All Sports Book Reviews
Reviews of classic and contemporary sports books – my personal take on the sports books I've read (and mostly loved). For updates when a review is posted, follow me on twitter @SprtBookReviews.
Reviews by Sport
Category: Soccer
'Building the Yellow Wall: The Incredible Rise and Cult Appeal of Borussia Dortmund' by Uli Hesse (2018)
Uli Hesse is the great English language chronicler of German football history. His book Tor!: The Story of German Football, a detailed and engrossing history of the game in Germany, is a regular on any list of the best European football books. His more recent books take a deep dive into particular clubs with Bayern: Creating a Global Superclub) examining the Bavarian super-power and now Building the Yellow Wall which tells the story of every football hipster's favourite Bundesliga team, Borussia Dortmund.
In recent years, Dortmund have taken on a cult appeal with fans around the world – to such an extent that Ryanair put on match-day special flights from London to cater for the demand. Hesse traces the history of the club from its humble origins in a Dortmund beerhall, through to it's 1997 Champions League win and its more recent period of glory under the charismatic Jurgen Klopp.
The club's origin story is quite interesting with the founding father's risking their social standing by rejecting the Church's insistence that football should not be played on Sundays. Throughout the book, Hesse tracks the key figures from each generation. One remarkable feature is how often prominent fans ultimately end up being employed by the club, showing the close connection between the team and its' city.
Hesse details the lowest moments of the club both its relegation to Bundesliga 2 and its near financial collapse in the 2000's. As with many sports books, these moments of crisis and peril are often more interesting than the success. Hesse brilliantly captures the tension felt by fans as they waited to hear whether creditors had approved a deal that would allow the club to survive.
The book is packed full of nuggets of history and trivia that you are unlikely to find anywhere. Hesse grew up in Dortmund but also interviews a wide range of players, club officials and ordinary fans.
Hesse is an engaging writer who manages to find the right level of detail to tell the story while keeping readers engaged. This book has less match report style recounts of long forgotten matches than his earlier book on Bayern and instead wisely focuses more on the cultural impact of Borussia for its fans, its city and football in general.
Overall, Building the Yellow Wall is a really enjoyable read for any football fan.
allsportsbookreviews	Business of Sport, Football, Germany, Soccer, Uncategorized	2 Comments July 15, 2019 2 Minutes
'The Away Game: The Epic Search for Football's Next Superstars' by Sebastian Abbot (2018)
I'm not sure spoilers are a thing for non-fiction books, but this review feels a bit spoilerish to me. Ultimately, it's impossible to talk about the book without reflecting on what happened the young players in broad terms. If you want to read the book with absolutely no knowledge of what happens, just know it's well-written and tells an important story. Well worth picking up.
The Away Game tells the story of an attempt by Qatar to undercover the next Leo Messi by searching for hidden gems of potential in Africa. In 2007, Josep Colomer, a former youth coach at Barcelona, was hired to organise trials for 13 year old boys across Africa in what the book describes as the largest sports talent search in history. Those successful at trials would be brought to Qatar to train in the Aspire Academy with the ultimate aim of becoming a professional footballer.
Abbot zooms in on a few select players with seemingly endless potential and details their journey from local trial, to the Aspire Academy and beyond. At first glance, it appears to be a story of hope and opportunity. Abbot lure the reader in with this hope, and almost expectation, given how talented the players appear. Unfortunately, it soon emerges that this isn't a story with happy endings. Initially, I felt annoyed that the book had led me on, but I suspect this was a deliberate choice to mirror the journey the players and coaches travelled of unrealistic hope ultimately being crushed by the realities of life and modern football.
So why did it not work out? Most obviously, the players simply were much older than they claimed and therefore not phenom 13 year olds but decent 17 or 18 year olds. Secondly, the inability for the Qatari's to use the players in their national team following FIFA rule changes, clearly dampened some enthusiasm for the project. The ends arguably no longer justified the means for the Qatar backers if it couldn't ultimately bring glory to the state.
I really enjoyed the book and it tells an important story about exploitation in youth sports on a global level. Abbot presents these young men as individuals with their own personalities and dreams whose own happiness matters, not just pawns in the global business of football. Ultimately, they all take different paths with various degrees of heartbreak along the way.
The coaches and others who run the Football Dreams aren't painted as villains however. They seem to believe in their mission and are passionate about developing players. I felt Abbot may have been a bit gentle on the ultimate backers of the programme (the Qatari state) but that may been journalistic reserve to not infer negative motivations that aren't provable.
The Away Game is well written and highly readable. There is probably a bit too much repetition of the players backstory each time they are reintroduced which is unnecessary if you read the book in a reasonably short period of time. Notwithstanding this, it grips you from beginning to end as you root desperately for the players despite knowing ultimately the Dream is unlikely to come true.
allsportsbookreviews	Business of Sport, FIFA, Football, Soccer, Sport and Politics, Uncategorized	Leave a comment July 10, 2019 July 10, 2019 2 Minutes
'The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business' by Wright Thompson (2019)
Wright Thompson is a long time senior writer for ESPN covering multiple sports. His profile is relatively low in Europe given ESPN's American focus but his excellent 2016 article on Tiger Woods was shared widely in Ireland at least. It gave the best insight into how Woods' life and career unravelled until the excellent 'Tiger Woods' by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian was published last year.
The Cost of These Dreams collects many of Thompson's best articles but with a central theme running through them – the price and struggles that come with seeking and achieving success. The stories collected here are mostly about the off pitch lives of those involved in sports. It includes some of the greatest figures in their sports (including Michael Jordan, Pat Riley and Bear Bryant) and some relatively unknown characters most notably Tony Harris, a college basketball star who had a mental breakdown that led him to an untimely demise in the jungles of Brazil. The highlight for me is a moving piece about the Ole Miss (University of Mississippi) football program during the ugly time of de-segregation in US education.
Unlike many anthologies, the preface for this book goes beyond the usual platitudes about how lucky he has been to write for X or Y over the years. Instead it is a very reflective and emotional piece about the costs to Thompson's own personal life of his method of reporting, his constant travel and the resultant time missed with family.
The articles collected here are superbly well written. The book reveals two of Thompson's great strengths – as a determined researcher/investigator and as a remarkable interviewer. Thompson's commitment to research is shown most clearly by his dogged pursuit of on of Muhammad Ali's early opponents who has gone off the grid. He becomes obsessed with finding him and the resulting article is beautifully written. As an interviewer, he achieves remarkable insight into the inner worlds of his subjects who often just happen to be among the greatest sports stars in history.
Many of Thompson's best articles are also available online and well worth checking out. I've linked below to a few, most of which aren't included in this excellent book:
2014 profile of footballer Luis Suarez
A profile of NASCAR drive Dale Earnhardt Jr
"Test of Time: In defense of a game that lasts five days"
"Pulled pork and pigksin: a love letter to Southern football"
"An obsession realized: Manning and the Super Bowl"
"Patterson rumbles to glory as Eagles romp"
"OTL: The Burden of Being Myron Rolle"
"The last days of Juventus?"
"O'Neil was the real 'voice' of America"
"Thompson: Contempt for the system"
"Outrageous Injustice"
allsportsbookreviews	Ali, Baseball, Basketball, Boxing, Business of Sport, Football, golf, Jordan, NBA, NFL, Sport and Politics, Uncategorized	Leave a comment July 5, 2019 2 Minutes
'The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports' by Joshua Robinson & Jonathan Clegg (2019)
The English Premier League (or EPL) has for 20 plus years been the highest profile football league in the world. Serie A may have been better in the 90's, La Liga may have the world's greatest players in the 2010's but for sheer visibility, interest and commercial success the EPL has reigned supreme for over 20 years.
The Club tells the business side of the Premier League's rise and continued success. It's a tale of TV broadcast deals, merchandising strategies and corporate takeovers. It chronicles the various decisive moments that turned the EPL into the marketing, financial, cultural and entertainment behemoth it is today.
This book tells the story chronologically from how Sky won the pivotal TV rights contracts, through the rise of Man Utd and Arsenal, the era of the oligarchs and finally its look forward to the future (spoiler alert, the EPL is likely to still dominate unless we end up with a European Super League).
The book zooms in on a variety of different clubs at different times since 1992. Many of the stories will be familiar to long-time football fans. These vignettes are at their most interesting when they detail failures like Randy Lerner's ill-fated spell in charge of Aston Villa, and Hicks & Gillett's best forgotten time in charge of Liverpool.
Its main characters are Richard Scudamore, the long serving chairman of the Premier League, and Manchester United, the team who have long led the way commercially. As the fates of others rise and fall, Scudamore and Utd remain ever present at the top controlling things. As Scudamore steps aside (and the EPL fail to find a replacement), and Utd continue to fall from grace, it starts to look like this may truly be a new era for the EPL off the pitch!
The book is extremely well-researched. Robinson and Clegg, both Wall Street Journal reporters, have clearly conducted a significant amount of interviews with anyone and everyone in the world of football. With the benefit of hindsight, it is fascinating to look back at those pivotal moments and decisions when the world's most popular football league was unalterably changed.
Overall, The Club is extremely readable. It's got enough new information for long time fans of English football while remaining accessible enough for more casual soccer fans. There are some stories I would have liked it to examine in more detail, but narrowing the business story of the last 25+ years of top-flight English football down to a single book was always going to require some editorial judgement!
allsportsbookreviews	Business of Sport, Football, Soccer, Uncategorized	Leave a comment July 2, 2019 July 4, 2019 2 Minutes
'Cristiano and Leo: The Race to Become the Greatest Football Player of All Time' by Jimmy Burns (2018)
Unsurprisingly, there have been plenty of biographies and books written about both Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi, the two greatest footballers of the modern era. I've never been tempted to read any of them. Both players are so familiar, their back stories widely reported, their playing highlights both vividly memorable and re-watchable.
I picked up Cristiano and Leo purely because it was written by Jimmy Burns. Hand of God by Burns was the first football book I became obsessed about. Having generally only read player autobiographies till then, I was blown away by the warts-and-all depiction of Maradona's flawed genius. The only book that rivaled it for me was Burns other book Barca, which I devoured when it was published in 1999.
A dual-biography, Cristiano and Leo details the background and career of the two best football players in the world. Their childhood is explored as Burns builds a picture of the key influences on their lives and the experiences and family dynamics that helped shape both men. There are no surprises and both men come across broadly similarly to their public persona – Cristiano as vain, selfish, but determined to work harder and better than anybody else, Mess as less interested in publicity but unafraid to exercise his own considerable power.
The strength of the book is Burns' own reporting. Burns interviews a vast number of people getting fascinating insight from big names like Florentino Perez, but also from people who knew both men during their childhood. Burns own analysis is interesting and adds some colour to what is generally a fairly conventional biography (albeit a dual one).
The book suffers from being a bit too detailed about games, seasons and goals which many readers will be intimately familiar with. It's a peril of any biography of a player who is still active and even more so when it's covering the two most watched players in the world.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book and Burns' insights, interviews and analysis. I suspect the book will age well and is one I'll enjoy even more many years from now when I want to reflect on how privileged I am to have been able to see both Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi play live in person and 100's of times on TV.
allsportsbookreviews	Barcelona, Football, Messi, Soccer, Uncategorized	Leave a comment July 1, 2019 2 Minutes
'Astroball: The New Way to Win It All' by Ben Reiter (2018)
A 2014 Sports Illustrated cover which declared that the worst team in baseball, the Houston Astros, would win the World Series in 2017 has gone down in legend. It would almost have been more believable to pick Leicester City to win the Premier League the year earlier. Improbably, Ben Reiter's prediction came through as the ambitious blueprint for rebuilding a baseball club set out in his SI article came to fruition on schedule.
Reiter therefore is the ideal writer to chronicle just how the Astro's rose to success. Astroball is the story of how a farsighted owners and executives learned from Moneyball and went on to find a new path to success.
The stars of the book are Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and his top analyst, Sig Mejdal. Both came to the Astro's in 2011 having had some success in Arizona. Both were determined to figure out how to combine stats with instinct and get the best results.
Reiter highlights three main improvements – better draft picks through understanding stats in a new way, coaching improvements for individual players by focusing on their form and tendencies and a recognition of the intangible role that veteran players have in bringing the team together at crucial moments. There were some bumps along the road – such as failure to sign an injury prone first draft pick – but the faith in 'the Process' proved justified.
Reiter clearly had exceptional access and the trust of those he spoke with. It's a very well written book which captures the balance of appealing to baseball fanatics and non-fanatics alike. It's a fascinating account of team building in the post-Moneyball era. A really enjoyable read.
allsportsbookreviews	Baseball, Business of Sport, Uncategorized	2 Comments April 23, 2019 April 23, 2019 1 Minute
'Jacobs Beach: The Mob, the Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing' by Kevin Mitchell (2010, republished in 2019)
This is a review of the new US edition of Jacobs Beach published by Hamilcar. The original book was published in 2010. Some online reviews of earlier versions refer to factual errors but it appears to me that any of these have been resolved in this new US edition.
For me, King of the World by David Remnick first illuminated the shady world of gangsters and crime that lay under the surface of professional boxing. Since reading Remnick's masterpiece and Nick Tosches Night Train, I've always been fascinated by the underbelly of professional boxing's past and felt that a true history of the fight game can only be one which considers this underbelly in depth.
Jacob's Beach sets out to tell the story of the behind-the-scenes powers in boxing in the USA (and effectively the world) from the 1930's onwards. It covers boxing's golden era when top fighters were global figures and title fights commanded universal public attention.
The book centres around Madison Square Garden and the powers that controlled that fabled arena. Jacob's Beach refers to a famous strip of pavement across the road from Madison Square Garden, the home of a legendary ticket tout named Mike Jacobs. However, the real villain of the piece is Frankie Carbo, a mobster who dominated professional boxing for years. The level of corruption is still shocking to see in black-and-white, from fixed fights to blacklisted managers and the right connections being far more important than right hooks.
If Carbo is the main villain, the book's hero is the unlikely figure of US Senator and failed Presidential candidate Estes Kefauver. The Senator's attempts to shine a light on corruption through public hearings was the first serious dent on the mobs ability to operate in the shadows. Ultimately, mob influence would fade as the spotlight on their activities grew brighter.
Mitchell holds no punches throughout the book with scathing comments on a whole range of characters. He is particularly scornful of the boxing writers who were on the take and wrote stories to suit their mob paymasters. Mitchell also seek to skewer a few myths, in particular the Hollywood narrative of James 'Cinderella Man' Braddock.
Mitchell, perhaps unconsciously, appears to mimic the stylised writing of the legendary golden era boxing writers (of whom the book is sometimes scathing). At times it reads like sections of the book were written in a previous era, with a punchy and colorful style, but they are written well and always an interesting read. The book zooms in and out on various characters and I found I naturally consumed it in bitesize chunks.
allsportsbookreviews	Ali, Boxing, Business of Sport, Crime, Sonny Liston, Uncategorized	Leave a comment April 4, 2019 April 4, 2019 2 Minutes