The Sports Bookshelf

No prizes for guessing the dominant theme among football books due to appear on the shelves in 2016, when the state of English football comes under the spotlight not only because of the European championships due to take place in France in the summer but because half a century has now passed since the most glorious of all the nation's summers, when England won the World Cup. Captain Bobby Moore receives the Jules Rimet Trophy from Her Majesty the Queen at Wembley in 1966 A rash of titles marks the 50th anniversary, some a celebration, others a lament, given that the national team has won nothing since. Definitely leaning towards the latter category, Henry Winter’s Fifty Years of Hurt , an analysis illuminated by interviews with some of the biggest names in English football, is due to be published by Transworld under the Bantam imprint in June. Winter, who recently moved from the Daily Telegraph to The Times and is generally seen as the English media's foremost footba

NEW BOOKS A selection of new sports books The Bolt Supremacy: Inside Jamaica's Sprint Factory, by Richard Moore ( Yellow Jersey ) £18.99 Available from Amazon , Waterstones , WHSmith and other retailers In nine of the last 11 years, the fastest time of the year for the men's 100m has been set by a Jamaican; seven times in the same period, the fastest time for the women's 100m has also been set by a Jamaican.  The latest phenomenon, Usain Bolt, is not only the fastest of them all but possibly the most recognisable sportsman or woman on the planet. Sprinters define Jamaica. So what is the secret of this one island's incredible success?  Genetics? Diet? The island's love of athletics that sees crowds of 35,000 turn up for high school championships? Or something more sinister? Richard Moore, who learned a good deal about success achieved by unfair means in previous books about cyclist Robert Millar and the banned Olympic 100m champion Ben Johnson, does

NEW BOOKS - SOME HIGHLIGHTS Cycling Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling , by William Fotheringham (Yellow Jersey) The striking from the record of Lance Armstong's seven wins reinstated Bernard Hinault as the champion of multiple Tour de France victories, jointly with his French compatriot Jacques Anquetil, the legendary Belgian Eddy Merckx and Spain's Miguel Indurain, all of whom won the race five times. Yet three decades on from his retirement, Hinault remains the last Frenchman to win the Tour. His victory in 1985 marks the turning point when the nation who had dominated the first eight decades of the race they had invented suddenly found they were no longer able to win it. Hinault was a larger-than-life character from a working-class background.  Nicknamed the 'Badger' for his combative style, he led a cyclists’ strike in his first Tour and instigated a legendary punch-up with political demonstrators who brought the 1982 race to a h

NEW CRICKET BOOK New book offers fascinating insight into cricket outside elite Second XI: Cricket in its Outposts highlights passion for game Comes as ICC plan to cut back World Cup Jon Culley As much as gloating or despairing over England's woeful World Cup performance has been the dominant talking point in cricket these last few days, there should be no overlooking the development that has befuddled onlookers even more perhaps than Eoin Morgan and company failing to score 276 runs to beat little Bangladesh on a flat wicket in Adelaide. The International Cricket Council, with total disregard, apparently, for the excitement generated by participation of Ireland and Afghanistan, Scotland and the United Arab Emirates in the current tournament, wants to cut the number of teams in the next World Cup in 2019 from 14 to 10. Coming at a time when the trend in major sports around the world is to expand and explore new frontiers -- Luis Figo, a candidate to be the

HORSE RACING BOOK New book looks at the lure of a life in racing Why jockeys willingly risk life and limb How most riders make only a modest income Jon Culley As the horse racing world decamps to Cheltenham for the intensely competitive yet spectacularly beautiful National Hunt Festival, with the richest prizes of the year on offer for the stars of the saddle to pursue, John Carter's latest book considers the life of the majority of Britain's 450 professional riders, those who chase the dream of kicking home the winner of a Gold Cup or a Champion Hurdle but for whom the day-to-day realities are a long way from glamorous face of jump racing on view this week. Warriors on Horseback: The Inside Story of the Professional Jockey is unashamed in its admiration for all of those men and women who, in the author's words, place themselves "in mortal danger every day". A P McCoy, riding at his final Festival before retiring next month, is reckoned to

NEW IN CRICKET BOOKS Tossell turns his attention to England cricket team of the 1980s A new biography of Barry Richards from Andrew Murtagh Dan Whiting's follow-up to Cricket Banter Jon Culley Rarely does a year pass without the name of David Tossell appearing on the shortlist for one of sport's literary prizes. The 53-year-old author and journalist has been nominated five times at the British Sports Book Awards for books on cricket, football and rugby, as well as being on the shortlist twice for the MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year. The Great English Final , which looked at the 1953 FA Cup final, the Matthews final, in the context of Britain's post-War recovery, made the shortlist in the best football book category at the British Sports Book Awards last year. This year he returns to cricket with the publication this week of Sex & Drugs & Rebel Tours: The England Cricket Team in the 1980s . It was a tumultuous decade, one in which Eng