The Game of Our Lives beats strong field to take William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2015 prize for David Goldblatt

David Goldblatt mimicked the reaction of Sir Alex Ferguson to winning the Champions League with Manchester United in 1999 after his book was named William Hill Sports Book of the Year for 2015.

On receiving the award at a ceremony at BAFTA in central London, Goldblatt said: “In the words of Sir Alex Ferguson: sports writing, bloody hell.”

Goldblatt’s The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football took the £27,000 prize ahead of a strong field from which twice past winner Donald McRae's A Man's World and Andy Bull's Speed Kings were both highly commended.

The Game of Our Lives examines how football affects urban identities from the biggest cities to the smallest towns, how a successful team can spark economic regeneration and describes how a sport that seemed to reflect urban decline only a few decades ago is now an economic phenomenon that has boomed even in times of wider recession.

Chairman of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year judging panel, John Gaustad, predicted that The Game of Our Lives would become "required reading for anyone studying the history of late 20th and early 21st Century Britain.”

“This is a serious, insightful yet compellingly readable book on a subject that affects the lives of everyone in the country, be they football fans or not," he said. "Goldblatt looks at football through the prism of its economic, cultural and reputational effect on the UK, and pulls no punches in his conclusions."

Goldblatt’s previous books include the acclaimed The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football and Futeball Nation, a footballing history of Brazil.

In taking the prize, Goldblatt prevailed over a powerful and varied shortlist, including a potential third win from Donald McRae for his biography of boxing legend Emile Griffith, A Man’s World. The shortlist also included in Andy Bull's Speed Kings the first book on bobsleigh to be submitted for the prize.

David Goldbatt proudly shows off his trophy

Also among a six-strong shortlist were Simon Lister’s study of the 1974 West Indies cricket team, Fire in Babylon, Martin Fletcher’s deeply moving Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire and Michael Calvin’s investigation into the secrets of surviving the brutal and unpredictable world of the football manager, Living on the Volcano.

William Hill spokesman and co-founder of the Award, Graham Sharpe, said of The Game of our Lives: "It is an exceptional winner – it has to be, up against this incredible shortlist.”

As well as a £27,000 cheque, Goldblatt was awarded a William Hill bet worth £2,500 and an exclusive day at the races.

Making up judging panel alongside Sportspages bookshop founder Gaustad were retired professional footballer 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.

The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football by David Goldblatt is published by Viking.

Goldblatt is a sports writer, broadcaster and sociologist. His book The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football was described as the "seminal football history" by Simon Kuper.

He has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, the Financial Times and The Independent on Sunday, as well as magazines New Statesman, New Left Review and Prospect.  Born in Watford, he currently lives in Bristol.

The Game of Our Lives is also available from Waterstones and WHSmith

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William Hill Sports Book of the Year shortlist announced

The full longlist

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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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