2012.  Published by Bloomsbury Sport and spanning 176 pages, Friebe looks in particular at the strategy Team Sky employed to help Wiggins become the first British winner of the Tour.

Wiggins is a popular subject at the moment -- cycling journalist and friend John Deering tells his story, too, in Tour de Force, which was published by Birlinn at the beginning of this month -- and while today's cycling headlines are regrettable for the sport, the Wiggins story offers a timely counter to the sordid details thrown up by the Lance Armstrong enquiry.

Carlton have been by far the busiest sports publishers on Super Thursday, with three titles from sports statistician, historian and journalist Keir Radnedge alone.   These are an updated fourth edition of the best-selling World Football Records (256 pages), a new post-London 2012 edition of Olympic and World Records (208 pages), and the former World Soccer editor's 288-page Complete Encyclopedia of Football.

Gary Lineker's light-hearted Football - It's Unbelievable is also from the Carlton stable, as is Mike Hammond's exhaustively comprehensive UEFA European Football Yearbook, now in its 25th year as the ultimate reference for European football, covering not only the international teams and the Champions League but the domestic leagues in all 53 UEFA member countries.

Completing the clutch of Carlton titles are Robert Lodge's collection of bizarre football stories, A Game of Three Halves, Bruce Jones's 288-page Complete Encyclopedia of Formula One and Ian Valentine's unusual Cricket Yesterday and Today, which uses photographs from the modern era with days past to compare and contrast the cricketing giants of history with the stars of today.

On a cricketing theme, look out also for Going Barmy, Paul Winslow's first-hand account of life as a member of the England cricket team's loyal unofficial entourage, the Barmy Army. Published by SportsBooks, this is an engaging tale of cricket obsession, with a foreword by the England off-spinner and Barmy Army hero, Graeme Swann.

There will be much interest in Stuart Broad's My World in Cricket, in which the England fast bowler and Twenty20 captain reveals among other things the techniques and tactics, mental and physical, that have helped him succeed in top-level cricket, with advice on how to apply the same formula to the game at any level, either in club or schoolboy cricket.


My World in Cricket is published by Simon and Schuster, who also unveiled rugby star Sam Warburton's Refuse to be Denied: My Grand Slam Year, in which the Wales captain talks about the drama and disappointment of the rugby World Cup in New Zealand, in which he was controversially sent off in the semi-final against France, and his triumphant return to lead Wales to Six Nations glory.

Look out also for As The Crow Flies: My Journey to Ironman World Champion, by Craig Alexander (Bloomsbury Sport), The 368-page Official Illustrated History of Manchester United: 1878-2012 (Simon & Schuster), John Hartson's Celtic Dream Team (Black and White), and Ayrton Senna: The Messiah of Motor Racing, by Richard Craig (Darton, Longman and Todd).

For more information and to buy, visit the Super Thursday page at The Sports Bookshelf Shop.

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William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012: The complete longlist
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Engage: the moving story of paralysed rugby player Matt Hampson is sports book of the year

Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson, written by award-winning journalist Paul Kimmage and published by Simon & Schuster, has been named as the British Sports Book Awards overall 'Sports Book of the Year' for 2012 after a public online vote. 

Sports book fans were invited to name their favourite from the winning titles in each category from the British Sports Book Awards.

Engage, deemed by the awards judges to be the best biography of the year at last month's British Sports Book Awards ceremony at the Savoy Hotel in London, tells the moving story of Matt Hampson, a promising young rugby player who was paralysed from the neck down after an accident in an England training session.

Remarkably, Hampson has adjusted with enormous courage to a limited everyday life.  He is constantly attached to breathing equipment because the damage to his body left him unable to inflate and deflate his lungs unaided yet attended the awards dinner alongside Kimmage.

Mick Dennis, who chaired the BSBA biography judges, commented: "At the heart of Engage is a remarkable and inspiring story. You have to overcome that thought of 'do I really want to read that?'. Yes, you do! It’s outstandingly written and a life affirming book."

Kimmage, the former professional cyclist and a past winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, said that writing Engage was "easily the most difficult thing I’ve ever done but also the most satisfying.

"It’s a great honour to win from such a strong shortlist of books but the real buzz is being able to share this award with Matt, a great friend and the most courageous and inspiring person I’ve ever met.”

Hampson himself commented: “The response we have received from all walks of life since the release of Engage has been overwhelming. We are delighted to receive this award, especially as it was voted for by the general public. Paul and I hope Engage will continue to inspire and touch many more people.”

Matt Hampson now works to offer help, advice and support to the victims of serious injury and disability, in particular in a sports context, through his charity The Matt Hampson Foundation.  To learn more or make a donation, visit www.matthampsonfoundation.org

All the category winners from the 2012 British Sports Book Awards, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, are described on this page, in the right-hand column.

To buy:

Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage published by Simon & Schuster is out now in paperback and available to download as an ebook.



Read more about Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson.

Books by Paul Kimmage

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Paul Kimmage to ghost Brian O'Driscoll autobiography for Penguin Ireland

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Award-winning writer Paul Kimmage is to ghost the autobiography of Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning rugby captain, Brian O’Driscoll.

Dublin-born Kimmage, who recently won the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year prize for Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson, has been signed up as part of the deal that landed Penguin Ireland the O’Driscoll story.

O’Driscoll, who was voted world player of the decade by Rugby World magazine in January 2010, is one of only two men to captain Ireland to a Grand Slam.  He has also led them to four Triple Crown triumphs and is Irish rugby’s all-time highest international try scorer with 46.

Kimmage, who recently left the Sunday Times, said he was honoured by the invitation to write O’Driscoll’s book. "It's incredibly flattering to be asked to do it,” he said. “Brian is one of our (Ireland’s) genuine superstars.”

Yet admirers of the 38-year-old former professional cyclist will not be at all surprised at Penguin’s eagerness to have him work with O’Driscoll.

Having established his credentials as a writer when Rough Ride, in which he lifted the lid on cycling’s doping culture, was named William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1990, Kimmage entered journalism with the Sunday Independent in Ireland before moving to the Sunday Times in 2003, subsequently winning the Sports Journalists’ Association’s Interviewer of the Year award five times in a row.

It was after an interview with Matt Hampson, the England under-21 rugby prop who was left paralysed by a training ground accident, that he wrote Engage, which had been favourite to land him a second William Hill prize last year before the judges plumped for A Life Too Short, the tragic story for former Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke.

No publication date has been set for Brian O’Driscoll’s book. The 32-year-old outside centre is currently sidelined by a shoulder injury that has ruled him out of this year’s Six Nations championship.   But he hopes to tour Australia with the British and Irish Lions next year and has told Kimmage he does not want the book to be released before he retires.

Penguin believe they will have a winner on their hands whenever it comes out.

"Brian is a remarkable sportsman and has been an outstanding ambassador for Ireland both on and off the pitch,” the Penguin Ireland managing director, Michael McLoughlin, said. “We expect this autobiography to be an enormous bestseller."

It is Penguin Ireland’s second O’Driscoll book, following on from A Year in the Centre, published in 2005, which was a diary of the 2004-05 season, a painful one for the player in that it ended with serious injury in the first Test against New Zealand in Christchurch.

Also by Paul Kimmage:

Rough Ride: Behind the Wheel with a Pro Cyclist
Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino
Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson

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Kimmage's skills give voice to a brave young man in a bleak yet uplifting story

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders


The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed tomorrow.  For the last week, The Sports Bookshelf has been presenting a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today:

Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson (Simon & Schuster)

THE STORY:

It was March 15, 2005. Matt Hampson, a 20-year-old tight-head prop from the Leicester Tigers club, was taking part in a training session with an England Under-21 team that included Ben Foden, Toby Flood and James Haskell. The forwards were in full, contested scrum practice. Not unusually, as 16 hefty men confront each other in a shoving match, the scrum would collapse from time to time.

Thankfully, despite the risks inherent, the players normally pick themselves up unscathed and resume practice. On this occasion, however, it was different.

By some freak of physics, the full force of this collapse ended up being borne by Matt Hampson’s neck. In an instant, he suffered a dislocation that trapped his spinal chord.  He was saved from dying on the field because Tony Spreadbury, the referee supervising the session, happened also to be a paramedic, but the damage already done had paralysed Hampson from the neck down.

Paul Kimmage, the Sunday Times journalist, visited Hampson as he recuperated. His brilliant piece -- headlined ‘One Tragic Day’ -- won him the Sports Journalists’ Association interviewer of the year award for the third year in succession.  They struck up a friendship and now Kimmage has told Hampson’s full story, in all its harrowing detail, from the build-up to the fateful day, the drama of the accident itself, the incredibly long rehabilitation, to his struggle to adjust to what passes for him as a normal life.

The result has been hailed as a story that reveals the true hellishness of personal disaster on the scale that befell Hampson as well as the astonishing capacity of one human being to make the best of what little he had left -- in a physical sense -- and to do so without seeking pity.

Hampson now lives in a converted barn in a Leicestershire village, custom made for him by his father, Phil.  He has a ventilator attached to him by a pipe that breathes for him 21,600 times in every 24 hour period.  Yet he manages to pursue a life in which he offers help, advice and support to other victims of serious injury and disability, in particular in a sports context, through his charity The Matt Hampson Foundation (http://www.matthampsonfoundation.org/)

THE CRITICS:

"Engage is a book that will make you laugh, make you cry, make you gasp: it’s the full emotional rollercoaster. I read the 395 pages in two days."
-- Rachel Simmonite, therugbyblog.co.uk Read more…

“Despite this young man’s remarkable character, Engage’s honest, unblinking approach to the scale of his disaster makes this book much bleaker (and better) than just an uplifting triumph-over-adversity tale…a genuinely outstanding book.”
-- Brian Schofield, the Sunday Times. Read more…

"It is typical of Hampson that he treats the very worst experiences as some loony endurance course. The full black humour of his situation unfolds in his autobiography, a hellish, inspiring and often hilarious account of his struggle.”
-- Elizabeth Grice, Daily Telegraph. Read more…

THE AUTHOR:

Paul Kimmage, a former professional cyclist, has already won one William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for Rough Ride, which exposed drug use in his sport and made his name as a writer.   He also won acclaim for writing the autobiographical Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino on behalf of the Republic of Ireland footballer.

* * * * * * * 

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 £23,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a £2,000 William Hill bet, a 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; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; broadcaster Danny Kelly; and columnist and author, Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop. 

The winner will be announced at a lunchtime reception at Waterstone’s Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookstore, on Monday 28th November.

READ ABOUT THE OTHER SIX CONTENDERS:

A Life Too Short

The Ghost Runner

32 Programmes
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar
Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight
Among The Fans

The shortlist in full:

1. Among the Fans: From Ashes to the Arrows, a Year of Watching the Watchers by Patrick Collins (Wisden Sports Writing)

2. Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (Profile Books)

3. The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop by Bill Jones (Mainstream Publishing)

4. Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster)

5. Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar by David Millar (Orion)

6. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng (Yellow Jersey Press)

7. 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts (Bantam Press)

Buy Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson direct from Amazon 

More on the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

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Jonny Wilkinson invites his fans on a fresh tour of his tortured soul

As the professional wordsmith behind his column in The Times, Owen Slot had been Jonny Wilkinson’s ghostwriter for seven years before they began to collaborate on the England rugby star’s autobiography yet it was not long before he discovered he knew his subject less well than he thought.

“It was abundantly clear that Jonny’s life story was more complicated, infinitely deeper and darker than I had imagined,” Slot writes in a piece accompanying the serialisation of Jonny: My Autobiography in The Times this week.

The book -- due out this Thursday -- takes readers on a candid and deeply personal voyage into the farthest reaches of Wilkinson’s complex character, setting out the inner torment that has even accompanied much of his success as well as darkening the days of his long periods of physical injury.

It reveals the fears that have dogged him since childhood and tipped him sometimes into bouts of depression and which have made the goals of fulfilment and true happiness almost impossible to attain.

“I didn’t know the extremes of the anxiety he suffered, I didn’t have a clue that it started so early on in his life and I certainly didn’t know that it never really left him,” Slot writes.

Slot amassed more than 50 hours of recorded interview sessions -- two and half times the amount a colleague had suggested would be adequate -- and had to submit his manuscript to three painstaking edits before Wilkinson was happy for it to go to press.

The result is a gripping read and an examination of the human psyche that throws up many thoughts and experiences that will be uncomfortably but reassuringly familiar to others haunted by self-doubt.  But it is also a book that tempts the suggestion that the obsessiveness that has driven Wilkinson’s career on the rugby field might also explain an apparent compulsion to write soul-searching autobiographies.

Jonny: My Autobiography is actually Wilkinson’s third life story, following on from My World, written in conjunction with Daily Express journalist Neil Squires and published in 2004, and Tackling Life, written four years later with the help of Steve Black, the former Newcastle Falcons fitness coach who became Wilkinson’s mentor.

In both, Wilkinson delves into his fears and anxieties, especially Tackling Life, which begins to reveal the complexities that required Owen Slot to embark on what must have felt like a marathon of transcribing.

In a way, then, Jonny is more of the same.  Yet Slot has trawled deeper still, perhaps, and given that Wilkinson’s fascination with the inner self involves continually challenging his beliefs and re-evaluating earlier conclusions, the old ground covered is refreshed just enough.

Jonny: My Autobiography is published by Headline.  Follow the link to buy direct from Amazon.

Browse more rugby books at The Sports Bookshelf Shop

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Engage: a harrowing story brilliantly told

By Jon Culley


No one can know whether Matt Hampson would have played in a Rugby World Cup but he was established on a path towards full international recognition when a commonplace incident on the training field changed his life forever.

It was March 15, 2005 and Hampson, a 20-year-old tight-head prop from the Leicester Tigers club, was in a practice session with an England Under-21 team that included Ben Foden, Toby Flood and James Haskell, who was directly behind Hampson in the second row.  All are currently in New Zealand with Martin Johnson’s England squad.

The forwards, under the supervision of Tony Spreadbury, an international referee, were in full, contested scrum practice. Not unusually, during such sessions, the scrum would collapse from time to time.

Thankfully, despite the risks inherent when 16 hefty men engage in a head-first shoving match, such collapses seldom result in serious injury.  This occasion, however, was different.

By some freak of physics, the full force of this collapse ended up being borne by Hampson’s neck. In an instant, he suffered a dislocation that trapped his spinal chord.  He was saved from dying on the field because Spreadbury happened also to be a paramedic, but the damage done paralysed Hampson from the neck down.

Paul Kimmage, the Sunday Times journalist, visited Hampson as he recuperated. His brilliant piece -- headlined ‘One Tragic Day’ -- won him the Sports Journalists’ Association interviewer of the year award for the third year in succession.

They struck up a friendship and now Kimmage has told Hampson’s full story, in all its harrowing detail, from the build-up to the fateful day, the drama of the accident itself, the incredibly long rehabilitation, to his struggle to adjust to what passes for him as a normal life.

The result has been hailed as a story that reveals the true hellishness of personal disaster on the scale that befell Hampson as well as the astonishing capacity of one human being to make the best of what little he had left -- in a physical sense -- but does so without sentimentality or by seeking pity.

Hampson now lives in a converted barn in a Leicestershire village, a home custom made for him by his father, Phil.  His team of 10 carers have everything they need for the daily routines necessary to keep Hampson alive, most importantly ensuring that the ventilator attached to him by a pipe does its job by breathing for him 21,600 times in every 24 hour period.

Engage takes its title from the last word Hampson hears, from the lips of Tony Spreadbury, before the life-changing moment on that cloudy March morning.  It conveys the sense also that here is a young man determined not only to stay living but to engage with life and Kimmage is widely credited with putting it across superbly, drawing in particular on the sense of humour that Hampson has retained despite his unthinkable situation.

Kimmage, the former professional cyclist, has already won one William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for Rough Ride, which exposed drug use in his sport and made his name as a writer.  He surely has another contender here.

Matt Hampson now works to offer help, advice and support to the victims of serious injury and disability, in particular in a sports context, through his charity The Matt Hampson Foundation.  To learn more or make a donation, visit www.matthampsonfoundation.org

Engage shortlisted for William Hill prize. Read more...

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Buy Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson direct from Amazon

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