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Players were players and their watchers were passive. Heroes lived on pedestals - they weren't public property.   This book explores the many ways this dynamic has changed over the years. From the Barmy Army's loud but loyal support of the England cricket team to the jeers that greeted our returning footballers after the World Cup, the relationship between athlete and fan is now quite dramatically different.   With his usual gentle wit and subtle intelligence, renowned sports writer Patrick Collins records one year spent observing a range of different sports and their many and varied fans. From a county cricket match at Canterbury - a place that resists change - to a corporate box at Wembley - watch them eat! see them drink! - from dog racing to swimming galas, this is a wonderful and humorous look at the world of sports - and the fans who make it all possible.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49612579569937,"sku":"GOR003599739","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51361658306833,"sku":"GOR007755914","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408130416.jpg?v=1751145771"},{"product_id":"we-ll-get-em-in-sequins-book-max-davidson-9781408145951","title":"We'll Get 'Em in Sequins","description":"A truly unique and fascinating look at the changing nature of masculinity and manliness, told through the lens of a series of Yorkshire County Cricket Club player portraits through the ages.  George Hirst was a man of his time. His apocryphal quotation \"We'll get 'em in singles\"epitomises his no-fuss approach to all matters, and his distate for excess or ostentation. His stiff upper lip was a requisite part of his Edwardian manliness. Fast forward a century or so to Darren Gough's besequinned victory on Strictly Come Dancing or to Michael Vaughan's final teary press conference, and the different versions of what it means to be masculine are worlds apart.  It is one of the oldest cliches in sports writing to say that sport mirrors life. And yet, in this instance, the world of Yorkshire cricket has so faithfully mirrored the outside world that the cliche is unavoidable. Yorkshire, sobrest of counties, has given us some remarkable characters over the years - Len Hutton, Geoffrey Boycott, and Fred Trueman to name just a few. Through portraits of these and other Yorkshire players, and the values that they shared with their contemporaries, this wonderfully original book maps the contours of a sexual revolution whose tremors are still being felt today.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49615064465681,"sku":"GOR006024617","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49626856849681,"sku":"GOR004576710","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51915895341329,"sku":"GOR004989164","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408145952.jpg?v=1751456700"},{"product_id":"dirtiest-race-in-history-book-richard-moore-9781408181560","title":"The Dirtiest Race in History","description":"The 1988 Seoul Olympics played host to what has been described by some as the dirtiest race of all time, by others as the greatest. The final of the men's 100 metres at those Olympics is certainly the most infamous in the history of athletics, and more indelibly etched into the consciousness of the sport, the Olympics, and a global audience of millions, than any other athletics event before or since.  Ben Johnson's world-record time of 9.79 seconds - as thrilling as it was - was the beginning rather than the end of the story. Following the race, Johnson tested positive, news that generated as many - if not more - shockwaves as his fastest ever run. He was stripped of the title, with Lewis awarded the gold medal, Linford Christie the silver and Calvin Smith the bronze.  More than two decades on, the story still hadn't ended. In 1999 Lewis was named Sportsman of the Century by the IOC, and Olympian of the Century by Sports Illustrated. Yet his reputation was damaged by revelations that he too used performance-enhancing drugs, and tested positive prior to the Seoul Olympics. Christie also tested positive in Seoul but his explanation, that the banned substance had been in ginseng tea, was accepted. Smith, now a lecturer in English literature at a Florida university, was the only athlete in the top five whose reputation remains unblemished - the others all tested positive at some stage in their careers.  Containing remarkable new revelations, this book uses witness interviews - with Johnson, Lewis and Smith among others - to reconstruct the build-up to the race, the race itself, and the fallout when news of Johnson's positive test broke and he was forced into hiding. It also examines the rivalry of the two favourites going into it, and puts the race in a historical context, examining its continuing relevance on the sport today, where every new record elicits scepticism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49615180955921,"sku":"GOR004013900","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49642081550609,"sku":"GOR005313176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408181568.jpg?v=1751337150"},{"product_id":"half-time-book-robert-winder-9781472908940","title":"Half-Time","description":"Set against the backdrop of depression-era politics, 1934 was an annus mirabilis for English sport. Within just a few days of each other, Hedley Verity, Henry Cotton and Fred Perry all triumphed in their field. 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He took his eye off the ball, stepped away from his colleagues, and joined the throng: the people who pay the money. For a year, he relished sharing the experiences of the varied crowds at sporting events great and small: England's always hopeful, always frustrated, football supporters; the panama-hatted brigade at county cricket; the sodden, delirious golf-lovers at the Ryder Cup; and the hey-look-at-me darts fans.  And he penetrates strange, semi-private subcultures like point-to-point and speedway. The result is original, wonderfully readable and very funny.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49634213363985,"sku":"GOR004253928","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408158833.jpg?v=1750713408"},{"product_id":"foinavon-book-david-owen-9781408853153","title":"Foinavon","description":"It was the upset to end all upsets. On 8 April 1967 at Aintree racecourse in Liverpool, a 100-1 outsider in peculiar blinkers sidestepped chaos extraordinary even by the Grand National's standards and won the world's toughest steeplechase.    The jumps-racing establishment – and Gregory Peck, the Hollywood actor whose much-fancied horse was reduced to the status of an also-ran – took a dim view. But Foinavon, the dogged victor, and Susie, the white nanny goat who accompanied him everywhere, became instant celebrities. Within days, the traffic was being stopped for them in front of Buckingham Palace en route to an audience with the Duchess of Kent. Fan mail arrived addressed to 'Foinavon, England'. According to John Kempton, Foinavon's trainer, the 1967 race 'reminded everyone that the National was part of our heritage'.    Foinavon's Grand National victory has become as much a part of British sporting folklore as the England football team's one and only World Cup win the previous year. The race has even spawned its own mythology, with the winner portrayed as a horse so useless that not even its owner or trainer could be bothered to come to Liverpool to see him run. Yet remarkably the real story of how Foinavon emerged from an obscure yard near the ancient Ridgeway to pull off one of the most talked-about victories in horseracing history has never been told.     Based on original interviews with scores of people who were at Aintree on that rainswept day, or whose lives were in some way touched by the shock result, this book uses the story of this extraordinary race to explore why the Grand National holds tens of millions of people spellbound, year after year, for ten minutes on a Saturday afternoon in early spring.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49658713276689,"sku":"GOR005643385","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52728470274321,"sku":"GOR014602363","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1408853159.jpg?v=1751440917"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/wisden-sports-writing-book-series.oembed?page=2","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}