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Showing posts from 2019

Hamilton takes William Hill prize for a third time with brilliant biography of the venerated cricket and music scribe Neville Cardus

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Judges declare themselves 'bowled over' by Hamilton's work Duncan Hamilton won the award twice before, in 2007 and 2009 Duncan Hamilton has won the 2019 William Hill Sports Book of the Year with his book The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus . By winning the £30,000 award, presented by judge Mark Lawson at the Horseguards Hotel,  Hamilton became the first person to have won the award three times. The Newcastle-born writer, who spent his journalistic career in Nottingham and Leeds, was previously successful with Provided You Don’t Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough   in 2007 and Harold Larwood: The Authorized Biography   in 2009. Cardus, the venerated cricket writer and music journalist, changed the way in which sport was reported and introduced poise and eloquence into what had traditionally been a prosaic experience for both journalist and fan. Alyson Rudd, Chair of Judges, said: “The judges were bowled over by the quality of t

Ex-Palace striker Mark Bright's moving story among new football titles

OUT NOW:   A selection of the latest football books Mark Bright, the former Crystal Palace and Sheffield Wednesday striker, is the week’s headline-maker with his autobiography, My Story: From Foster Care to Footballer (Constable), which has been featured or serialised in a number of national newspapers, including an excellent piece for the Mail on Sunday by James Sharpe. Written with the help of Kevin Brennan, who has previously ghosted for ex-Scotland footballer John McGovern, snooker player Willie Thorne and football manager Alan Curbishley, the book describes Bright’s journey from a troubled upbringing in Staffordshire, to earning £10-a-week for his first contract at Port Vale and finally reaching the top of the game, forming a famous partnership with Ian Wright at Crystal Palace and playing in two FA Cup finals before retiring to a career as a sometime media pundit and now full-time coach at Palace. It is an engaging, sometimes harrowing story. Particularly moving and i

Heavyweights slug it out for title hat-trick

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Donald McRae and Duncan Hamilton both named on shortlist for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2019 Duncan Hamilton Two of British sports writing’s biggest names are among a shortlist of six titles from which the 2019 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be chosen in early December. Donald McRae and Duncan Hamilton , the only authors to have won the award twice in its 30-year history, both made the final cut after the award’s judging panel whittled down a longlist of 14 to come up with their final selection. South African-born McRae, whose in-depth interviews are an outstanding feature of The Guardian newspaper’s sports pages, won the judges’ vote with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing in 1996, and with In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens in 2002. Hamilton, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, raised in Nottingham and now an adoptive Yorkshireman, was successful in 2007 with Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough , and again t

The Boy on the Shed, Berlin 1936, Tiger Woods and Red Card among the winners at the 2019 Telegraph Sports Book of the Year awards

The winners at the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year awards 2019 were as follows: Autobiography of the Year: The Boy on the Shed , by Paul Ferris (Hodder) The candid and gripping story of a boy raised in Lisburn, near Belfast during The Troubles who became a professional footballer with Newcastle United, saw his career at the top level wrecked by injury, won a Wembley final with Barrow as a non-League player, returned to Newcastle as before quitting the game to study Law and qualify as a barrister - only to return to Newcastle as a member of Alan Shearer’s management team. _______________________________________ The Sporting Club General Outstanding Book of the Year: Berlin 1936: Sixteen Days in August , by Oliver Hilmes Berlin 1936 was the Nazi Olympics, the moment when the world’s attention turned to the German capital as it hosted the Olympic Games, the one in which Hitler was happy to extend the hand of welcome to visitors from all nations but in which he hoped to se

Shortlists announced for Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2019

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Nine categories to be judged as new sponsor starts three-year backing The shortlists have been announced for the annual Sports Book Awards, now sponsored by The Telegraph after the newspaper group signed up to a three-year partnership deal. The Telegraph replaces Cross Pens as headline sponsor. The awards were launched by the National Sporting Club in 2003 and for many years were known simply as the British Sports Book Awards. There are nine categories being judged this year, with the winners of each to be announced early in June. In the autobiography category, former Newcastle physio Paul Ferris’s extraordinary memoir The Boy on the Shed is joined by equestrian Charlotte Dujardin’s The Girl on the Dancing Horse , Kevin Keegan’s My Life in Football , cricketer Moeen Ali’s Moeen , How to be a Footballer by Peter Crouch and superbike star Jonathan Rea’s Dream. Believe. Achieve . The biography category sees boxing, golf, motor racing, rowing, gambling and football repre