Sports Books
26 February 2008 - Ian Murray
Long and unfairly relegated to the lower leagues of literature Sporting Books can in fact offer some wonderfully rewarding reads, rich in social history, character analysis and personal experience.
The memoir; either a fan’s or player’s. The history of a club, championship, tour, player, era or region, the thinly veiled travelogue or the purely statistical for the blue anorak within us all, the well written sports book can indeed be more than a good afternoon spoiled.
For the general reader wishing to enter the arena of sports writing and who wants more than a simple ghost written tabloid confessional of a player’s highs and lows, I would direct them towards the winners of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, which consistently offer up gems in the genre, can generally be picked up for very little second hand and have been a great source of information, laughter and fan obsessed head-nodding from this tragic.
Past winners include:
Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby (soccer)
Angry White Pyjamas, Robert Twigger (aikido)
Rough Ride, Thomas Klimmage (road-racing). All great reads.
If of a literary bent why not try:
This Sporting Life, David Storey (Rugby League)
The Goalie's Anxiety at The Penalty Kick, Peter Handke (soccer)
The Sportswriter, Richard Ford
Underworld, Don Delillo (baseball, opens with a wonderful prologue set during the final game of the Giants-dodgers pennant race of 1951).
A Salute to the Great McCarthy, Barry Oakley (Aussie Rules).
For the collector of sporting books it depends largely on their area of interest and budget.
A cricket enthusiast with unlimited funds could purchase at huge expense the complete run of the yellow brick bible known as Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, a publication produced every year since 1864 and have the foundation of a magnificent cricket library.
The more fiscally challenged could pick up the later editions from the 1970’s to present relatively inexpensively or instead collect county histories or tour books or decide to fill a library with the great cricket writers, John Arlott, Neville Cardus, CLR James, EW Swanton etc, all wonderful essayists and essential reading.
There is as in cricket a tradition of fine writing within the fields of golf and boxing Bernard Darwin, Henry Longhurst etc. (golf), Norman Mailer, George Plimpton etc. (boxing). Fine Reprints of these authors should not break the bank.
For the Collector of golf and boxing book both have long histories of printed material and their individual treasures can fetch vast sums but as always there are levels within any field and a handsome library might be obtained with one or two highlights at not unreasonable cost.
For followers of our only indigenous game ‘Aussie Rules’, club histories are a great place to begin, as well as the ‘big’ clubs look for histories of local regional teams and leagues.
The list of sports is numerous and in this scant article I have not touched upon tennis, athletics (and the Olympics), football (my own personal recreational reading), rugby, motor racing, snooker and billiards, horse racing, fly-fishing, hunting, martial arts… there are wonderful reads and collectables within all these pursuits.
Happy Reading.
Collectible Sports Books we have available online.
Please inquire about reading copies as we stock a large range of sporting books at both our Geelong and Queenscliff shops.