The Red and the Black by Michael Aylwin
In August 1995, the walls around amateur rugby union came tumbling down with the announcement that the game would turn professional after a year's moratorium. It was to prove the signal for frantic activity in England, as clubs throughout the land desperately tried to prepare themselves for the impending revolution. Amid the chaos, an unlikely force emerged as a front-runner in the new professional era. Traditionally, Saracens had been the Cinderellas of first-class rugby, surviving by hook or by crook in the higher reaches of the national leagues. They were a homely club based in a dilapidated pavilion on a patch of North London parkland. Shrewd wit had kept them hanging on in the old days and, with the financial support of local millionaire Nigel Wray, its continued application soon propelled them forward at dizzying speed into a blinding future. Lynagh, Sella, Bracken and Pienaar were among those enlisted to lend their support to the emerging talents of Diprose and Hill. The rapid upheaval continued as the first team moved from its humble parkland home, first to Enfield football stadium and then to the grand Vicarage Road stadium in Watford. In less than two years, Saracens were playing in front of a crowd of 20,000 for the league title. At the end of that second season of professional rugby, they won the Cup for the first time in their long but modest history. From those giddy heights, however, Saracens became embroiled in a desperate fight to remain at the top of the domestic game in the third season of professionalism as unrenewed contracts ticked down to their conclusion and the new-found pressures of the professional game began to tell. This is the behind-the-scenes tale of such glory and uncertainty in the world of Rugby Union today.
Matt Singer is a Webby Award-winning writer, critic, and podcaster. The current editor-in-chief of ScreenCrush, Matt has been a frequent contributor to the television shows CBS This Morning Saturday and Ebert Presents At the Movies, and his writing has also appeared in print and online at The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and Indiewire. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters. His parents swear one of his first words as a baby was Spider-Man. J. M. DeMatteis is an Eisner award winning comic writer renowned for his work on Justice League, Batman, Captain America, The Defenders, Spider-Man, and more. DeMatteis famously wrote Kraven's Last Hunt, which has been hailed as one of the greatest Spider-Man stories of all time. Andrew Robinson is a comic book artist and painter, known for his cover work on Starman and Hawkman, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, and The Fifth Beatle.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781840181944 |
| ISBN 10 | 184018194X |
| Title | The Red and the Black |
| Author | Michael Aylwin |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Transworld Publishers Ltd |
| Year published | 1999-10-14 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |