The Sports Bookshelf

Sports books for Christmas Gary Neville’s studio manner might need polishing but the former Manchester United captain and England defender winning over the sceptics as a media commentator for his willingness to engage in meaningful debate. It struck a positive note, certainly, with the Independent’s venerable columnist James Lawton, who described Neville’s verbal jousting with the wise but prickly Graeme Souness during the Sky Sports  coverage of Liverpool’s match against Manchester City on Sunday as something that “should be weighed in gold” by their bosses “blowing away the studio double-talk that has tumbled so relentlessly down the years.” In Neville’s case, he has picked up where he left off, to an extent, in his autobiography Red , which has been one of the top sellers in sports books during 2011. **  Sports Book Deals in Amazon's 12 days of Christmas promotion  ** Red was notable for the way in which Neville -- England's shop steward during the Rio Ferdinan

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the winner Ronald Reng’s deeply touching story of the life and death of the German national team’s goalkeeper, Robert Enke, has won the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke (Yellow Jersey) was selected from a shortlist of seven titles for the honour, the richest book award of its kind with a cash prize of £23,000. The announcement was made at a reception today at Waterstone’s Piccadilly. Enke died two years ago this month when he stepped in front of an express train near his home in Germany, having suffered a history of depression.  The recognition for Reng’s skilful telling of a painful story is all the more poignant for coming on a day when the headlines are dominated by the shocking news of another former footballer taking his own life, the Wales manager Gary Speed. Broadcaster John Inverdale, spokesman for the judging panel, referred to the ‘tragic symmetry’ in their de

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

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 on Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: Among the Fans (Wisden Sports Writing) THE STORY: Patrick Collins has been writing about sport for almost half a c entury, for the last 30 years as chief sports writer for the Mail on Sunday.  For the most part during that time -- as you would expect -- his eyes have been focused on the field of play. He has reported on Olympic Games and World Cups, countless Test matches, rugby internationals and world title fights, and described the action in such consistently stylish and well-judged prose that he has gathered almost as many awards as he has had years in the newspaper business, including the ultimate accolade of sports journalist of the year on five occasions. Yet for Among the Fans, Collins turned his focus away from the aren