Michael Symmons Roberts’s fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and the Griffin International Prize. His sixth collection, Drysalter, was the winner of both the Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize in 2013. He collaborated with Paul Farley on Edgelands (Cape/Vintage) and will do so again in The Deaths of the Poets (Cape, 2017). He has also worked many times with the composer James MacMillan. He has published two novels, and is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Michael Symmons Roberts

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Pete Davies

What kind of women play football? Factory workers, bank clerks, policewomen, students and shop assistants, they come together on a Sunday united by a passion for the game all too woefully absent from the money-drenched circus of professional sport. Fired by a Collective clan, an infectious joie de vivre, over the past dozen years the Doncaster Belles have been successful beyond the dreams of any other women's team. Pete Davies spends a season with the Belles - and finds a unique group of people with an abundance of talent, and a vividly earthy sense of humour. They play hard in the pit villages and nightclubs of South Yorkshire, they play hard on tatty pitches in run-down suburbs and industrial estates - but they play for love too, and to a standard that could convert the most blinkered chauvinist. At a time when more and more women are both watching and playing football, this club have been trailblazers; in this rich, diverting and passionate book, Davies make it plain why you too, once you've met them, will lose your heart to the Belles.

I Lost My Heart To The Belles

Gary Lineker

Danny Baker

***Includes a new foreword by Gary Lineker about football in lockdown*** 
 
Shortlisted for The Telegraph Sports Book Awards 
 
'Lineker is nearly as good a presenter as I was a footballer' DIEGO MARADONA 
'Hilarious, almost as funny as me' ALAN SHEARER 
'This is Lineker unleashed. As a non-football nut I didn't expect to enjoy it, but between laddish anecdotes are passages of sudden tenderness. . . Lineker opens up, dislodging memories and reflections, not just about football but his whole life.' THE TIMES 
_______________________________________________________________ 
'Football is a simple game. 22 players chase a ball for 90 minutes, and at the end the Germans always win.' 
 
This book is inspired by the stories Danny and I have shared with each other about what life in football is really like: in the dressing room, in the commentary box, on the pitch and - with the appropriate pixellation - in the showers afterwards. 
 
What's it really like to play with Messi? I wouldn't know, but I have starred alongside him in an advert for Walkers crisps. And, well, his performance was world-class. 
 
And what is a life in football really like? You won't learn much from the dull-as-dishwater post-match interviews - it's a world of secrets, superstitions, laughs and personalities, and let me tell you, half of it you won't believe. 
 
I've looked back at my playing days, from England to Leicester, Everton to Barcelona, Tottenham to, er, Nagoya Grampus Eight, and shared the chaotic behind-the-scenes secrets of Match of the Day - and Danny has chipped in with stories from a lifetime following the game as a fan. 
 
From Italia '90 to Leicester's Premier League fairytale, from yellow cards to World Cup trophies (I've never been awarded either), from Gascoigne to Maradona, you'll find it all here - everything you always wanted to know about football, but didn't realise that you did. 
 
Inspired by the No.1 podcast Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors

Life, Laughs and Football

Mark Wallington

From the author of the bestselling 500 Mile Walkies, this is the true story of one man and his bike ... 
 
It was a cold, bleak, British summer morning when intrepid Mark set out to travel the seventeen-hundred miles to Lapland on his bicycle. The land of reindeer nomads and the Midnight Sun had him under its spell. 
 
Suitably equipped with a new locknut A and pivot bolt B, a compass, a pair of sunglasses with only one lens and a Norwegian phrasebook, he was soon to discover the joys of Central Milton Keynes, win a marathon he never ran in Brassington, become stranded on the Yorkshire Dales, pick raspberries in Northumbria and finally catch a train from Newcastle - back to London! 
 
His dreams of obtaining a genuine reindeer hatstand were shattered forever!

Destination Lapland

David Squires

‘A fresh look at the beautiful game’ - NME 
 
Welcome back to the inimitable work of illustrator David Squires. 
 
Most football fans can only dream of pulling on the shirt of their favourite team and running out in front of thousands of adoring fans. Pitch invaders aside, few of us get to experience that adrenalin rush. Of those who do make it as a professional footballer, even fewer realise the giddy heights of success. 
 
In the Illustrated History of Football: Hall of Fame, cartoonist David Squires returns to celebrate those who straddle the game like giants; those talented, determined souls who were juggling tennis balls in the back streets before they could talk. 
 
There’s more than one way to attain football immortality though, and Squires also turns his comic eye to the mavericks, the pioneers, the forgotten legends and the anti-heroes. From Pele to Meazza, Maradona to Socrates, you will be taken on an unforgettable journey through the good, the bad and the Hagi.

The Illustrated History of Football

Hall of Fame

Earvin "Magic" Johnson

William Novak

My Life is the inspirational autobiography of Magic, the top-class athlete whose astonishing career is already a legend. He reflects on his boyhood in Michigan, his college career, his meteoric rise to basketball fame, the women he has met along the way and his most recent triumphs in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona with the larger-than-life 'Dream Team'. 
 
My Life is the deeply personal account of Magic, the exuberant personality who is one of the most beloved sports figures of our time. He talks movingly of his college sweetheart and his wife Cookie, his hopes, fears, and regrets, and now his brave fight against the HIV virus and for AIDS awareness. 
 
A remarkable story, My Life captures the strength of Magic's character, his dazzling career and his equally dazzling smile.

My Life

Duncan Alexander

In football, numbers are everywhere. From touches in the opposition box to expected goals, clear-cut chances to win-loss ratios. 
 
In the modern game, these numbers help provide the narrative, the drama, and the conversation. They are scrutinised in order to justify results and to predict future outcomes. They even dictate transfer policy and drive clubs to achieve the impossible. 
 
But when did the numbers become so important and what do they mean? 
 
In Outside the Box, Duncan Alexander looks back at twenty-five years of the Premier League and beyond, uncovering the hidden truths and accepted myths that surround the game. Using the archives of OptaJoe and never-before-seen data, we discover why Liverpool have gone 27 years without winning a league title and why Lionel Messi is the best player in the game’s history. Or is he? 
 
Insightful, wry, and hugely entertaining, Outside the Box is an enlightening and accessible account of football across the decades, analysing data from the some of the greatest seasons, players, teams and managers.

Showing results for: ‘Michael Symmons Roberts’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter