Five more great books from our festive selection
Top 20 Christmas selection 2018 - week three - books 10-6
TWO books with tennis at their heart, an inspirational football tale, another focusing on the emergence of sports science and a fifth which describes how athletes get ‘in the zone’ make up the first half of the year’s top ten sporting tomes.
10) The Beautiful Badge The Stories Behind the Football Club Badge, by Martyn Routledge & Elspeth Wills (September 2018)
THE Beautiful Badge is a wonderfully presented, comprehensive history of the football badges that adorn the shirts of football clubs, large and small, across the land. Quite simply, it’s a fantastic, engrossing, un-putdownable book that deserves a place in any football fan’s library. 9) Chasing Points: A season on the pro tennis circuit, by Gregory Howe (May 2018) UNDERDOG-WITH-A-DREAM Gregory Howe, a thirty-something English teacher working in north London, realised that if he didn’t do something about his ambition to play on the muchvaunted ATP Tour, he faced a career promising a succession of middle management roles and, presumably, the prospect of telling his grandchildren “I could have been a contender…”
8) Unbreakable, by Jelena Dokic with Jess Halloran (January 2018)
UNBREAKABLE is, in many respects, a harrowing story, although it’s one which, regrettably, we’re increasingly familiar. It highlights the extent to which we live in an age that effectively permits some parents to relive their lives through their children and gain a measure of vicarious satisfaction in the process.
7) In The Zone: How Champions Think and Win Big, by Martin Brolin (January 2018) BROLIN has performed at his chosen sport’s highest level and understands what it’s like to enjoy periods when, shorn of distractions, a sportsman or woman can move, almost seamlessly, onto a higher plane and perform feats which, to the outsider, appear super-human.
6) Game Changers: How a team of underdogs & scientists discovered what it takes to win, by Joao Medeiros (August 2018) JOAO Medeiros has written a truly fascinating book tracing the roots of sports science, from its rudimentary origins to today’s position of professional prominence. The story is one of scientists trying to persuade sceptics that ageing training methods or established tactical application were not just out of date, but could be improved upon.