Rob Smyth

The rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the greatest in English football history. It is the only time two teams have completely dominated the league for a decade. It was a mixture of the epic and the pathetic, with glorious football, hateful confrontations and even a pizza fight. Like all great rivalries, this was a study in contrasts: north versus south, British and Irish versus French. Both regularly tried to claim the moral high ground, often at the same time. The rivalry centred on four people: the managers, Arsène Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, and the hard men, Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane, who regularly came together like nitroglycerin and gunpowder. Over time those involved have developed the mutual respect of boxers embracing after the final bell. They played when football was a mixture of silk and steel, artistry and aggro, and know such a feud could no longer happen because of the sanitisation of the game. Their rivalry was not just the greatest of its kind in English football; it was also the last.

The improbable story of a soccer player who scammed his way into a lengthy career...without ever playing in a game. Born in Rio Pardo, Brazil, Carlos Henrique Raposo had dreams of becoming a professional soccer (futbol) player. After a youth career at Botafogo and Flamengo, he had his sights set on the future. Whether given the nickname "Kaiser" due to his resemblance of superstar Franz Beckenbauer or a bottle of Kaiser beer, he used his new-found name to begin a career where he "wanted to be a footballer, but did not want to play football." Thus began a decade-plus career that spanned across Brazil (Botafogo, Flamengo, Bangu, Fluminense, Vasco da Gama, and America), Mexico (Puebla), France (Gazelec Ajaccio), and the United States (El Paso Sixshooters). Relying on his charm and friends in high places--from fellow footballers Carlos Alberto Torres, Ricardo Rocha, and Renato Gaucho, to reporters willing to write "stories" of his "career"-- Carlos Kaiser used his skills of deception to have a storied career without ever stepping foot on the pitch. Whether faking injuries, having friends lie for him, making up tall tales, or getting thrown out of a match just before taking the field, Kaiser The Greatest Footballer Never to Play Football is an incredible story of the lengths one man went to have a professional soccer career without every playing a game. Originally published in the UK, and with a world-renowned documentary released on his life, Kaiser shares the lengths taken by one man who wanted all the glitz and glory of being a professional athlete . . . without ever having to be an actual athlete. So whether you're a fan of soccer, futbol, professional sports, or stories of cunning and deception, Kaiser is the story you don't want to miss

* SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS *Robin Smith was one of England's most popular cricketers of the 1990s. The Judge, as he was known to all, took on some of the most dangerous fast bowlers of all time with a skill and fearlessness that ensured hero status. His savage square cut drew roars of approval from fans all around the world, especially those of his beloved England and Hampshire. But when he was prematurely dumped from the England set-up at the age of 32, he had to face his toughest opponent of all - himself. Smith suffered a debilitating loss of identity, especially when he retired from professional cricket in 2003, and struggled to deal with the contradictions in his personality. Was he the Judge, the fearless warrior, or Robin Smith, the frantic worrier? Without a support structure to transition from cricket to the outside world, Smith suffered from mental health, alcohol, marital and financial problems until he hit rock bottom and planned to take his own life. In The Judge - More than Just a Game, he revisits his experience of extreme darkness and challenges received wisdom about masculinity and mental health. He also shares the many highs and lows of his eventful international and county career, including his exhilarating battles with the West Indies and his struggles against mystery spin. And he reflects fondly on a time when cricketers worked hard and partied even harder; a time almost unrecognisable to the modern day.

1980s Rio de Janeiro. Thereâ??s only one king in this city and heâ??s got the mullet, swagger and fake ID to prove it. Introducing Carlos Henrique Raposo, known to all as KAISER. This guyâ??s got more front than Copacabana beach.

The rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the greatest in English football history. It is the only time two teams have completely dominated the league for a decade. It was a mixture of the epic and the pathetic, with glorious football, hateful confrontations and even a pizza fight. Like all great rivalries, this was a study in contrasts: north versus south, British and Irish versus French. Both regularly tried to claim the moral high ground, often at the same time. The rivalry centred on four people: the managers, Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, and the hard men, Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane, who regularly came together like nitroglycerin and gunpowder. Over time those involved have developed the mutual respect of boxers embracing after the final bell. They played when football was a mixture of silk and steel, artistry and aggro, and know such a feud could no longer happen because of the sanitisation of the game. Their rivalry was not just the greatest of its kind in English football; it was also the last.

From the celebrated mock obituary following England's first-ever defeat by Australia on home soil in 1882, to the on-pitch insults (or 'sledges') of today, Ashes cricket has spawned nearly as many memorable quotes as it has balls bowled and runs scored. GENTLEMEN AND SLEDGERS charts the ebb and flow of Anglo-Australian cricketing fortunes across 131 years and 314 matches by telling the stories behind 100 memorable Ashes quotations. From fast bowler Jeff Thomson's classic 'I enjoy hitting a batsman more than getting him out. I like to see blood on the pitch' in 1975, to Michael Clark's notorious advice to Jimmy Anderson to 'get ready for a f****** broken arm' in 2013, the quotations embrace quips, insults, examples of the dark art of sledging – and even the occasional considered cricketing judgement. Evoking memorable moments and matches as well as highs and lows in the careers of Australia and England's greatest players, GENTLEMEN AND SLEDGERS is an informal, freewheeling, discursive and entertainingly opinionated history of the Ashes.

The story of the coolest international football team in history - the 1980s Danish national team - told for the first time in English.The Denmark side of the 1980s was one of the last truly iconic international football teams. Although they did not win a trophy, they claimed something much more important and enduring: glory, and in industrial quantities. They were a bewitching fusion of futuristic attacking football, effortless Scandinavian cool and laid-back living. They played like angels and lived like you and I, and they were everyone’s second team in the mid-1980s. The story of Danish Dynamite, as the team became known, is the story of a team of rock stars in a polyester Hummel kit. Hailing from a country with no real football history to speak of and a population of five million, this humble and likeable team was unique. Everymen off the field and superheroes on it, they were totally of their time, and their approach to the game was in complete contrast to the gaudy excess and charmless arrogance of today’s football stars. That they ultimately imploded in spectacular style, with a shocking 5-1 defeat to Spain in the 1986 World Cup in a game that almost everyone expected them to win, only adds to their legend. For the first time in English, Danish Dynamite tells the story of perhaps the coolest team in football history, a team that had it all and blew it in spectacular style after a live-fast-die-young World Cup campaign. Featuring interviews with the players themselves, including Michael Laudrup, Preben Elkjær and Jesper Olsen, as well as with those who played or managed against them, this is a joyous celebration of one of the most life-affirming teams the world has ever seen.

On August 15th 1992, the Premier League kicked off for the very first time to the sound of money. That same season, a new kind of branded commercialism descended across the continent as the European Cup was re-launched as the Champions League. In 1994, the game's oldest trophy, the FA Cup, would become the last of English football's major competitions to fall to commercial sponsors. The early 1990s mark the moment at which the beautiful game, the sport of the common man, wound up on a market stall, complete with price tag. Of course the game needed to change - terraces had become ugly, dangerous places, blighted with racism and afflicted with the tragedies of Hillsborough and Heysel; on the mud-patches that passed for pitches, tackles were brutal, bone-crunching, and very much from behind. But rather than righting wrongs, pockets were lined as the legacy of football was cashed in. Rob Smyth and Georgina Turner explore the fan's-eye view of 21st-century football, a game that can be about breathtaking style, but very little substance; a grossly inflated memory of its former self where Football's Soul (TM) is an idea to be traded, not treasured.' Jumpers for Goalposts' gives the facts, figures, wit and insight that proves that in the game of the people, for the people, the fans do know best and that to recover its soul, the beautiful game has to rediscover its roots.

In the year 2000, in an attempt to preserve the best traditions of cricket, the MCC and the ICC agreed to incorporate a preamble to the laws of the game, entitled The Spirit of Cricket. The Spirit of Cricket is a compelling collection of the great moments in cricket history that epitomise the best of the game. Spanning the globe, featuring cricketers from all the major playing nations and covering moments from the Ashes in the nineteenth century to the IPL in the twenty-first, this is the perfect read for cricket lovers everywhere.

In the year 2000, in an attempt to preserve the best traditions of cricket, the MCC and the ICC agreed to incorporate a preamble to the laws of the game, entitled The Spirit of Cricket. The Spirit of Cricket is a compelling collection of the great moments in cricket history that epitomise the best of the game. Spanning the globe, featuring cricketers from all the major playing nations and covering moments from the Ashes in the nineteenth century to the IPL in the twenty-first, this is the perfect read for cricket lovers everywhere.