Sportsbiografier

Lions legend Bobby Windsor has enjoyed triumphs beyond the dreams of most international players but has also suffered personal tragedy. This book offers a no-holds-barred, warts-and-all story of a working-class Welsh folk hero who rose from humble beginnings to become a permanent member of the greatest Lions team in the history of rugby union.

They mingled with underworld heavies along a strip of New York pavement near the Garden known only as Jacobs Beach. Kevin Mitchell's gripping book is the unsanitised story of those times and that place, of Rat Pack cool and the fading of the Mob's peculiar glamour, brilliantly told through the eyes of the men who were there.

Albert Beauregard Hodges is a legend among chess aficionados. One of the most well-known American chess players of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he played an important role in transforming chess from a pleasant pastime into a social institution. This work provides an in-depth biography of Hodges' personal life and chess career and a collection of more than 340 of his games, as well as 15 of his published chess problems. Hodges' complete tournament and match records are included, along with line engravings, photographs, and several indexes.

From 1900 through the 1940s Latino baseball players suffered discrimination, poor accommodations, low pay and homesickness to play a game they loved. Those who were both talented and light-skinned enough to make it to the majors were mocked for being foreign. Those in the Negro Leagues were, like African American ballplayers, segregated and largely ignored by the public and major league scouts. Building on the work of researchers who focused on the seasons and careers of these pioneer athletes, Nick Wilson draws on primary documents and interviews to round out our knowledge of the players as people. Jose Mendez, Miguel Gonzalez, Luis Tiant, Sr., Martin Dihigo, Rodolfo Fernandez, Roberto Ortiz, Cristobal Torriente, Hiram Bithorn and Pedro ""Preston"" Gomez are only a few examples of the players included here. Appendices on ""Americans Who Positively Influenced Latin Migration"" and ""Latinos and the Washington Senators Spring Training Camps, 1939-1942"" are included, along with 26 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index.

Held on June 22, 1938, in Yankee Stadium, the second Louis-Schmeling fight sparked excitement around the globe. For all its length - the fight lasted but two minutes - it remains one of the most memorable events in boxing history. This book offers a portrait of Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, their individual careers, and their two epic fights.

Greg Moore who was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina, one of three sons of NASCAR Hall of Famer Bud Moore. Greg's personal recollections of a life that others could only dream of from childhood to adulthood gives fascinating insight into the world of big time stock car racing.

Billy Southworth was the most successful major league baseball manager of the 1940s including the three straight years in which his St. Louis Cardinal teams won more than 100 games. He won three National League pennants with the Cardinals and one with the Boston Braves, and his .597 winning percentage is the fifth highest in baseball history. But Southworth was dogged by demons off the field, including the deaths of three children. On the field, his achievements were minimized by many because they occurred during the war years when the baseball talent level was below par. When he finally got top recognition, being elected to the Hall of Fame in 2007, the honor occurred 38 years after his death.

This brings to life one of baseball's greatest sluggers, Willie Stargell, first by examining the factors that shaped him as a man growing up in tumultuous racial times of the 1950s and '60s, then by recreating the major moments in his Hall of Fame baseball career, and finally by tracing his various endeavours during his post-playing days.

Joe Louis held the heavyweight boxing championship longer than any other fighter and defended it a record 25 times. (In the 1930s and 1940s, the owner of the heavyweight title was the most prominent non-team sports competitor.) In addition, Louis helped bridge the gap of understanding between whites and blacks. During World War II he not only raised money for Army and Navy relief and entertained millions of troops as a morale officer, but became a symbol of American hope and strength. This biography of Louis outlines his rise from poverty in Alabama to become the best-known African American of his time and describes how an uneducated man, simple at his core, became so articulate and ended up on the side of right in the battles he fought, with fist or voice.

A moving narrative history of the professional footballers who fought and died in World War I, with a foreword by Gary Lineker. In 1914, as today, successful footballers were heroes and role models.

'The policeman was a former Everton ticket holder who had seen me play. He looked stunned as he fastened the cuffs behind my back. "What have you got yourself involved with, Mark?" he said. "You're in big trouble."

Reveals the subculture of pole vaulting - from Bob Richards, who won Olympic gold twice in pole vaulting; to Sergey Bubka, the controversial pole vaulter; to Don Bragg, a rowdy Tarzan-like character who swung on ropes in his backyard to build upper-body strength; to the duel between Mack and Toby Stevenson as they battled for gold in Athens.

Known during his Celtic days as 'Martin the Magnificent', this is the definitive biography for any football fan. This is Martin O'Neill's remarkable true story.

Tells the story of a shy black child from a poor family in a segregated city; of the superstar who, at the height of his career, became the president of the National Basketball Players Association to try to improve conditions for all players. It is the story of the man forced from the game at thirty-four and blacklisted from coaching and broadcasting.

Wilma Rudolph was born into a large family and struggled with health problems for the first several years of her life, including polio. Though she had trouble even walking, her love of sport and movement motivated her to rehabilitate her legs. Rudolph would blossom into athletic talent and after earning a scholarship to Tennessee State, qualified for the 1960 Olympic Games where she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field.Throughout her life, Wilma Rudolph faced many barriers and yet she was able to overcome the odds to become an Olympic gold medalist. After hanging up her spikes, Wilma would teach second grade and coach track at her former high school. This work describes her life in detail, and includes a timeline of significant events in her life.

All Kelly Smith ever wanted to be was a footballer.

The son of a wrestler turned cycling coach called Killer Kowalski, Rob Hayles was soon winning races himself and realizing that he didn't really want to work for a living.

Faldo has been branded one of the coldest men in British sport - at times better known for being aloof, arrogant and self-obsessed than for winning three Open Championships and three US Masters.

A tribute to Billy Conn, one of the greatest light-heavyweight boxing champions of all time

Hansen addresses these questions and, now that clubs are becoming multi-faceted business empires, looks at the future for the game in the UK. Until a knee injury ended his playing career, Hansen was one of the most successful British soccer players of all time.

The autobiography of West Indies fast-bowling legend turned Sky pundit, Michael Holding, author of the award-winning Why We Kneel, How We Rise

A biography of heavyweight champion Primo Carnera. It details his early life and boxing career, his success as a fighter as well as accusations of fight fixing, his strengths and limitations in the ring, and his later career as a wrestler.

A rip-roaring, life-enhancing, hilarious memoir from a football cult hero; very much in the same vein as recent bestsellers from Paul Merson and Jeff Stelling.

And how much strength does a boxer take from his family, or the family figures that so many trainers and promoters become?Passionate, hard-hitting and with astonishing revelations about the world of boxing, Beautiful Brutality is written from the heart, by an author with a unique knowledge and experience of the fight game.

On the field, Andy Goram was a defiant figure between the sticks who, in many ways, defined the history-making nine-in-a-row team that brought so much success to Ibrox. This account presents his tempestuous life in football, from the Gers' glory days to a fairy-tale chapter with his boyhood heroes: Manchester United.

Few can match the tremendous impact that Arsene Wenger has had since his arrival at Arsenal in 1996.This revised and fully up-to-date biography includes the 2009/10 season and tells the full story of one of the world football's leading masterminds.