Story of a suicide in football is poignant winner of William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the winner


Ronald Reng’s deeply touching story of the life and death of the German national team’s goalkeeper, Robert Enke, has won the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.

A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke (Yellow Jersey) was selected from a shortlist of seven titles for the honour, the richest book award of its kind with a cash prize of £23,000. The announcement was made at a reception today at Waterstone’s Piccadilly.

Enke died two years ago this month when he stepped in front of an express train near his home in Germany, having suffered a history of depression.  The recognition for Reng’s skilful telling of a painful story is all the more poignant for coming on a day when the headlines are dominated by the shocking news of another former footballer taking his own life, the Wales manager Gary Speed.

Broadcaster John Inverdale, spokesman for the judging panel, referred to the ‘tragic symmetry’ in their decision, which was reached without knowledge of Speed’s fate.  Cyclist David Millar, whose own autobiography was on the shortlist of seven, Tweeted: 'Worthy winner: pertinent subject.'

When Enke’s death was announced, the reaction in the football world in Germany in particular was much the same as England and Wales has witnessed in the last 24 hours.  Friends and supporters of Enke, who was set to be Germany’s goalkeeper at the World Cup finals in 2010, were stunned, as were the wider public, unable to comprehend why an international footballer apparently at the peak of his career should decide to take his own life.

In A Life Too Short, Reng pieces together the story of a man who had also been his friend as well as his countryman, revealing much about the pressure on those who play sport at the top level and the fears with which many grapple behind a veneer of false confidence. Heartfelt, but never sentimental, Reng describes in painful details the tragedy of a talented man ultimately beaten by his own demons.

Translated into English by Shaun Whiteside and published by Yellow Jersey Press in the UK earlier this autumn, it represents the first translated title to have won the prize.

William Hill spokesman and co-founder of the prize, Graham Sharpe, said: "Robert Enke was one of Germany's greatest goalkeepers and his tragic death shocked the world. Ronald Reng's intimate portrait - vivid, powerful and moving - is an outstanding piece of sportswriting and a very worthy winner of the prize".

John Gaustad, chairman of the judging panel, said: "It is a brilliant piece of work, understated in a sense. [The author] uses very few adjectives and tells it with great restraint and a sensitivity and dignity for its subject. It could not have been done better."

Critics were profoundly moved by the story on its publication in the UK in September. Amy Lawrence, writing in the Observer, confessed it made her feel ‘ashamed about some opinions I have dived into. It is so easy to rush to judgment, to make a cartoon villain of someone or vent spleen from a position of the supposed moral high ground.’

Andy Mitten, in the Manchester Evening News, wrote that ‘English footballers will tell you privately that depression is a far bigger issue than is currently recognised.  Many suffer in silence, afraid even to seek counselling. Maybe by reading about a German who took his life, more will understand.’

The award is the second won by London-based Reng for a book about a German goalkeeper. In 2004, he won the biography prize at the British Sports Book Awards for The Keeper Of Dreams, the story of Lars Leese, who was plucked from the obscurity of reserve team football in the Bundesliga to play for Barnsley in the Premier League.

The judging panel for this year’s award consisted of BBC presenter Inverdale, the much-decorated journalist Hugh McIlvanney, broadcaster Danny Kelly and columnist and author, Alyson Rudd along with chairman Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop.

A Life Too Short beat competition from a strong field, from which a shortlist was selected, in addition to Reng’s book, that  comprised Among The Fans, by Patrick Collins (Wisden Sports Writing); Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight, by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (Profile Books); The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn’t Stop, by Bill Jones (Mainstream Publishing);
Engage : The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson, by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster); Racing Through The Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar, by David Millar with Jeremy Whittle (Orion) and 32 Programmes, by Dave Roberts (Bantam Press).

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable literary sports-writing prize. As well as a £23,000 cash prize, the winning author receives a £2,000 William Hill bet, a hand-bound copy of their book, and a day at the races.  Reng is the 23rd winner of the award. He received his cheque from the 2010 winner, Brian Moore.

READ MORE ABOUT THE SEVEN CONTENDERS FOR THE PRIZE

A Life Too Short

The Ghost Runner

32 Programmes
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar
Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight
Among The Fans
Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson

...or click on any of these links to buy direct from Amazon

A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke
Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson
Among the Fans
The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop
Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight
32 Programmes
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar

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Kimmage's skills give voice to a brave young man in a bleak yet uplifting story

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders


The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed tomorrow.  For the last week, The Sports Bookshelf has been presenting a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today:

Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson (Simon & Schuster)

THE STORY:

It was March 15, 2005. Matt Hampson, a 20-year-old tight-head prop from the Leicester Tigers club, was taking part in a training with an England Under-21 team that included Ben Foden, Toby Flood and James Haskell. The forwards were in full, contested scrum practice. Not unusually, as 16 hefty men confront each other in a shoving match, the scrum would collapse from time to time.

Thankfully, despite the risks inherent, the players normally pick themselves up unscathed and resume practice. On this occasion, however, it was different.

By some freak of physics, the full force of this collapse ended up being borne by Matt Hampson’s neck. In an instant, he suffered a dislocation that trapped his spinal chord.  He was saved from dying on the field because Tony Spreadbury, the referee supervising the session, happened also to be a paramedic, but the damage already done had paralysed Hampson from the neck down.

Paul Kimmage, the Sunday Times journalist, visited Hampson as he recuperated. His brilliant piece -- headlined ‘One Tragic Day’ -- won him the Sports Journalists’ Association interviewer of the year award for the third year in succession.  They struck up a friendship and now Kimmage has told Hampson’s full story, in all its harrowing detail, from the build-up to the fateful day, the drama of the accident itself, the incredibly long rehabilitation, to his struggle to adjust to what passes for him as a normal life.

The result has been hailed as a story that reveals the true hellishness of personal disaster on the scale that befell Hampson as well as the astonishing capacity of one human being to make the best of what little he had left -- in a physical sense -- and to do so without seeking pity.

Hampson now lives in a converted barn in a Leicestershire village, custom made for him by his father, Phil.  He has a ventilator attached to him by a pipe that breathes for him 21,600 times in every 24 hour period.  Yet he manages to pursue a life in which he offers help, advice and support to other victims of serious injury and disability, in particular in a sports context, through his charity The Matt Hampson Foundation (http://www.matthampsonfoundation.org/)

THE CRITICS:

"Engage is a book that will make you laugh, make you cry, make you gasp: it’s the full emotional rollercoaster. I read the 395 pages in two days."
-- Rachel Simmonite, therugbyblog.co.uk Read more…

“Despite this young man’s remarkable character, Engage’s honest, unblinking approach to the scale of his disaster makes this book much bleaker (and better) than just an uplifting triumph-over-adversity tale…a genuinely outstanding book.”
-- Brian Schofield, the Sunday Times. Read more…

"It is typical of Hampson that he treats the very worst experiences as some loony endurance course. The full black humour of his situation unfolds in his autobiography, a hellish, inspiring and often hilarious account of his struggle.”
-- Elizabeth Grice, Daily Telegraph. Read more…

THE AUTHOR:

Paul Kimmage, a former professional cyclist, has already won one William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for Rough Ride, which exposed drug use in his sport and made his name as a writer.   He also won acclaim for writing the autobiographical Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino on behalf of the Republic of Ireland footballer.

* * * * * * * 

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable literary sports-writing prize. As well as a £23,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a £2,000 William Hill bet, a hand-bound copy of their book, and a day at the races. 

The judging panel for this year’s award consists of broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; broadcaster Danny Kelly; and columnist and author, Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop. 

The winner will be announced at a lunchtime reception at Waterstone’s Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookstore, on Monday 28th November.

READ ABOUT THE OTHER SIX CONTENDERS:

A Life Too Short

The Ghost Runner

32 Programmes
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar
Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight
Among The Fans

The shortlist in full:

1. Among the Fans: From Ashes to the Arrows, a Year of Watching the Watchers by Patrick Collins (Wisden Sports Writing)

2. Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (Profile Books)

3. The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop by Bill Jones (Mainstream Publishing)

4. Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster)

5. Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar by David Millar (Orion)

6. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng (Yellow Jersey Press)

7. 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts (Bantam Press)

Buy Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson direct from Amazon 

More on the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

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The watchers watched: Collins delivers a masterclass in the art of sharp and witty observation

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders


The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed on Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today:

Among the Fans (Wisden Sports Writing)

THE STORY:

Patrick Collins has been writing about sport for almost half a century, for the last 30 years as chief sports writer for the Mail on Sunday.  For the most part during that time -- as you would expect -- his eyes have been focused on the field of play.

He has reported on Olympic Games and World Cups, countless Test matches, rugby internationals and world title fights, and described the action in such consistently stylish and well-judged prose that he has gathered almost as many awards as he has had years in the newspaper business, including the ultimate accolade of sports journalist of the year on five occasions.

Yet for Among the Fans, Collins turned his focus away from the arena, or at least from the action taking place, in order to observe the participants without whom the great events he has witnessed would have been merely for the amusement of those taking part -- the supporters.

During a year or so on the road, Collins watched the watchers at some of sport’s great showpieces -- the World Cup in South Africa, an Ashes Test in Adelaide, Wimbledon, the Cheltenham Festival among them -- but also in the rather less rarefied atmosphere of a point-to-point meeting in rural Sussex, a dog track in Kent and a speedway meeting in Eastbourne.  He devotes one chapter to a night spent at the BBC in West London, sitting in while Alan Green converses with the nation on the 606 phone-in.

The end result is an effortless read from the writer most respected and admired by his peers, sometimes gentle and affectionate in its observations, at other times unapologetically critical, yet with the barbs carried always by a clever turn of phrase rather than trenchant, boorish rant.

Among the Fans is a first offering from Wisden Sports Writing, a new imprint from Bloomsbury that promises a small and very selective annual catalogue. Collins has set a high bar for titles that follow.

THE CRITICS:

“He has a way of skewering his targets without forfeiting his own civility…during a lovingly detailed description of the annual Canterbury cricket festival, he steps aside to sketch the late EW Swanton, the grand panjandrum of the Daily Telegraph's cricket coverage: ‘An aristocrat by everything but birth, he acquired a repertoire of patrician airs which were so convincing they might almost have been authentic‘.”
-- Richard Williams, the Guardian. Read more…

“A deeply enjoyable and often very funny book which should persuade those who didn't know it already just how brilliantly readable Collins is.”

-- Simon Redfern, the Independent on Sunday. Read more…

“A masterful piece of writing… is a light and humorous read, in the style popularised by Bill Bryson, rather than an analytical tract.”

-- Simon Briggs, the Daily Telegraph. Read more…

THE AUTHOR:

Patrick Collins began his newspaper career with the Kentish Mercury in 1962. He subsequently wrote for the News of the World, the London Evening News and the London Evening Standard before becoming chief sports writer for the Mail on Sunday in 1982, a position he still holds.

* * * * * * * 

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable literary sports-writing prize. As well as a £23,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a £2,000 William Hill bet, a hand-bound copy of their book, and a day at the races. 

The judging panel for this year’s award consists of broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; broadcaster Danny Kelly; and columnist and author, Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop. 

The winner will be announced at a lunchtime reception at Waterstone’s Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookstore, on Monday 28th November.

RELATED READING:

A Life Too Short

The Ghost Runner

32 Programmes
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar
Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight

The shortlist in full:

1. Among the Fans: From Ashes to the Arrows, a Year of Watching the Watchers by Patrick Collins (Wisden Sports Writing)

2. Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (Profile Books)

3. The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop by Bill Jones (Mainstream Publishing)

4. Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster)

5. Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar by David Millar (Orion)

6. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng (Yellow Jersey Press)

7. 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts (Bantam Press)

Buy Among the Fans direct from Amazon 

More on the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

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In the footsteps of Hemingway: adrenaline and moral dilemmas in a tale of man against beast

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders


The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today:

Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight (Profile Books)

THE STORY:

In 2008, Alexander Fiske-Harrison established his literary credentials when his play, The Pendulum, set against a background of anti-semitic tension in the Vienna of 1900, and in which he also starred, made its debut in the West End and received favourable reviews. 

At around the same time, he wrote an essay about bullfighting for Prospect magazine, the reaction to which led him to move to Spain to study the subject in greater depth, in part drawn by its literary heritage -- Ernest Hemingway, for example, was a notable aficionado -- and in part, as a former member of the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace, to see if he agreed with those who would have the sport banned.

He lived alongside bullfighters around the bullrings and ranches of Spain.  Captivated by the adrenaline rush as well as by history, he ran with the bulls in Pamplona and trained with the great matador Eduardo Dávila Miura with the aim of taking on a bull in the ring himself, which he felt was essential to his understanding of a sport once described by the Spanish poet and noted liberal, Garcia Lorca, as ‘the last serious thing left in the world today'.

That description had struck a chord with Fiske-Harrison in 2000, at the age of 23, when he attended his first bullfight while on holiday with his parents.  He noted, too, that Hemingway had declared bullfighting to be ‘moral’ as it gave him a ‘feeling of life, death and mortality’.  Fiske-Harrison echoes those words when he suggests that ‘you cannot ban the bullfight, because it is already contained in the very facts of life itself. All you can do is turn away‘.

It was while in Spain that he began writing a blog, entitled The Last Arena - In Search of the Spanish Bullfight, and it was the events and thoughts he described along the way that became the basis for his book.

THE CRITICS:

“He develops a taste for the whole gruesome spectacle, but what makes the book work is that he never loses his disgust for it… what I really enjoyed about Into The Arena is that after nearly 300 pages I still couldn’t quite decide whether bullfighting should be banned or allowed to flourish.”
-- Mark Palmer, Mail Online. Read more…

“His eye-witness reports of bullfights are particularly good.  He transposes the spectacle into words with great success, conveying the drama of the corrida while explaining individual moves and techniques with eloquence and precision.”
-- Miranda France, Literary Review. Read more…

"It is a world of glamour, fame and death that Fiske-Harrison penetrates in search of a solution to the 'terrible quandary' of bullfighting… the outcome is a debut that, despite some hefty flaws, provides an engrossing introduction to Spain’s 'great feast of art and danger'."
-- Brian Schofield, Sunday Times. Read more…

THE AUTHOR:

Alexander Fiske-Harrison is an English writer and actor. He was educated at Eton and subsequently at Oxford and the University of London. He trained in acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York.  In addition to writing and starring in the West End play, The Pendulum, he has written about animals and non-human intelligence for Prospect magazine as well as the Financial Times, the Times Literary Supplement and for the BBC and CNN.

* * * * * * *

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable literary sports-writing prize. As well as a £23,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a £2,000 William Hill bet, a hand-bound copy of their book, and a day at the races. 

The judging panel for this year’s award consists of broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; broadcaster Danny Kelly; and columnist and author, Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop. 

The winner will be announced at a lunchtime reception at Waterstone’s Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookstore, on Monday 28th November.

RELATED READING:

A Life Too Short

The Ghost Runner

32 Programmes
Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar

The shortlist in full:

1. Among the Fans: From Ashes to the Arrows, a Year of Watching the Watchers by Patrick Collins (Wisden Sports Writing)

2. Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (Profile Books)

3. The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop by Bill Jones (Mainstream Publishing)

4. Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster)

5. Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar by David Millar (Orion)

6. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng (Yellow Jersey Press)

7. 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts (Bantam Press)

Buy Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight 

More on the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

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The cycling star who supped with the devil but broke ranks to renounce drug cheats

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders

The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed next Monday.  This week, The Sports Bookshelf presents a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today:

Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar (Orion Books)



THE STORY:

By his 18th birthday David Millar was living and racing in France, sleeping in rented rooms, tipped to be the next English-speaking Tour winner. A year later he'd realised the dream and signed a professional contract with the Cofidis team, who had one Lance Armstrong on their books.

He enjoyed the high life a little too enthusiastically at times, breaking his heel in a fall after one well lubricated party. The parties were one means of escaping from the competitive pressures of the sport. But those pressures only grew and as Millar became increasingly frustrated with what was dubbed the peloton à deux vitesses -- in which the riders using illegal performance boosters invariably beat their clean rivals easily -- he began taking much more sinister risks, allowing himself to be sucked into the doping culture that many on the professional cycling circuit accepted was the only way to keep pace.

His world imploded on the night of June 23rd, 2004, when three detectives led him out of a restaurant in Biarritz, his adopted home, took him back to his apartment, which they searched in his presence and where they found two empty phials of the blood-boosting drug EPO and two used syringes.  After a night in jail he was presented with the case against him, told that phone taps already made would render any attempts to deny the charges pointless, and confessed to having used illegal performance-enhancing drugs in order to achieve some of his greatest triumphs.

But it did not spell the end of his career, even though there were plenty who would have had him banned for life.  After a two-year suspension, he found enough supporters willing to allow him back into the sport that he was able to resume riding and has since taken every opportunity to campaign against doping, determined to help save his sport by preventing others from falling into the same trap. He was so passionate about his cause that he once confronted Lance Armstrong, his former teammate, friend and father figure, at a party in Paris and accused him of abusing the sport. 

Millar’s story, which has been compared with Paul Kimmage’s Rough Ride in the way it names names and exposes the dirty secrets of the sport, flying in the face of cycling’s code of silence, holds nothing back.


THE CRITICS:

"Millar's harrowing description of his mental and physical ordeal on an Alpine stage of the 2010 Tour de France… during which he scoured the depths of his soul while falling helplessly behind the rest of the field, deserves to stand among the great first-person accounts of sporting experience."
--- Richard Williams, The Guardian. Read more…

"A sporting masterpiece, a timeless snapshot of a sportsman plummeting the depths and miraculously bouncing back both as a rider and a man."
--- Brendan Gallagher, Daily Telegraph. Read more…

"A gripping account of how obsession can lead a rider on a road to self-destruction."
--- spoke2spoke.com. Read more…

THE AUTHOR:

A Scot born in Malta, David Millar first rose to prominence as 23-year old when he won the prologue of the 2000 Tour de France and enjoyed a brief spell in the yellow jersey.  In all, he has won three stages of the Tour de France, two of the Vuelta a España and one Stage of the Giro d'Italia and is the only British rider to have worn the leader's jersey in all three Grand Tours. He was banned for two years in 2004 after admitting taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs but this year won the silver medal at the World Time Trial Championships. 

* * * * * * * 

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award is the world's longest established and most valuable literary sports-writing prize. As well as a £23,000 cash prize, the winning author will receive a £2,000 William Hill bet, a hand-bound copy of their book, and a day at the races. 

The judging panel for this year’s award consists of broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; award-winning journalist Hugh McIlvanney; broadcaster Danny Kelly; and columnist and author, Alyson Rudd. Chairman of the panel is John Gaustad, co-creator of the award and founder of the Sportspages bookshop. 

The winner will be announced at a lunchtime reception at Waterstone’s Piccadilly (London), Europe’s largest bookstore, on Monday 28th November.

RELATED READING:

A Life Too Short

The Ghost Runner

32 Programmes

The shortlist in full:

1. Among the Fans: From Ashes to the Arrows, a Year of Watching the Watchers by Patrick Collins (Wisden Sports Writing)

2. Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (Profile Books)

3. The Ghost Runner: The Tragedy of the Man They Couldn't Stop by Bill Jones (Mainstream Publishing)

4. Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson by Paul Kimmage (Simon & Schuster)

5. Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar by David Millar (Orion)

6. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng (Yellow Jersey Press)

7. 32 Programmes by Dave Roberts (Bantam Press)

Buy Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar direct from Amazon

More on the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

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