Sport & Games

You can see them, but you don't know them. Ultras are football fans like no others. A hugely visible and controversial part of the global game, their credo and aesthetic replicated in almost every league everywhere on earth, a global movement of extreme fandom and politics is also one of the largest youth movements in the world. Yet they remain unknown: an anti-establishment force that is transforming both football and politics. In this book, James Montague goes underground to uncover the true face of this dissident force for the first time. 

1312: Among the Ultras tells the story of how the movement began and how it grew to become the global phenomenon that now dominates the stadiums from the Balkans and Buenos Aires.

In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathé news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago.

Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France. No longer than 2.5 minutes long, it featured half a dozen sequences, including a lone rider crossing a bridge. Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence - studying each frame, face and building - until he had squeezed the meaning from it. It sets him off in fascinating directions, encompassing travelogue, history, mystery story - to explain, to go deeper into this moment in time, captured on his little film. 

Join him as he explores the history of cycling and France just five years after WWI - meeting characters like Henri Pélissier, who won the Tour that year but who would within the decade be shot dead by his lover using the same pistol with which his wife had killed herself. And Theophile Beeckman - the lone rider on the bridge.

From football legend, Gary Lineker, comes a collection of truly uplifting, empowering and extraordinary football stories that have inspired him throughout his career.

Did you hear about the match that took place in no-man's land between enemy forces during World War I?

Or about the world's greenest club, working to tackle climate change?

And I bet you didn't know about the mother of women's football who showed the world why girls should compete too!

Written with author and TV writer Ivor Baddiel, in this fun and fact-packed book, Gary Lineker shares 50 of his favourite football stories that highlight the many awe-inspiring, heart-warming and eye-opening moments that have changed the game - and sometimes the world - forever.

From pioneering players, trailblazing managers, and incredible tales from both on and off the pitch, this book contains everything you ever wanted to know about the beautiful game. And with 'Game-Changer Awards' presented to incredible teams and players throughout, this is the ultimate gift for young footie fans everywhere.

The inside story of Leicester City’s triumph on winning the Premier League in May 2016, to ecstatic celebrations in the city and around the world. The team, under Claudio Ranieri’s inspired leadership, became the most unlikely champions in football history.

BBC Football correspondent, Mike Ingham, MBE, shares a candid, comprehensive, and sometimes, controversial account of how the world of broadcasting and football changed beyond recognition throughout his career. He recalls England's campaigns in tournaments over the last half century with a detailed and eyewitness account of what the atmosphere was really like over the years behind the scenes in the England camp.

In Seoul in 1988, Tanni Grey-Thompson represented Great Britain and won her first Paralympic medal - the 400m bronze. It was the beginning of an outstanding career leading to an astonishing sixteen medals - eleven of which are gold - countless European titles, six London Marathons and over thirty world records

The celebratory, revealing, inspiring and entertaining autobiography of one of the greatest managers in the history of British football.

Graeme Swann leads us on a compelling adventure through one of world sport's most engrossing rivalries. He knows as much as anybody about the heat of England v Australia battles, having played in three series wins and also the whitewash defeat of 2013-14 when its intensity ended his international career.

However, it brought out some of his best displays in Test cricket. But he is just one of dozens of colourful characters to have added their chapters to this great tome. The mock obituary of English cricket in the Sporting Times of 1882 was the forerunner of summers and winters of heaven and hell, depending on which side of the divide you were situated. When it comes to on-field relations nothing quite compares to the over-my-dead-body feel of the Ashes. 

Swann's book will reveal the magic of a series that first gripped him in his front room in Northampton as an aspiring spin bowler in the mid-1980s.

For nearly 75 years, one BBC programme has been a constant factor in chronicling the way sport is covered, in all its many facets.

First broadcast in 1948, Sports Report is the longest-running radio sporting programme in the world and one of the BBC's hardy perennials. Pat Murphy has been a reporter on the programme since 1981 and here he sifts comprehensively through the experiences of his contemporaries and those who made their mark on Sports Report in earlier decades.

Drawing on unique access from the BBC Archives Unit, he highlights memorable moments from Sports Report, details the challenges faced in getting live interviews on air from draughty, noisy dressing-room areas and celebrates the feat of just a small production team in the studio who, somehow, get the show up and running every Saturday, with the clock ticking implacably on.

This is an account of how the game of football turned ugly in Saddam's Iraq. A tale of human strengths, failings and resilience. Saddam's crazed and evil eldest son emerges as a villain of demonic proportions. If he could treat national heroes this grotesquely what hope was there for the ordinary Iraqi? X rated, contains graphic violence.

A Manchester lad from Irish Traveller stock, Tyson Fury grew up to become one of the most unlikely heavyweight champions in history. This 'dream come true' soon turned to nightmare, however, as alcohol and cocaine abuse took hold and Tyson was stripped of his titles. What followed was the darkest moment of his life. Speaking candidly about his struggles with mental health, this is Tyson Fury as you have never seen him before.

For sixteen days in the summer of 1936, the world’s attention turned to Berlin as it hosted the Olympic Games. During the sporting events the dictatorship was partially put on hold. Here, seen through the eyes of a cast of characters – Nazi leaders and foreign diplomats, athletes and journalists, nightclub owners and jazz musicians - is a last glimpse of the vibrant and diverse life in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s that the Nazis aimed to destroy.

Goalkeepers in trousers, proper division names, turf patterns, pixelated scoreboards and, of course, Saturday evening pink newspapers... They were the gritty stardust that made football sparkle. Here, 50 such wonders are drawn together with evocative charm before they slip from memory forever. Dedicating a chapter to each wonder, Daniel Gray's pieces read more like love letters than essays. Here is a sentimental meander beneath main-stand clocks and through streets where children still play football.

The unashamedly nostalgic Black Boots and Football Pinks will warm the heart and prompt fond sighs of recognition. Gray's words preserve on paper the relics and minutiae of a shared obsession and identity. They make yesterday's football feel within touching distance, and offer cosy refuge from a boisterous game and world.

Aged fifty, on a whim, Marion Dunn joined a boxing gym. Training to improve fitness quickly became something of an addiction, and then a source of transformation. This is her myth-busting tale of four years of slogging in an amateur boxing gym in northern England.

This unique assortment of articles comes from the popular Boxing News 'Yesterday's Heroes' column. 

In this compilation, Alex Daley has delved deep into the archives and interviewed ex-fighters to uncover some of boxing's most intriguing stories. British legends like Jimmy Wilde, Jim Driscoll, Ted Kid Lewis, Jock McAvoy, Benny Lynch, Freddie Mills, Randolph Turpin, John Conteh and Terry Downes all feature. As do American greats like Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Harry Greb, Sonny Liston and Jack Dempsey. Read about the world champion who was sold to a boxing booth by his father, the boxer hanged for murder, the bareknuckle champ who became an MP and the fighter who started a mutiny.

Boxing Nostalgia takes you on a journey through British ring history, from the bareknuckle era to the late 20th century, with stories that are often sad, staggering or downright bizarre.

This evocative memoir recounts an agonising, hallucination-filled swim across the English Channel in 1988, when Tom Gregory was just 11 years old, encouraged at each stroke by his coach, John Bullet, who has become a second father. The gruelling, awe-inspiring feat is recounted with poignancy and affection, and becomes a thrilling and moving tribute to the joys and perils of open-water swimming.

Boxing is Steve Bunce's game. He has filed thousands and thousands of fight reports from ringside. He has written millions and millions of words for national newspapers previewing boxing, profiling boxers and proselytising on the business. He has been the voice of British boxing on the airwaves, both radio and television, with an army of loyal fans. And now it's time to put those many years of experience into penning his history of the sport of kings on these isles. It's Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing.

Starting in 1970, the beginning of modern boxing in Britain, Bunce takes us from Joe Bugner beating Henry Cooper to an explosion then in the sport's exposure to the wider British public, with 22 million watching Barry McGuigan win his world title on the BBC. All boxing royalty is here - Frank Bruno taking on Mike Tyson in Las Vegas; Benn, Watson, Eubank and Naseem; Ricky Hatton, Lennox Lewis and Calzaghe; Froch and Haye - through to a modern day situation where with fighters as diverse as Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, we have more world champions than ever before. And besides the fighters, there are the fixers, the managers, the trainers, the duckers and divers... Bunce's Big Fat Short History of British Boxing will have every high and impossible low, tragic deaths and fairy tales. It is a record of British boxing, British boxing people and fifty years of glory, heartache and drama.

A cultural and business history of the UFC, tracing the unlikely rise of mixed martial arts from what was derided in the '90s as "human cockfighting" - more violence than sport - to a global pop culture phenomenon. Senator John McCain once decried mixed martial arts as "human cockfighting," while the New York Times despaired that the sport offered a "pay-per-view prism" onto the decline of western civilization. But the violent spectacle of cage fighting no longer feels nearly as scandalous as it did when the sport debuted in 1993. Today, it's spoken of reverentially as a kind of "human chess" played out in real-time between two bodies and the UFC is one of the most valuable franchises in the world, worth more than any team in the NFL, NBA, or MLB and equal to what Disney paid to acquire Marvel Comics.

Once banned in thirty-six states and hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, the UFC has evolved into a $10 billion industry. How did cage fighting go so mainstream? A rollicking behind-the-scenes account of one of the most spectacular upsets in American sports history, Kings of the Cage follows the desperate fighters, audacious promoters, fanboy bloggers, fatherly trainers, philosophical announcers, hustling sponsors, and three improbable twentysomething corporate titans on a darkly comic odyssey to normalize a new level of brutality in American pop culture-and make a fortune doing so. Stylishly written and poignantly observed, the book offers a provocative look at how the hollowing out of the American dream over the past three decades and the violence endemic to modern capitalism left us ready to embrace a sport like cage fighting.

England cricket captain Michael Vaughan delivers an account of his two years at the helm. He focuses on leadership, his approach to captaincy and his decision-making and man management strategies. He also includes a full analysis of the 2005 Ashes series.

It is in the midst of a swirling river, casting a line, that Mark Wormald meets Ted Hughes. He stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes's way of breathing - and because the poet's writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too.

Using Hughes's poetry collection River and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished. At times, he uses Ted's fly patterns; at others his rods. It is an obsession; a fundamental connection to nature; a thrilling wildness; an elemental pursuit. But it is also a release and a consolation, as Mark fishes after the sudden death of his mother and during the slow fading of his father.

Over the course of fifteen years, John Delaney ran the Football Association of Ireland as his own personal fiefdom. He had his critics, but his power was never seriously challenged until last year, when Mark Tighe and Paul Rowan published a sequence of stories in the Sunday Times containing damaging revelations about his personal compensation and the parlous financial situation of the FAI. Delaney's reputation as a great financial manager was left in tatters. He resigned under pressure, and the FAI was left hoping for a massive bail-out from the Irish taxpayer. In Champagne Football, Tighe and Rowan dig deep into the story of Delaney's career and of the FAI's slide into ruin.

We all love stories. They make us feel, help us connect, relate to one another, and make sense of our lives. Bill Beswick is a storyteller who has 20 powerful life lessons to share from his work with his clients at the top of their fields to help us all overcome our fears, boost our performance and achieve success. 

Leading sports and performance psychologist, Bill Beswick, sees sport as a story of human connection. When faced with physical challenges, pressure and fatigue, the mind is the athlete and the body is simply the means. Changing Your Story explores how the way we think and feel is vital for releasing positive energy and improving our performance. Beswick's 20 lessons will bestow resilience and guide you through the process of harnessing the full power of your physical abilities. 

This is a book about change. Bill Beswick's advice is guaranteed to equip you with new, more efficient ways to think. Through his powerful storytelling, he will help you let go of a negative mind-set and embrace a much stronger, positive and determined one. Anything is possible when you realise it's never too late to switch direction and change your story.

As a young boy of eight, Jonny Bairstow was dealt a cruel blow. His father David 'Bluey' Bairstow, the combative and very popular wicketkeeper and captain of Yorkshire, took his own life at the age of 47. Jonny and his family strived to come to terms with the loss of their father and husband. Jonny found his way through his dedication to sport. He followed in his father's footsteps and chose cricket, eventually reaching the pinnacle of the sport and breaking the record for most Test runs in a year by a wicketkeeper.

Leo Houlding started climbing at ten years of age in the Lake District and was the youngest person (and first Briton) to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the United States at eighteen years, which cemented his reputation. He has since gone on to summit the world's toughest peaks and explore the most extreme places on our planet.

During such explorations he has had to deal with tragedy when close friends and colleagues have been killed or badly injured, and he will discuss how you deal with such loss and carry on. Honest, raw and exhilarating, Closer to the Edge will be a 'warts-and-all' insight into the extreme life of one of Britain's best mountaineer adventurers. What drives him? How does he assess risk and judge what level he'll take himself to be successful, and how does he balance this with teaching his own children the lessons he has learnt in some of the world's most dangerous and extreme places.

In 1982 the author set out alone in a thirty-foot ketch to sail round the British Isles. He had never before handled a boat at sea, but after three weeks of tuition, he took off into the blue, flying no ensign; an independent navigator with a sceptical outsiders eye for his homeland.

Cricket originated in 16th-century England and was gradually introduced throughout the British Empire. The author, a fan and radio commentator, presents an irreverent account of cricket, its leadership and its secret scandals!

An investigation into power, sport and the human brain.

A footballer dies of dementia, younger than he should.
A 14-year old-rugby player is told to play on through multiple blows. He never wakes up from the last one.
A scientist reveals a pattern of brain disease in NFL players and is discredited.
A survivor of domestic abuse can't remember details when standing up in court.

From the creator of the award-winning podcast A Beautiful Brain.

This is the story of the degenerative brain disease, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), concussive and sub-concussive trauma. It is also a story of power, of science and sport, and of the bodies that society deems worth sacrificing.

It is an investigation that explores the truth about concussion in sport and beyond it, from the social dynamics that send young men into violent sports, to the scientists searching for truth and the families living with consequences. This story belongs to those families.

A Delicate Game explores the passion and fury of sport, truth and justice, violence against women, privilege, love, greed, hope and redemption. It's going to change the way you think about sport forever.

Vassos Alexander shares the highs and lows of falling in love with running, from his first paltry efforts to reach the end of his street to completing ultra marathons and triathlons in the same weekend. Each of the 26.2 chapters also features a fascinating insight into how others first started, from Paula Radcliffe to Steve Cram, the Brownlees to Jenson Button, Nicky Campbell to Nell McAndrew. Funny, inspiring, honest - the perfect read for anyone with well-worn trainers by the door (or thinking of buying a pair...)

It is 140 years since England first played Test match cricket and, for much of that time, it has struggled to perform to the best of its capabilities. It was only in the 1990s that Team England began to receive the best possible support from an ever-increasing backroom team. As England play their 1000th Test, this is an insight into the ups and downs of their story.

Despite its flaws and excesses, modern football is still sprinkled with simple yet beguiling delights. From club lottos to undeserved wins, and from pitch-invading animals to the roar after a minute's silence, Extra Time is a romantic celebration of football fandom and its shared joys, habits, eccentricities and peculiarities. It is a salute to keepers going forward for corners, match balls landing on stand roofs and goals scored in quick succession. These chapters offer a gleeful antidote to disillusionment with modern football, VAR and all. They are reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. Each warmly evokes this sport's blessed capacity to offer escape and diversion. 

What do you do when your world changes in an instant? For Jon Harvey, after the sudden death of his brother, it meant turning to the thing that had given him support, joy and a lifetime of memories: sport, in all its myriad sublime and ridiculous forms. A kaleidoscopic twelve months took him from London Olympia to ancient Olympia, from rugby balls to Rubik's Cubes, Wimbledon tennis to Wimbledon greyhounds, Twickenham to Frimley Green, Roger Federer to Martin 'Wolfie' Adams, and much, much more. It's a celebration, of a life shaped by sport, and the ultimate season ticket.

The declaration of war against Germany in 1939 brought an end to the Golden Age of English cricket. Using unpublished letters, diaries and memoirs, Christopher Sandford recreates that last summer. Few English cricket teams began their first post-war season without holding memorial ceremonies for the men they had lost: He pays homage not only to these men, but to the lost innocence, heroism and human endurance of the age.

Whether you're a Pointless armchair aficionado, nostalgic for the days of Going for Gold, or a bona fide Mastermind...THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU!! Fingers on Buzzers! is an interactive, kaleidoscopic, bonanza celebration and history of the British quiz from Lucy Porter and Jenny Ryan, the presenters of the podcast Fingers on Buzzers. For quiz fans everywhere, Fingers on Buzzers! is a nostalgic celebration of our great British obsession - from the early days of TV quiz shows to our more recent love of the pub quiz - incorporating a huge host of pop quizzes for the whole family to enjoy.

Daisy Upton has two little kids. She loves them - but they drive her mad. So, to try and keep her sanity she started to come up with quick, easy games using stuff from around the house. And @FiveMinuteMum was born. In her first book, she has collected more than 150 games that take five minutes to set up and five minutes to tidy up. From pasta posting to alphabet knock down, it's a recipe book for guilt free parenting! And as Daisy was a teaching assistant, your little ones will be learning while they play! What could be better? Give Me Five is the perfect companion for anyone who wants five minutes peace.

In this irreverent volume of memoirs, the author looks back over his career as a sports journalist with a wealth of anecdotes and a fund of unique stories. Contains some offensive language.

A rich portrait of English football from the end of the Second World War to the present.