Duncan Hamilton

Neville Cardus, the most revered cricket writer in the world, once described how one majestic stroke-maker 'made music' and 'spread beauty' with his bat. Duncan Hamilton, an award-winning sports writer himself, demonstrates how Cardus changed sports journalism for ever. While popularising cricket he became a star in his own right with exquisite phrase-making, disdain for statistics and a penchant for literary and musical allusions.

As a player, Thom Callaghan was defined by the winning goal he scored in an FA Cup final.

With his playing days over, Callaghan, still a local hero, is tempted back to his old club as caretaker manager. His task to rescue it from relegation.

Callaghan is pitched into the Premier League during the last months of the 1996-1997 season, where - among reputations more gilded than his own - he finds himself pitted against the likes of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, chasing their fourth title in five years, and also one of the newest recruits to the English game, Arsene Wenger.

Can Callaghan save his club from what seems the inevitability of the drop? What if the prize of a personal triumph isn't worth it in the end?