Sport Under Cover

It is a little known fact that one of the best reasons for emigrating to the United States is that you can browse through the sports section of your local bookshop without being confronted by an appalling army of soccer biographies. Here, they are unavoidable, legions of current and jaded stars gazing at you from the covers of their tomes. The formula is hackneyed now; caps doffed to economically impoverished but nonetheless golden boyhood days, due credit paid to invaluable gaffers, churlish "revelations" about old enemies, wry anecdotes and wise words. A self-deprecating word about the lamentable golf game and hey presto, you're an author.

Still, if autobiographies are your poison, you may be best advised to settle for Alex Ferguson's. In keeping with the climate of the times, the Manchester United manager's musings are bigger and better than all others. Ghosted by the esteemed Sunday Times sports writer Hugh McIlvanney, Alex Ferguson: Managing My Life (Hodder and Stoughton, £18.99 stg) traces his story from the early days of industrial Clydeside through to Aberdeen and his glory days at Old Trafford. The text is framed by chapters detailing the magic of the Nou Camp stadium last May, thereby ensuring that all Red Army fans keep on reading. Over half of the work, however, chronicles Ferguson's early career as a player, and later as a manager with Aberdeen.

McIlvanney's style and Ferguson's own detailed record keeping distinguishes this book from the unhappy soccer biography canon and even for neutrals, it makes for entertaining stuff.

Those is search of a less glamorous story might settle for Second Time Around (Collins Willow £18.00 stg) the memoirs of Kevin Phillips, the young Sunderland and (of late) England striker. Kev is Curly Watts with a goal-scoring touch and accounts for his metamorphosis from humble box-packer in Baldock Town to terrace idol in the Stadium of Light without missing a single cliche.

Other standard efforts include Alan Hansen: A Matter of Opinion (Partridge £16.99 stg, 281pp), Graeme Souness: The Management Years (Andre Deutsch, £21.60 stg) and Dwight Yorke: The Official Biography (Manchester United Books, £18.00 stg).

Boxing has traditionally drawn the best of sportswriters from both sides of the Atlantic and Come out Writing, edited by Bill Hughes and Patrick King (Mainstream £12.00 stg) is an absorbing anthology.

Particularly fascinating is an unsentimental portrayal of the twilight of Gerry Cooney's career by Budd Shulberg and a two-strand piece on an acrimonious middleweight title fight between Marvin Hagler and Ray Leonard. George Kimball argues the toss for Leonard, the victor, while Hugh McIlvanney weighs in with the embittered Hagler.

Boxing - or rather its most famous subject - is also the subject of what is probably the finest sports book made available here this year. David Remnick's King of the World (Picador £18.00) eclipses the majority of the inexhaustible studies of Muhammad Ali, no inconsiderable feat.

He examines Ali's short spin to global stardom against the demise of the shy, failing Floyd Patterson and the malevolent presence of the lonely and unlovable Sonny Liston.

The influence which contemporary social and political movements had on Ali are prudently examined, as are the legend's occasional fits of petulance and mean-spiritedness.

It seems unfortunate, however, that Remnick's superb interpretation of Ali appears the same year as Mike Marqusee's Redemption Songs (Verso, £17 stg), which also deals with Ali and, like Remnick's work, was nominated for the William Hill sportsbook of the year award.

It has been another good year for scribbling from the fairways. Fans of John Feinstein's 1995 epic A Good Walk Spoiled will no doubt lap up his latest on golf's millionaires - The Majors: In Pursuit of Golf's Holy Grail (Little Brown and Co, £24.00). By gaining unparalleled access to the (American) Tour players, Feinstein offers a unique perspective on the tournaments as the human and sporting dramas unfold. The style is a little bit too cosy for comfort, but he tells a tight yarn.

On to the more hectic environment of Formula One and two books on the sport catch the eye this year. Ayrton Senna (Haynes Publishing, £24.00 stg) by Christopher Hilton ought to do much to sate the on-going preoccupation with the Brazilian driver who lost his life in 1994. From his carting days at Interlagos in Sao Paulo through to Formula One, Hilton painstakingly traces Senna's life and re-examines the effect his death has had on the sport. Inevitably a bit maudlin in tone, but a formidable exercise in research.

At the other end of the spectrum, champagne supernova Eddie Irvine has penned a dissertation on racing in Eddie Irvine: Life in the Fast Lane - the Inside Story of the Ferrari years (Eberg, £20.40). Mindful of the tedium of the technical nature of racing, Eddie thoughtfully includes his ruminations on related issues, with chapters such as "Friends", "Women and Children" and "Girls, Girls, Girls." Caution: Not the most restrained of reads.

Publications on professional cycling are beginning to read more and more like obituaries and while Yellow Fever: The dark heart of the Tour de France (Headline £20.75) is no exception, it is still a distinguished indictment of an extremely ill sport. Although it was no vintage year for Irish rugby, the publication of Edmund Van Esbeck's thorough work on that very subject places the recent abysmal form in context. Irish Rugby 1874-1999 (Gill and Macmillan, £25.00) is a dauntingly in-depth recollection of the highs and lows of the sport. The author's peerless knowledge of his subject, the excrutiatingly detailed statistical data and his unflagging love of the game combine to produce a tribute to the sport and an invaluable reference source. Internationally, it was an indifferent year for rugby publications, the most noteworthy being Francois Piennar's autobiography, Rainbow Warrior (Collins Willow £20.40).

Home fires were just about kept flickering with this year's releases. The Shane Broderick Story (Wolfhound £7.99) is an account of the former jockey's promising career, the tragedy at Fairyhouse which left him quadriplegic and his efforts to cope. Simply written and moving.

Them and Us - the Irish at Cheltenham (Mainstream £14.99), sees John Scally wandering into other sporting arenas throughout his text. However, this is a lively and warm exploration of the charm of Cheltenham and its unique place in Irish racing lore.

From the Gaelic fields comes Off the Field and On (Wolfhound £7.99) by Brendan Fullam, which trawls history to recall landmark moments such as Bloody Sunday. The most valuable section, however, covers London's GAA history. A Season of Sundays '99 (Sportsfile £19.95) is the third photographic annual tracing the year on Gaelic games fields and, once again, Ray McManus's team have captured a wealth of images.

United Irishmen (Mainstream £9.99) is the latest from Chris Moore's seemingly inexhaustible Manchester United ink-well. This time, he busies himself analysing the careers of the 11 best Irishmen to have worn the red shirt. Written in unapologetic fanzine fashion.

The more interesting reads of the year concern themselves with more off-beat source material. Peter Chapman's The Goalkeeper's History of Britain (Fourth Estate £20.40) is a quirky homage to the art's long forgotten martyrs. A novel idea charmingly executed.

Equally innovative was Playground of the Gods (Verso, £17 stg) by Ian Stafford, who, frustrated by the natural limitations of merely being a fan, sets out to spar with his heroes.

Hence, he is unceremoniously hammered by boxer Roy Jones Jnr, throttled by squash legend Jansher Khan and turned inside out by Brazilian soccer star Romario. A refreshingly downto-earth portrayal of stars in an era when they seem increasingly dislocated from their audience.

Like Stafford, American writer Joe McGinniss was shortlisted for the William Hill sportsbook of the year award for his work, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (Little Brown, £21.60 stg). McGinniss became infatuated with soccer when the World Cup moved Stateside in 1994 and was so enthused by the game that he moved to Abruzzo in central Italy to write what he anticipated would be a florid account of the beautiful game.

Instead, he got an eyeful of gambling, match-fixing, sex, drugs and dreadful Italian rock 'n' roll, all of which he relates to us with bittersweet humour.

Equally noteworthy is Barca by Jimmy Burns (Bloomsbury £16.99 stg), a mesmerising account of the life and times of Barcelona FC.

Derek Birley's relentlessly dry but factually unimpeachable A Social History of English Cricket (Arumpress, £20 stg) was the surprise choice for the William Hill book of the year - normally a fast passage to decent sales. Hard to see this one emulating Fever Pitch in terms of revenue, though. A more popular cricket book has been White Lightening (Collins Willow £16.99), Allan Donald's hard-hitting autobiography of his fast-bowling lifestyle with South Africa and Warwickshire.

One of the most unforgivable oversights on the part of Irish book retailers has to be the continuing unavailability of the Best American Sports Writing series. (Sportspages Books in Charing Cross, London will deliver on order).

US fiction writer Richard Ford edits the 1999 edition and it includes a liberal selection of pieces on hunting and small-time tales that are usually washed away in the flood. Guy Lawson's Hockey Nights is a bleak, troubling tale of a junior hockey season and the attendant disharmony in an isolated Canadian town stands out.

The only thing more promising than an annual collation of US sportswriting is a centennial collection. Obligingly, the Best American Sportswriting of the Century (Houghton Mifflin, £20.00, edited by David Halberstam) is also available.

All the inky-fingered legends are here and frequently, the pieces are less about American sport than American life. Would that the 21st century serve sports writing so well.