Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Jack Charlton

'I know who you are: you're the Boss.' The words of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, on meeting Jack Charlton and his Republic of Ireland team before the 1990 World Cup Finals. 
 
Indeed Jack Charlton was the Boss - a man whose strength of character drove him to achievements beyond the scope of his own natural talents or those of the teams who played under him. 
 
His book tells of his childhood in a Northumberland mining village and how he escaped a life down the mine by joining Leeds United, where he played for twenty years. As a footballer, he touched the pinnacle in England's legendary 1966 World Cup winning team. As a manager, he dragged the Republic of Ireland from the backwaters of international football to compete with the world's best. As a man, he was noted for his forthright personality - one whose views were as honest as they were respected. 
 
This is his story, the life of a man who specialised in the improbable, told in his own words.

Jack Charlton: The Autobiography

Lou Macari

Football has dominated Lou Macari's life. Taken on as an apprentice by Celtic in the wake of their 1967 European Cup triumph, Macari learnt his football the old-fashioned way. He quickly broke into the first team, winning Scottish league titles and Cups in both 1971 and 1972, but it was at Manchester United, following a shock transfer in January 1973, that the attacking midfielder's prowess turned him into a fans' favourite and a household name. 
 
Macari went on to score 97 goals in 401 appearances for the Red Devils, including the winner against Liverpool in the 1977 FA Cup final. He also won 24 caps for Scotland and represented his country in the infamous 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina. After leaving United in 1984, Macari moved into management with Swindon Town. It was there that he was wrongly implicated in a betting scandal which blighted his managerial career. 
 
In his long-awaited autobiography, Lou Macari tells with typical candour of football then and of football now, of the glory days and the truth behind the scandals, and of the perils that threaten the beautiful game today. It is a story like no other.

Football, My Life

Calum Best

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER 
 
Calum Best should have had it all. As the only son of world-famous footballing legend George Best and his first wife Angie, a gorgeous English model, Calum was born into a world of privilege and opportunity. 
 
But his father’s fame came at a price, and George’s playing career was soon overshadowed by his playboy lifestyle and an increasing dependence on the comforting embrace of alcohol. Whilst his tumultuous later years could never diminish the memories of the peerless, often breathtaking, quality of his football, they had a profound effect on Calum. 
 
Growing up with his mother in California, Calum’s visits to see his father in England were all too rare, and he cherished every moment he could spend in the company of the man he adored. But as George’s alcoholism spiralled out of control, inebriation frequently led to violence and George’s self-destruction spilled over onto his son. 
 
Vivid, deeply moving, brave and honest, Second Best is the heart-breaking story of their relationship. It is a powerful tale of love and suffering, of an absent father and his wayward son, and of a family torn apart by addiction.

Second Best

My Dad and Me

David Hall

On 6 February 1958, British European Airways flight 609 crashed in a blizzard on its third attempt to take off from an icy runaway in Munich. On board were the Manchester United football team as well as a number of journalists and other passengers. News of the disaster sent shockwaves around the world. For people who lived in Manchester at the time and for football fans throughout Britain it was one of those moments when everybody remembers exactly where they were and how they heard the terrible news. 
 
Manchester United, nicknamed the Busby Babes after their manager, Matt Busby, who had created the world-beating side, were the leading team of the day. Seven of their players were killed instantly in the crash. Three weeks later Duncan Edwards, one of the most promising players ever to come out of England, lost his battle for life. Two other players, Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry, were so severely injured that they were never able to play again. 
 
Manchester's Finest tells of this terrible air crash, but it is also the story of the immediate aftermath of the disaster and the effect on the city of Manchester. It paints a vivid picture of Manchester at that time, from February 1958 to the end of the season in May when a patched-up team, carried along on a great wave of emotion, reached the FA Cup Final. It is about the fans, the people of Manchester and about the place of a football team in the heart of a city.

Manchester's Finest

How the Munich air disaster broke the heart of a great city

Edward Pickering

When Chris Boardman first raced against Graeme Obree, in a time trial in Newtonards, Northern Ireland, in 1990, it was the start of a rivalry that captivated the British public for a decade and brought cycling on to the front pages. Boardman was the establishment figure: reserved, scientific, middle-class. Obree was the rebel: the Flying Scotsman, working-class, riding a home-made bike. Both were after one thing - to be the fastest man on two wheels. 
 
After Boardman had won Britain's first cycling gold medal for 72 years at the Barcelona Olympics (inspiring none other than Bradley Wiggins to get on a bike), attention turned to the world hour record, the blue riband event of track cycling. Between 1993 and 1996, the pair took it in turns to smash the record, with Boardman's team breaking the boundaries of technology and the loner Obree constantly reinventing ways of building and riding bikes while battling his many demons. 
 
The Race Against Time tells the story of how Britain first started to dominate cycling, but is also about the struggle between art and science, tradition and innovation, commercialism and individuality. It is the tale of two complex characters who redefined the sport and set in motion a new era in British cycling, the legacy of which we enjoy to this day.

The Race Against Time

Emma O'Reilly

When Emma O'Reilly joined the US Postal cycling team in 1996, she could have had no idea how she would become a central figure in the biggest doping scandal in sporting history. Yet when Lance Armstrong, starting his comeback from cancer, signed for US Postal, it was Emma, the only woman on the team, who became his personal soigneur. This is the definitive inside story of that time, and of the enormous repercussions that resonate to this day for Emma, Lance and the whole sport. 
 
Emma had the strength to break cycling's omerta by speaking out against the culture of doping. She thought she would be one of many whistleblowers, doing what she believed was right. Isolated and shunned by the sport she loved, however, her reputation was systematically destroyed. And yet she had the courage to bounce back, and remarkably, to forgive those who made her existence a living hell. This is the ultimate memoir of truth and its many consequences.

The Race to Truth

Blowing the whistle on Lance Armstrong and cycling's doping culture

Tyler Hamilton

Daniel Coyle

WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 
 
On a fateful night in 2009, Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle met for dinner in Boulder, Colorado. Over the next eighteen months, Hamilton would tell Coyle his story, and his sport's story, in explosive detail, never sparing himself in the process. In a way, he became as obsessed with telling the truth as he had been with winning the Tour de France just a few years before. The truth would set Tyler free, but would also be the most damning indictment yet of teammates like Lance Armstrong. 
 
The result of this determination is The Secret Race, a book that pulls back the curtain and takes us into the secret world of professional cycling like never before. A world populated by unbelievably driven – and some flawed – characters. A world where the competition used every means to get an edge, and the options were stark. A world where it often felt like there was no choice.

The Secret Race

Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs

Simon Hughes

Following the success of Simon Hughes’ Red Machine and Men in White Suits, books which depicted Liverpool FC’s domination during the 1980s and its subsequent fall in the 1990s, Ring of Fire focuses on the 2000s and the primary characters who propelled Liverpool to the forefront of European football once again. With a foreword by Steven Gerrard, this is the third edition in a bestselling series based on revealing interviews with former players, coaches and managers. 
 
For Liverpool FC, entry into the 21st century began with modernisation and trophies under manager Gérard Houllier and development was then underpinned by improbable Champions League glory under Rafael Benítez. Yet that is only half of the story. The decade ended with the club being on the verge of administration after the shambolic reign of American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett. 
 
In Ring of Fire, Hughes’ interviewees – including Jamie Carragher, Xabi Alonso and Michael Owen – take you through Melwood’s training ground gates and into the inner sanctum, the Liverpool dressing room. Each person delivers fascinating insights into the minds of the players, coaches and boardroom members as they talk frankly about exhilarating highs and excruciating lows, from winning cups in Cardiff and Istanbul to the political infighting that undermined a succession of managerial reigns. 
 
Ring of Fire tells the real stories: those never told before by the key players who lived through it all.

Ring of Fire

Liverpool into the 21st century: The Players' Stories

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