The Sports Bookshelf

Of all the new books adding to the wealth of words written about the World Cup since the planet's greatest football tournament began, none seems quite so intriguing as Graham McColl's, published this week. On the face of it, How to Win the World Cup  looks like a title that Messrs Capello, Lippi, Del Bosque, Low, Dunga, Domenech and company might form a queue to get their hands on, since every one of the 32 national coaches preparing to lock horns in South Africa will wonder whether he knows the answer. But this is not a book of theory. It is not a coaching manual, detailing training methods, diet plans or tactical strategies. Instead, it is an examination of the facts from the 18 tournaments held so far, analysing in forensic detail the circumstances in which each team won, not only looking at form on the pitch but at all the peripheral issues, such as media attitudes, public expectation, the political climate, even the weather. Did Italy's two victories in the 19

It is a fact beyond dispute that, outside the nine or 10 nations in which it is a mainstream sport, foreigners don't really get cricket. Even in some of the countries represented at the ICC World Twenty20, which begins in Guyana on Friday, mention of the game will draw more quizzical looks than comprehension. Of all the things about the game that induce only bafflement, high on the list is the idea that it could have been devised in England. How does anyone invent a game to be played in dry conditions outdoors, over four or even five days, in a country where, on average, rain falls on one day in every three? The answer may be more simple than you think. Clearly, given the number of new cricket books published each year, it was to give spectators convenient interludes in which to read! Of course, not all rain stoppages are equal, and while hours of unremitting drizzle are not exactly an uncommon feature of an English summer there are stop-start days as well, which can be f

The pairing of Hunter Davies with Wayne Rooney as biographer and subject looked like a dream partnership when publishers HarperCollins signed the Manchester United and England star to a £5 million book deal. Davies has been regarded as a literary heavyweight among writers on football ever since the publication in 1972 of The Glory Game ,  a portrait of Tottenham Hotspur that took the reader behind the scenes at a football club with an intimacy that no author had attempted before. It duly earned recognition as a classic work. The Scottish-born journalist has written more than 30 books, including novels for adults an children, several biographies and numerous titles relating to the Lake District, where he lives for half the year.  His football subjects have included Paul Gascoigne and Dwight Yorke. Yet sales of Wayne Rooney: My Story So Far , written by Davies as told by Rooney,  have fallen some way short of HarperCollins's expectations.  It did not help that publication came

The rise and rise of Colin Murray shows no signs of reaching a plateau.  The former Radio One DJ, who quit the music station to move full time to Radio Five Live last summer, has made such a strong impression in such a short time that he has been given a key role in BBC television's coverage of this summer's World Cup finals. The 33-year-old Ulsterman -- who made his debut on the printed page with A Random History of Football last year -- will front the late-night highlights show during the month-long tournament in South Africa, stepping into a role that had been earmarked for Match of the Day 2 presenter Adrian Chiles before the latter resigned from the corporation earlier this week. Murray is also due to take Chiles's place on the Sunday night sofa from August. The week's developments have seen both presenters emerge with their careers enhanced significantly. According to the early gossip, Chiles had flounced away from what had been a lucrative contract w

It was the kind of moment, were it to occur in a dream, that would have most football commentators waking up in a cold sweat. You are in your position, the action unfolding in front of you, the voice from the studio is cueing you in with news of a major incident in the game... and you haven't a clue what he is talking about. Of all the tricky spots to be landed with, few could be more embarrassing. Except, that is, if you are Chris Kamara. If you are Sky Soccer Saturday's roving buffoon it doesn't matter at all.  In fact, it is something almost to relish, as Kamara discovered after presenter Jeff Stelling asked him about the player just sent off in Portsmouth's match against Blackburn earlier this month. Stelling's information was entirely correct. Pompey's Anthony Vanden Borre had indeed been shown a red card, for a second bookable offence -- only Chris had managed not to notice. Cue raucous laughter from the studio panel.  For Paul Merson, Matt le Tissi

The 147th edition of Wisden, the iconic yellow book whose role in the heritage of cricket goes back further even than The Ashes, runs to 1,728 pages.  As a statistical bible it is unrivalled in sport. Few significant numerical details are left unrecorded and anyone with a fascination for the minutiae of the game would find the small print absorbing enough. Yet there is much more to Wisden, especially in the modern era, than mere facts and figures.  More and more it is a feast of fine writing, the long-established 'Notes by the Editor', always a platform for trenchant views, now supplemented by an extensive selection of additional articles covering the major issues of the game as well as some that are perhaps less widely discussed, but no less relevant. This year, for example, the declining coverage of county cricket in the national press is lamented both by Gerald Mortimer, venerable former sports editor, cricket and football correspondent of the Derby Evening Telegraph

Fernando Torres Liverpool striker Fernando Torres faces a race against time to be fit for the 2010 World Cup finals after undergoing more surgery on his right knee. If his projected recovery time is accurate, he should be able to join his Spain colleagues in South Africa -- but whether he can start the tournament at anything close to match sharpness must be in doubt. He has already been ruled out for the remainder of Liverpool's failing season, further cutting their chances of finishing in the top four of the Premier League and meaning that he will miss the opportunity to face his old club, Atletico Madrid, in the Europa League. Given the uncertainties over the future at Anfield, he may even have played his last match for Liverpool.  By the time he returns to fitness, Rafa Benitez may have gone and with the manager who signed him no longer around, Torres may be disinclined to stay on Merseyside, particularly in a team that is less equipped to challenge the elite of Europe t

The Sports Bookshelf's research reveals that sports book buyers bought these titles most during the last seven days. 1)  Playfair Cricket Annual 2010 Easier to tuck into a pocket and lighter in the backpack than Wisden, the ever-popular guide for cricket fans is enjoying its seasonal surge in sales as domestic cricket returns to the sports agenda. 2) Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2010 The daddy of all cricket books, Wisden has been published every year since 1864. The 147th edition for 2010 contains details of every first-class match in every nation as well as powerful opinion and excellent features. 3) Invictus: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation Originally titled Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, the turning of John Carlin's book into an inspirational movie is reflected in healthy sales in the shops. 4) Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen Christopher McDou

It is 25 years now since Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis kept the nation awake as 18.5 million viewers watched the final of all world snooker finals go to the very last black before the Ulsterman in the daft glasses held his cue above his head with both hands and then wagged his finger at the television camera. Yet, as the championships begin to unfold again in Sheffield, still pulling in the punters at the iconic Crucible Theatre, still attracting at least respectable television audience, the appeal of the game, and its blue riband event in particular, still owes something to that moment. The two protagonists are still about the place, delivering their informed punditry on the new generation.  But memories fade, the characters of what was then a soap opera as much as a sport, whose dramas and scandals would be played out at the front of the newspapers as frequently as their performances at the table appeared at the back, have long since slipped away in relative obscurity. Happily

Having announced himself as a football writer of note with Behind the Curtain, his journey around Eastern European football, Jonathan Wilson seemed to be taking an enormous risk when he set about trying to entertain his newly-acquired audience with a history of football tactics. It just seemed too dry, too narrow a subject. The kind of person who would identify Dario Gradi as an ideal dinner guest might find it fascinating. But beyond that...? In fact, Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid: A History of Football Tactics has been among the top sellers among football books since it was released in paperback last June. Up to press, 37,000 copies have been printed and it is being translated into seven languages. Gary Naylor, aka Mouth of the Mersey and the Tooting Trumpet, provided The Sports Bookshelf with the following review: "Riquelme has become less a player than a cipher for an ideology". This elegant biography in a sentence turns up on page 326 of Inverting the Pyr

Duncan Hamilton has collected another award  for his widely acclaimed biography of Bodyline bowler Harold Larwood ahead of the book's publication in paperback on April 29th. Harold Larwood ,the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and best biography at the National Sporting Club's Sports Book of the Year awards, was named Wisden Book of the Year at a dinner to mark the 147th edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Hamilton is celebrating his second 'double'. Having previously won the William Hill award for Provided You Don't Kiss Me, his account of his journalist-manager relationship with Brian Clough, he now has two 'Wisdens' to his name, having won in 2009 for Sweet Summers: The Classic Cricket Writing of JM Kilburn. Reviewing the Larwood book for the Almanack, Robin Martin-Jenkins, the Sussex cricketer, described it as "a biographical tour de force, reading like a great, sweeping historical novel." Readers who have enjoyed Hamilton&

Portsmouth's advance to the FA Cup final, in this of all years, confirms that the most famous club football competition in the world still has the capacity to turn up fantastic stories. If Pompey, relegated and in administration and with the future of their players in doubt, were to go on and beat Chelsea in the final next month, it would rank among the biggest shocks in Cup history. But would it rival Sunderland's victory over Leeds in 1973 for the ultimate accolade, the greatest final upset of all time? Lance Hardy, whose book about the against-the-odds triumph of Bob Stokoe's Second Division team was shortlisted at the 2010 Sports Book Awards, would doubtless say not. In a recent interview, Hardy pointed out that Sunderland knocked out Manchester City and Arsenal on the way to the final, both of whom were in the top four of the First Division at the time. Had Barnsley gone all the way in 2008, after eliminating Liverpool and Chelsea, their achievement might ha

No instruction manual could teach a golfer to play the extraordinary trees-to-green shot that Phil Mickelson produced at the 13th on the way to winning his third US Masters in Augusta. There is much a player can learn, nonetheless, from the winner of the 2010 green jacket and his phenomenal skills with wedge and putter in Mickelson's Secrets of the Short Game , which can now expect a spike in sales. Mickelson believes that even a golfer of only average ability can become a highly effective short-game player by paying proper attention to mechanics and set-up and combining that scientific approach with a willingness to be imaginative. Published last autumn, the 224-page manual passes on some of the wisdom Mickelson has acquired over 35 years, since his first steps in the game as a small boy. By holding off Britain's Lee Westwood, Mickelson joined the company of Nick Faldo, Sam Snead and Gary Player in having won three Masters titles.  But for the presence of four-times win

The Sports Bookshelf's research reveals that sports book buyers bought these titles most during the last seven days. 1) Playfair Cricket Annual 2010 Easier to tuck into a pocket and lighter in the backpack than Wisden, the ever-popular guide for cricket fans is enjoying its seasonal surge in sales as domestic cricket returns to the sports agenda. 2) Ten Years of talkSPORT Gershon Portnoi's no-detail-spared account of the highs and lows of the radio station's first decade of life still excites readers with its revealing tales of Stan Collymore, Alan Brazil et al. 3) Torres: El Nino: My Story Since its release last September, the Liverpool and Spain striker's own story has proved the most popular among the annual crop of football autobiographies. 4) The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game Michael Lewis's brilliant story of the Memphis teenager, born to a crack addict mother, who went on to play for the Baltimore Ravens in the National Football League has enj

There can have been few more popular winning jockeys than Tony McCoy in the history of the Grand National. The 35-year-old Ulsterman today won the great steeplechase at the 15th attempt on Don't Push It, enabling him at last to fill in the one missing line in his cv.  He had won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the King George VI Chase, The Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Champion Hurdle and the Irish National in a career amassing more than 3,000 winners. The most successful jumps rider of all time, he has been champion National Hunt jockey 14 times, setting the record for the number of winning rides in a single jumps season at 253 in 1997-98 before breaking Sir Gordon Richards' record of 269 in a season for all types of racing when he rode 289 winners in the 2001-02 campaign. Yet he had never finished better than third in the Aintree classic until Don't Push It's victory by five lengths from Black Apalachi this afternoon. The result also ended owner JP McManus's

Commercial radio station talkSPORT reckons its 2.5 million weekly listeners are among the biggest buyers of sports books in the country. Now they plan to satisfy their audience's appetite for the written word after signing a five-year book deal with publishers Simon & Schuster. At least three titles will be published this year. The first, The talkSPORT Book of World Cup Banter, edited by journalist and author Bill Borrows, is due out on April 29th. A talkSPORT Book of British Sporting Legends is due to follow in the autumn. Adam Bullock, commercial director of talkSPORT, told The Bookseller: "Our core audience of 2.5 million talkSPORT listeners every week are the country’s biggest sport fans – and the biggest buyers of sports books in the UK. "The station has had great success in developing its magazine and music publishing. Now, with our book publishing partner at Simon & Schuster, we are going to be producing a series of books that will be the ultimate

It will take something special to stand out from the crowd among the plethora of books celebrating the 2010 World Cup. However, artist German Aczel has managed to give the tournament a unique perspective, producing a wonderful history in caricature. Aczel, born in Argentina but now resident in Munich, where he works for Bravo Sport magazine, has taken many of the iconic photographs from the 18 tournaments so far staged and created brilliant drawings that capture vividly the character of the individuals and the drama of the event. The famous image of Bobby Moore (above, left), the Jules Rimet Trophy proudly held aloft, being borne on the shoulders of teammates at Wembley '66 will be popular with England fans, certainly more so than the illustration of Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God' moment in Mexico 20 years later. With pencils and watercolours, Aczel also brings new life to some of the tournaments never-to-be-forgotten moments, such as Marco Tardelli's manic

Lionel Messi The best is almost certainly still to come so far as Lionel Messi: The Book is concerned. Luca Caioli must be feeling pleased with his publishers, inasmuch as the release here of his biography on the Argentine maestro, which appeared in the shops in January, may have come at just the right moment after Messi reinforced his reputation as the world's best player with that magnificent performance against Arsenal. Messi: The Inside Story of the Boy Who Became a Legend (Corinthian) can expect a good run between now and the World Cup finals as Argentina prepare for a tournament in which they will carry great expectations despite a bumpy qualification. But at 22 Messi has most of his career still ahead of him and he will be fighting off suitors when he decides the time is right to tell his own version of the story. Caioli, an Italian journalist based in Spain who has written similar life stories of Fernando Torres and Ronaldinho, tracks Messi's life back to R

Review: by William Sansome For Steven Gerrard, this season has been one of epic disappointment. Last season's runners-up spot was the closest Liverpool have come for some time to a first domestic title since 1990. Yet this campaign’s challenge fell abysmally short long ago while their prospects of competing in the Champions League next year seem fainter by the day. The Huyton-born England man has also watched Fabio Capello choose Rio Ferdinand as the successor to John Terry as England captain, despite his own credentials being arguably more compelling. All this as the Liverpool and England midfielder nears the end of his prime years, with the possibility of having to leave his beloved Anfield to pursue further glory becoming ever more real. But out of adversity often springs success and for Gerrard, who will be 30 in less than two months' time, this has been a defining aspect of his career. His autobiography, Gerrard: My Autobiography , winner of ‘Sports Book of the

Can Joe Cole make a late run into Fabio Capello's plans for the World Cup finals? With an autobiography due out in August, a good World Cup would certainly do wonders for his book sales. Apparently written off by the Italian before being left out of the England squad for the friendly against Egypt, the Chelsea midfielder seems at last to be showing signs of a return to his most effective form. His fine goal against Manchester United last Saturday set up the Old Trafford victory that gave Chelsea a two-point lead in the race for the Premier League title. It was only the second time he has found the target all season, having struggled to convince Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti he should be a regular starter while trying desperately to get back to his best after nine months out through injury. Capello said in February that Cole "was not like the player I remember", casting huge doubt on the 28-year-old's chances of going to his third World Cup finals. But th