Advertise on podcast: Talking Sports Books

Welcome to the new edition of "Talking Sports Books" The final score tells you who won. The contract tells you how the sport actually works.That is the territory Andrew Brandt has spent four decades mapping. He has worked as a player agent, sat inside an NFL front office, helped steer the Green Bay Packers through one of the franchise’s defining transitions, taught sports law, advised athletic departments, and explained the business of sport to a public that increasingly knows a salary cap from a hard cap.His book, Smarter About Sports, promises more than a collection of locker-room anecdotes. It is a tour of the machinery behind the spectacle, where money, law, ego, leverage, timing, and public pressure all fight for the same yardage and if you had a dream of being involved in this world and becoming a success and think that you can do it on a budget of long lunches and sitting in an exec box at the stadium then think on as you are about to find out why it takes a certain kind of person to succeed here and sorry to be blunt about this but for 99% of you it's not you and never will be.

Ever thought about becoming a referee ? well this book reveals what it s really like from an author who decided the best way to find out what it was really like was to become one which he did,he also got access to elite level referees to talk to them about what life is like not only on the pitch but off it as well Every football fan knows the feeling. A whistle goes, an arm points, and half the stadium erupts. The other half feels robbed. Within seconds, the referee has become the story. William Ralston’s The Impossible Job asks a sharper question than the usual post-match argument: what if most of us are watching officials with confidence, but without real understanding? This is a book about referees, but it is also about pressure, judgement, fear, authority, technology, and the strange way football turns human decisions into public trials. Ralston follows officials from grassroots matches to the elite game, including access around UEFA, FIFA, and PGMO circles, and builds a portrait of a role most people see every week but rarely understand.

Great sportswriting does more than explain who won. It asks why the contest mattered, what it cost, and what the people inside it were really chasing. That is the territory Seth Wickersham has made his own. Across more than two decades at ESPN, he has reported from locker rooms, family homes, private conversations, NFL power centres, and the edges of obsession quite literally. His new collection gathers 26 essays that show the full range of that work, from Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes to Kobe Bryant, Alex Honnold, NASCAR, football’s violence, and the strange cultural afterlife of “We Will Rock You”. Coming up on the TALKING SPORTS BOOKS SHOW this month ,this is the kind of book that invites a richer conversation than a standard sports biography. It is about winners, yes. It is also about ambition, loneliness, control, risk, memory, and the human need to turn performance into meaning. Coming up then we talk about a Kenyan runner who had both feet amputated, the story behind the most played piece of music in US stadiums and arenas, we look into some of the most lonely roles in sport with the vet's responsible for euthanising injured horses at racetracks and the young DA thrust into the global limelight when he took on the role of prosecutor going up against NBA icon Kobe Bryant . The Book is titled "Be On That Hill" it is available 9/22/26

Tom Coyne opened an email one day and his life changed when he decided owning a golf course was a good idea. Golf often conjures images of pristine fairways, elite players, and exclusive clubs. Yet, Tom Coyne’s latest book, A Course Called Home, invites readers to explore a different side of the game—one rooted in community, resilience, and the love of a local course that many might overlook. Coyne, a New York Times bestselling author known for his deep research into golf culture, takes us on a personal journey that reveals how golf can be about more than just the game itself.

Beginning this month we will be looking at the greatest ever books on sport and we begin with not only the greatest ever book on boxing but one of the greatest ever books on sport . Norman Mailers "The Fight"

In part 2 of "Killing Maradona" author David Arrowsmith returns to look at the years from joining Napoli to his tragic final days .

David Arrowsmith joins me to talk about his new book Killing Maradona how cocaine the camora and crime corrupted footballs greatest talent and with the World Cup almost here Will Gray has released a book "The World Football Food" book a collection of recipes inspired by the 48 nations taking part in this summers tournament.

The World Cup is almost upon us so we are looking back at some of the great World Cup stories we have featured since "Talking Sports Books" began and we go back to "Brazil 1982 The Glorious Failure" with author Stu Horsfield they were the team that had it all the team everyone thought would win the world cup yet on July 5 82 Italy destroyed the dream .

Dave Hannigan joins us today to talk about his new book "We Need To Talk About Roy" None has had more of substance to say for himself. Across nearly four tumultuous decades, from callow teen prospect to grey bearded influencer, Roy Keane has transcended sport, redefined the parameters of fame and captivated the nation. Our hopes, dreams and sometimes our despair have been wrapped up in him, his exploits and outbursts. Oscillating between national treasure and national argument, he put the manic in talismanic, bestriding Lansdowne Road one minute, getting booed there the next. If the sporting heroes of every era offer a window into a society, We Need to Talk About Roy is a fascinating portrait of who and what we were in the age of Keane, showcasing our vices and virtues, our fortunes and foibles. The best of us, the worst of us. Drink. Religion. United. Begrudgery. The Celtic Tiger. Tabloidization. Saipan. Touching on all the major themes and teams, this remarkable book is a refreshing and entertaining look at how the life and times of our greatest footballer is the story of modern Ireland itself. His progress and pitfalls, revolutions and evolution uniquely intertwined with those of the country that made him. He is of Ireland. Ireland is of him.

Welcome back to the new series of "Talking Sports Books" and on this edition we will hear from Tottenham Hotspur's record holding captain Steve Perryman about what happened to him and the club when they were last relegated to what was then division 2. The main book featured this month is "Escape From Holland" Just before dawn on May 10, 1940, German parachute troops rain down on Holland. Watching from his home on the Dutch coast is former international footballer Billy Marsden. It is ten years to the day since the Germans saved his life in a Berlin hospital after he suffered a devastating injury while playing for England - and now it is the German invasion of Holland that is putting his life in jeopardy. In The Hague, Margot Fonteyn and the Sadler's Wells Ballet watch the dogfights from the roof of their hotel. In Amsterdam journalist David Woodward and his American wife, NBC war correspondent Margaret Rupli, are trying to find a way to file the story of the invasion, while young British diplomat Peers Carter attempts to organise an evacuation just eight months into the job. Set across one weekend in May 1940, this is the story of how these people came together to escape with the last official boatload of British evacuees out of Holland before the country capitulated. This is not just the tale of their escape, but the story of why these fascinating characters were in Holland to begin with.

On the new edition of "Talking Sports Books" I am joined by author and journalist Jonathan Wilson to talk about his just released book "The Power and the Glory" . The time is nearly upon us, just moths left to go until the greatest show on earth gets underwayAuthor Jonathan Wilson will join us in November to talk about his new book "The Power and the Glory.The football World Cup is the most watched sporting event on the planet. It has become a global obsession: 211 nations initially entered the 2022 edition. It has been running for almost a century. Yet there has never been a comprehensive history of the World Cup that has considered not only the matches and goals, the players and coaches, the tales of scandal and genius, the haggling and skulduggery of the bidding process, but has also placed the tournaments within a socio-political framework. The story of the World Cup is also the story of the world; this book tells its definitive history.

Talking Sports Books" here is the video edition of the new show with Manchester journalist Dom Farrell talking about his new book release "Glory Days For The Waifs And Strays" On 12 May 2019, Manchester City became the first team to retain the Premier League title for a decade. Twenty years earlier, the same club was slogging its way out of Division Two, having sunk ignominiously to the third tier, its glory days well behind it.Ordinarily, the tale of a sleeping giant awaking to stomp over the competition would be celebrated far beyond the core fan base. But City’s success is tied inextricably to its takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, an event that altered the club’s horizons beyond any plausible recognition. The injection of billions of pounds into the club amid accusations that Abu Dhabi is ‘sportswashing’ its reputation tarnished City’s treble-winning season in 2022/23, as have serious charges of financial impropriety from the Premier League.Glory Days for the Waifs and Strays charts this route from noble rags to uncomfortable riches and unpacks what it means when a team’s lowest lows and highest highs occur improbably within a generation. It amounts to a story like no other in modern football: the distance travelled from there to here, the greats on either side of the white line and the uniquely divisive means by which this has been achieved.Manchester City have defined an era in English football. This is the tale of how that happened and why it matters.ORDER HERE https://amzn.to/3LGbclL

On this edition of the show I am joined by award winning writer and journalist Don Stradley to talk about his new book "Immortals of American Boxing" so who are they who were the fighters who transcended the sport in this edition we will focus on a selection of ring legends.

Welcome to "Talking Spots Books" Twenty-Two Football Shirts that explain the world, geopolitics and the biggest stories of our timeFootball is the world's most popular sport, and the shirts worn by teams and their supporters are its greatest means of cultural expression. Every year clubs launch new kits with increasingly extravagant marketing campaigns and convoluted explanations of how their designs reflect their history and local community. But football shirts are much more than just a symbol of which club we support. A seemingly innocuous combination of colours, sponsor logos and materials can all reflect the social values, financial struggles and political ideologies of the day, as geopolitical issues increasingly seep into every aspect of the game.Investigative journalist Joey D'Urso has travelled across the globe, combining on-the-ground reporting with unparalleled analysis to collate a list of the twenty-two football shirts that best explain the modern world.  More Than A Shirt will take fans on a journey from Birmingham to Belgrade and onto Medellin and Mumbai, outlining how we can see the war in Ukraine in the shirt of Schalke in Germany or China's foreign policy in West Bromwich Albion's; how the shirts of state-owned clubs are used for sportswashing; and why the French national kit embodies worldwide migration patterns.A compelling and eye-opening exploration, More Than A Shirt is essential reading for any football fan and will change the way you think about the beautiful game's most universal symbol

Coming up on this edition of "Talking Sports Books"The Scouting Game brings us the inside story of the hidden world of top-level football scouting from a man with 30 years’ experience in the professional game, and more than a decade in the recruitment team at Chelsea FC’s renowned academy.Chris Robinson reveals how scouts work, what they look for and how they report on players, giving practical examples. He sets out the ideal characteristics that scouts search for in every position, and examines scouting at all levels – grassroots, academy, first team and opposition scouting.Chris explains how scouts interact with agents and what parents can expect from scouts and the professional academies, including how trials work and the developing role of data in scouting. He also considers scouting as a career, pointing out the pros and cons and explaining how to get started.