Sportsbiografier

Following the 1956-57 NBA season the Fort Wayne Pistons relocated to Detroit and the Rochester Royals were moved to Cincinnati. The relocations of the Fort Wayne and Rochester franchises left Syracuse as the last small market team in the NBA.As the 1960s began the NBA entered the crossroads of its existence featuring such mega stars as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Hal Greer, the Boston Celtics became the most dominating team in the league. Led by Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, and John Havlicek, the Celtics would win eleven NBA championships between 1957 and 1969. But during the 1960s the Cincinnati Royals were a team also loaded with All-Stars and former Olympic players like Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Wayne Embry, and Adrian Smith. But the Royals would never win a championship in Cincinnati and in 1973 relocated to Kansas City. Today the franchise is the Sacramento Kings.So what went wrong in Cincy? While the Royals received only marginal support from their fans and absentee owner Louie Jacobs, the Buffalo concessionaire king and Godfather of sports, the answer to the downfall of the Royals seems to lie somewhere in the basketball stories of Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson whose brilliant careers collided in an unharmonious relationship when the retired Cousy became coach of the Royals.While Bob Cousy had been credited for saving professional basketball in Boston as a player, he is also credited with destroying professional basketball in Cincinnati as a coach. The uneasy relationship in Cincinnati between Cousy the coach and Robertson the player fueled by leftover competitive conflict from their days as players on the hardwood would become a collision of will between them and render the Royals franchise dysfunctional.

John Gill: Master of Rock is a captivating look into the life, achievements and ethos of boulderer John Gill, written by friend and climber Pat Ament. This new edition is complete with photographs, personal impressions of Gill from climbers such as Yvon Chouinard, and an enlightening interview with Gill himself.

The surprising story of how wrestling superstar Glenn "Kane" Jacobs beat all the odds to become the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.

Steve Perryman was the heart and soul of Tottenham Hotspur for over two decades and played 854 times for the north London club. Honest and uncompromising as a player and a writer, Steve looks back over his life in football in this entertaining autobiography.

The King of White Hart Lane is the authorised life story of Alan Gilzean, the legendary, world-class Tottenham Hotspur, Dundee and Scotland footballer. Exclusive insights provided by his family, closest friends and colleagues add to the author's own experience to reveal Gilzean the man and the player, dubbed 'Nureyev in Boots'.

In 1965 Tony Howard made the first British ascent of Norway's Troll Wall. He went on to found Troll Climbing Equipment but never stopped exploring. Quest into the Unknown, his autobiography, covers his extensive travels in North Africa, the Middle East, Scandinavia, Canada and much more.

An L.A. hot rodder with a high school education, a family to support and almost no money, Craig Breedloveset out in the late 1950s to do something big: harness the thrust of a jet in a car. With a growing obsession that would cost him his marriage, he started building in his dad's garage. The car's name: Spirit of America. Through perseverance and endless hard work, Craig completed Spirit and broke the land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats, setting a new mark of 407 mph in 1963. In the early 1970s he turned to rockets and set an acceleration record at Bonneville that stands to this day. He built a jet car in the 1990s, Spirit of America-Sonic Arrow, to go head-to-head against Britain's ThrustSSC to be the first to Mach One. Craig's subsequent crash at 675 mph remains the fastest in history. Even today, at the age of 80, he is going strong with plans for yet another Spirit of America racer. The ultimate goal: 1,000 mph. Ultimate Speed is the authorized biography of Craig Breedlove, a candid revelation of one of motorsports' most interesting figures based primarily on countless hours of interviews with Craig and dozens of people connected to his life.

Michael Schumacher: the greatest of all time. A champion with a reputation founded on records, the man who has brought most glory to Ferrari in the modern era. With a dramatic coda to the story that we like to think of as a pit stop before a return to the race, to normality.

Named one of TIME magazine's 100 Greatest Men of the Century, Bruce Lee's impact and influence has only grown since his untimely death in 1973

Jeremy McGrath has been called 'the Michael Jordan of Supercross' by the Los Angeles Times, and in this revealing autobiography fans not only get his personal story, but also a detailed guide on how everyone can become a Supercross racer. The No 1 Supercross racer in the world - who has over 20 sponsors, his own film company, a toy line, Nintendo and Playstation games, and a signature shoe by Vans - talks about his life and the sport. Supercross started out as a redneck '70s sideshow, but thanks largely to Jeremy McGrath it has become a massive extreme sport. Over the last three years, AMA Supercross attendance has mushroomed from 700,000 spectators a year to 1.5 million. This book will satisfy even the most hardcore fans, as it not only gives you the life and times of Jeremy McGrath, but acts as the calling card to the entire sport by including unique sections on how to become a Supercross racer, the workout regimes, fixing common bike problems, and more.

A bestseller in both the UK and the USA on its first publication, this book was the first fully authorised life of world's greatest living footballer. With exclusive access to Pelé, award-winning sports writer Harry Harris charts his meteoric rise from humble beginnings in Brazil to his first international at the age of sixteen. Superb athleticism, speed of thought and execution, and astonishing ball control helped him become the only player to have appeared in three World Cup-winning sides, and to have scored more than 1,200 goals in his senior career, a feat that is now unlikely ever to be equalled, let alone surpassed.Pelé remains the best footballer of all time, despite the extraordinary exploits of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar, and legends such as Diego Maradona and Johan Cruyff. Now revised and updated to bring the story completely up to date, this is a tribute to a world-class sporting hero, a great sportsman and, to this day, an inspiration to millions.

Englishman David Hobbs - `Hobbo' to his friends and fans - is one of motor racing's most remarkable all-rounders. In a 41-year driving career he raced in almost every imaginable category.

Legendary fighter Dan Hardy lifts the lid on his own career and breaks down all things UFC and MMA

The story of the 1972 Andes plane crash and rescue, made famous by Piers Paul Read in his book Alive, finally told by one of the heroes who saved his team-mates.

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE CROSS SPORTS BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR The definitive biography of one of the greatest, most extraordinary runners and Olympic heroes of all time, from the author of running classic Feet in the Clouds.

Written by the author of "Poker and The Biggest Game in Town", this book gives a portrait of the climbing legend Mo Anthoine. It is suitable for fans of adrenaline sports.

All courageous attempts by man to reach the summit of Everest by heading up the northern side from Tibet had failed. But in 1951 Edmund Hillary joined an expedition to find a new route up Everest from the south. This memoir is illustrated with drawings, maps and photographs which capture the experience of climbing Everest.

He was a giant among men, a symbol of a different era in sports . . .The NFL in the 1970s was a ruthless league, rife with concussions, broken bones, unmatched egos, and frequent racial strife. In the midst of this madness, commanding the Oakland Raiders (perhaps the baddest team of them all) was quarterback Ken Stabler?aka Snake?an unassuming and lethal threat as a player. On the field, he was cool and con-fident, but off of it he was a legendary woman chaser and babe magnet, carrying a larger-than-life persona at odds with the performance-drenched focus that characterized the rest of the NFL. Yet the Stabler that would eventually emerge was more than a playboy. No quarterback was tougher or more uniquely talented; his accuracy, particularly with deep throws, was as good as any quarterback's the league had ever seen; he'd won 100 games faster than any quarterback in history, as well as a Super Bowl, and most of all, he helped redefine the Raiders from losers to champions. In Snake, Bleacher Report columnist Mike Freeman details Stabler's childhood in racially segregated Alabama, his emergence as a rare high school talent, his raucous college days under the legendary Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, and his famed career as a quarterback for the Raiders and, later, the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints. Freeman expands his story by offering a rare, personal look at Stabler after his football days?including his warm affection as a husband, father, and grandfather?and even describes how Stabler's death, and subsequent Hall of Fame induction, paved the way for greater CTE awareness, as a 2016 autopsy revealed Stabler had been suffering from the disease. This work examines the complete Stabler portrait: the good, the bad, and the unbelievable. Poignant, blunt, and eye-opening, Snake is a towering biography about a man who forever left his mark on football, the quarterback who studied his playbook by the light of a jukebox.

In advance of the 2016 Olympics, Akashic launches a new sports imprint, curated by Dave Zirin, with a dramatic memoir by an Olympic gold-medalist.

In his autobiography, McCaw recounts for the first time, with brutal honesty, the roots of his family life that defined his character and how it gave him the strength to emerge from the lowest moment in his career to become the most successful Captain world rugby has ever seen.

He was one of the hardest, most controversial footballers of his generation: the GBP20million man who became the first professional player to go to jail for an offence committed on the field of play.

With a meticulous, entirely legal plan involving dozens of people, perfectly timed phone calls, sealed orders and months of preparation, Curley and Yellow Sam beat the bookmakers and cost them millions.

The author had high hopes: the arse of an athlete, the waist of a supermodel, the speed of a gazelle. Defeated by gyms and bored of yoga, she decided to run. Her first attempt did not end well. Six years later, she has run five marathons in two continents. This book tells her story.

World Snooker Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan's frank and honest account of his astonishingly dramatic life.

The long-awaited memoir of Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp, whose autobiography is as unique and special as the player himself

Britain's leading cycling writer, William Fotheringham, goes back to speak to those who were there at the time and those who knew Merckx best to find out what made Eddy Merckx so invincible. 'The full unvarnished of one man's heaven, and hell, on wheels' Independent