Inside the Divide: One City, Two Teams… The Old Firm by Richard Wilson – review
Kevin McKenna enjoys an insightful and wonderfully written account of the fierce rivalry between Glasgow's two football clubsI was 15 years old when, on 21 May 1979, I witnessed my first Celtic v Rangers match. My father, in common with other responsib...
Jumpers for Goalposts: how football sold its soul – extract | Rob Smyth and Georgina Turner
In an extract from their new book, Rob Smyth and Georgina Turner recall the days when footballers could eat, drink and still be merry on the fieldOf the many ways a fan could relate to a player in the past, few were greater than the sight of a man whee...
Christmas books: A Life Too Short by Ronald Reng
A poignant analysis chronicling the effects of depression on Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper who took his own lifeGreat sportswriting, wrote the American journalist and broadcaster Dick Schaap, "tells us as much about life as about sport" and his ve...
Books for giving: sport
From heroic misery memoirs to the fans' eye view, it was a winning year for sports booksIt would be easy to indict the judges of this year's William Hill prize – sportswriting's Booker – for opportunist cynicism in selecting Ronald Reng's A Life To...
William Hill award won by Ronald Reng’s biography of Robert Enke
• Judges praise book on goalkeeper who took his own life• A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke 'outstanding'Ronald Reng has won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award 2011 for A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke. Reng's bio...
Vertigo: One Football Fan’s Fear of Success by John Crace – review
A Spurs fan and depressed? It's understandableWho is John Crace? To you, the Guardian reader, he's that talented chap who has, in the past 10 years, turned his Digested Read column into a national institution. But that, judging by his new boo...
Among the Fans by Patrick Collins – review
A year spent watching fans watching their favourite teamsThe trouble with today's sports fans, Patrick Collins believes, is that so many of them are less interested in seeing than in being seen, usually by the television cameras. He is particularly vex...
I’m Not Really Here by Paul Lake – review | Daniel Taylor
The harrowing and gripping story of a Manchester City football hero's descent from cherished asset to tormented soulPaul Lake's career as a footballer was cut so short, so mangled by misfortune, we will never know how far the game would have taken him,...
My dad John White, the Spurs legend
Footballer John White was killed by lightning in 1964, aged 27, leaving behind a widow, two children and a legacy of match moments. His son Rob has been trying to build a sense of the father he knew only from other people's memoriesThere's an old black...
True Storey by Peter Storey – review
Onfield violence, roguery, landlordship and divorce – Peter Storey's autobiography has it allFor those not familiar with the playing style of Peter Storey, a midfield fixture in the Arsenal side who won the Double in 1970-71, the best way to conjure ...
Promised Land: The Reinvention of Leeds United by Anthony Clavane – review
Dave Simpson enjoys a double history of Leeds and its football teamThe success of David Peace's The Damned Utd has been followed by a flurry of books tackling the real-life Shakespearean tragedy of Leeds United. However, despite its subtitle, Anthony C...
The unchanging world of Dalglish
Fourteen years on from his first book, the Liverpool icon has published a second, but little in the outlook of the misunderstood Scot has alteredWhat with not quite getting round to reading War and Peace yet, not to mention cataloguing my Everton progr...
