Chuck Culpepper was a veteran sports journalist edging toward burnout . . . then he went to London and discovered the high-octane, fanatical (and bloody confusing!) world of English soccer.After covering the American sports scene for fifteen years, Chuck Culpepper suffered from a profound case of Common Sportswriter Malaise. He was fed up with self-righteous proclamations, steroid scandals, and the deluge of in-your-face PR that saturated the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Then in 2006, he...

Pedro Gomez of ESPN was a beloved figure in baseball. His death from sudden cardiac arrest on Feb. 7, 2021, unleashed an outpouring of heartfelt tributes. He was 58, both a hard-nosed reporter and a smiling ambassador of the sport. These 62 personal essays soar beyond sports to delve into life lessons.Pedro, a proud Cuban American, was known for his dramatic reporting from Havana. Fully and fluidly bilingual, he did as much as anyone to bridge the wide gap that had...

Fully updated to include Sir Chris Hoy’s incredible, record-breaking golds at London 2012 (making him his country’s greatest ever Olympian), this is the story of a sporting legend in his own words.This 33-year-old cycling fanatic from Murrayfield in the suburbs of Edinburgh defied the doubters who thought he would struggle when his specialist discipline, the 1km time trial, was dropped from the Olympics, and went on to reinvent himself as a track cycling sprinter and triple Olympic...

75 MILLION FANS.AN ANNUAL INCOME OF MORE THAN £500 MILLION.AND A STORY THAT HAS NEVER FULLY BEEN TOLD - UNTIL NOW.'A wonderfully entertaining history' Sunday Telegraph'When historians 1,000 years from now try to fathom the cult of Manchester United Football Club, White will be a good place to start' Financial Times

Ally McCoist is one of Scottish soccer's best-loved characters. In a two-decade career, he won the hearts and minds of legions of fans as he established himself as one of the most popular sporting personalities in the UK. A schoolboy prodigy, it was always clear that McCoist was destined for top flight soccer. At just 16 he signed his first professional contract with St. Johnstone, shooting to prominence in the 1980-81 season, scoring 22 league goals, and playing a starring role for the Sc...

The Beautiful Game -- we all love it, but it can sometimes leave us scratching our heads in disbelief or open-mouthed in wonderment. Football Extreme is a collection of the craziest, funniest and most extreme things ever to have happened in the world of football. From the FA Cup to the World Cup, Football Extreme is packed with bizarre facts and figures, amazing stories and incredible footballing feats. Discover how a bald 57-year-old ended up playing for Doncaster Rovers, how a remote isl...

When the Scottish Football League chairmen voted on the future of Rangers Newco in July 2012, most fans didn't really expect that they would be dumped into Division Three. Many thought that hard-headed commercial realities would mean demotion to the First Division at worst. But when the decision was announced, the club had no option but to start a new football journey in the bottom tier of Scottish football. In Rangers FC - The Only Way Is Up, Lisa Gray captures the humour, the emotion and...

Nick Hornby, author of the bestselling soccer classic Fever Pitch, offers an insightful account of an extraordinary sports season. Concentrating on a number of significant games in British soccer during the 2011–2012 season, Hornby chronicles the emotional, political, and societal highlights and woes that played out on the field. There were alleged racist clashes, revealing the deep cultural fissures still present in British life. There was a fairy-tale return for the legendary Th...

Robin van Persie is one of the most talented players in world football today. An intelligent playmaker and deadly striker, he brings creativity and intelligence to Arsenal's forward line and is the first name on the Netherlands team sheet. Signed by Arsene Wenger in the summer of 2004 with a view to replace Dutch legend Dennis Bergkamp, Van Persie quickly established himself as an integral part of Wenger's talented side, initially plying his trade on the left side of midfield. Playing alon...

Take a stroll down Edmiston Drive with the people who know it best - the fans! The Bear is the unofficial online Rangers fanzine, packed with features to get your blue blood stirring. Edited by David Edgar and Scot Van den Akker, and featuring articles from Bears all over the world, it takes a sideways look at everything happening at Ibrox. With an unashamed view from behind blue-tinted glasses, The Bear will offer in-depth analysis of the latest news, plenty of terrace humour and more tha...

In 1961, when Don Revie became manager of Leeds United, they were a struggling Second Division club. By 1974 they had won two League Championships, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (twice), the FA Cup and the League Cup; players like Jack Charlton and Billy Bremner were household names.Yet this was a team that inspired neither admiration nor grudging respect, but rather a deep and visceral loathing – matched only by the bellicose devotion of their own supporters. The undeniable artistry ...

Sir Alex Ferguson, who retired in May 2013 as manager of Manchester United is the most success manager English football has ever seen. He was simultaneously the most admired and feared manager in British football. During almost forty years in the dugout, and over half a century in the professional game, he’s torn up the record books, amassed a treasure trove of silverware, and unleashed the hairdryer – as well as the odd football boot – on countless players, rival managers, referees and jo...