The Sports Bookshelf

SPORTS BOOK OF THE WEEK The Didi Man: My Love Affair with Liverpool Published by: Headline (Hardcover) WHAT’S IT ABOUT? If Luis Suarez had only asked, a little advice from Dietmar Hamann could have spared the Uruguayan a lot of trouble. The German international midfielder spent seven years on Merseyside, during which, quite apart from playing a major role in Liverpool’s epic triumph in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul, he demonstrated everything that is correct about how a foreign player in England should conduct himself. Intelligent and eloquent, even in a language not his own, Hamann won universal respect in the Premier League and particular affection among the Liverpool fans not least because of the evolution of his accent.  Just as the Dane, Jan Molby, seemed gradually to turn into a pukka Koppite, so Hamann appeared to learn his English from Jamie Carragher.  By the time he left, in 2006, he was calling himself the world's "only German Scouser".

SPORTS BOOK NEWS Among his many reasons to hope the London Olympics is a resounding success, Sebastian Coe can now include his autobiography, due to be published in November. The double gold medal-winner and head of the London 2012 Organising Committee has agreed a deal with publishers Hodder and Stoughton for a memoir to be released on November 8th. As well as telling the story of the successful bid to bring the Games to this country, which Coe led, and his subsequent role in making them happen, the book will cover Coe's achievements as a middle-distance runner, winning four Olympic medals including the 1,500 metres gold in 1980 and 1984, plus his career in politics. He became a Conservative MP in 1992 and was former leader William Hague ’s chief of staff.  He was made a life peer in 2000. Hodder’s sports editor Roddy Bloomfield said: "It is naturally a great honour for Hodder that Seb Coe has finally accepted our proposal. At last, we can expect to be allowed inside

An starkly honest biography and an elegant romantic novel are among five titles short listed for the Cricket Society and MCC Cricket Book of the Year award for 2012. Fred Trueman: The Authorised Biography wins well deserved recognition for Chris Waters , cricket correspondent of the Yorkshire Post , who set about assessing the Yorkshire and England fast bowler’s life with the blessing and co-operation of family members yet managed to deliver an objective account that and does not always find in his subject’s favour. The judging panel headed by Vic Marks , the former Somerset and England player who followed Trueman into the Test Match Special commentary box at the end of his career, will announce their choice in the Long Room at Lord’s on April 16. The five contenders -- sifted from a field of 24 -- also include a nicely crafted biography of the former Warwickshire captain Frank Foster , a fascinating but ultimately tragic character who has a right to be seen as his county’s greate

SPORTS BOOK OF THE WEEK Cricket at the Crossroads: Class, Colour and Controversy from 1967 to 1977 Published by Elliott and Thompson What’s it about? The Swinging Sixties may have been notable for free love and psychedelic drugs and a new hedonistic pop culture but for the majority the Britain of 1967 was still essentially conventional and conservative, especially among its professional middle classes. This was particularly true of cricket, which clung to the established demarcation lines of the class system as stubbornly as any area of society.  Until 1962, the annual match between Gentlemen and Players -- identifiable on scorecards by the position of their initials, before or after the surname – was still contested.  The fixture was a throwback to the kind of distinctions that set apart officers and the other ranks and domestic staff (downstairs) from their masters (upstairs) and the establishment cliques that ran cricket were not minded to challenge the traditional sociological

SNOOKER BOOKS Willie Thorne: Taking A Punt On My Life Published by Vision Sports Publishing What’s it about? At the peak of his fame, former snooker star Willie Thorne led a life that presented him pretty much as a walking caricature. A leading player during snooker’s boom years in the 1980s, he did everything that the media wanted from the central characters of their new back page soap opera. He worked hard at the table and partied hard away from it; he made good money from his skill with a cue and if it didn’t last him long there was plenty more where it had come from as sponsors and television executives queued up for a piece of the action. He revelled in his celebrity, indulged his hangers-on and when there was female attention to be enjoyed he was not inclined to resist.

SPORTS BOOK OF THE WEEK Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory Published by: Profile Books (Hardcover] What’s it about? Football journalist Paul Watson and his film-maker pal Matt Conrad decide late one evening in Watson’s London flat to become international footballers, an unlikely ambition for two lads in their early 20s with no professional experience but one they think they can fulfil if they first identify the world‘s worst national team. Research leads them to Pohnpei , one of a group of islands in the Pacific known as Micronesia, about 1800 miles north of Australia. The team is ranked 220 in the world, its last known result is a 16-1 defeat to Guam, after which the coach quit and the team effectively disbanded. The idea runs into a snag when they discover they will need to live on the island for five years before they become eligible to play. So they offer instead to become coach and assistant coach, a

New in Football Books All on Red: Ten Years at Anfield - A Liverpool fan's dream job At first glance, All On Red might seem like just another offering from a football fan who fancies himself as a writer but Frank Gamble’s take on life as a Liverpool supporter comes from a slightly different perspective. For a decade from 1979, Gamble was a particularly privileged fan, mixing work and pleasure as lottery sales manager of the club’s Development Association. It was a decade in which Liverpool won six League titles, two European Cups, four League Cups and one FA Cup.  For Gamble, the experience of being behind the scenes at this time was unforgettable.  There were plenty of fans who shared his love for the club but few who had been asked to share their opinions with Joe Fagan, Bob Paisley and Roy Evans in the famous 'boot room'. That happened to Gamble after one big European night at Anfield when, searching for his boss, commercial director Ken Addison, he stumbled acr