St Helens Match Of My Life

St Helens Match of My Life features the tales of some of the greatest rugby league players ever to wear the Red Vee of St Helens. The Saints are known as one of the most successful teams of the Super League era, but the memories also cover the glory days before the game switched to the summer months. Includes Ray French, James Roby and Keith Mason.

Fourteen Wigan legends come together to tell the stories behind their favourite ever games for the club &– enabling Warriors fans of all ages to relive these magic moments through the eyes and emotions of the men who were there, playing their hearts out in the famous cherry-and-white hooped shirt. Andy Gregory revels in keeping a clean sheet against deadly rivals St Helens at Wembley, while Terry O'Connor remembers how getting knocked out became the greatest moment of his career! Heroes such as Shaun Edwards, Shaun Wane, Billy McGinty and Dean Bell have chosen unforgettable matches including the 1987 World Club Championship triumph over Manly, winning the 1992 Challenge Cup amid an incredible eight successive victories, and titanic struggles against Leeds in the late &‘90s. Once again, the lads turn in characteristic star performances, winding back the clock to relive treasured memories of the Match of Their Lives for the Warriors.

A History of the Women's FA Cup Final is an exhaustive account of fifty finals, from the first (on a bumpy field inside an athletics stadium) to the fiftieth (at Wembley, televised to millions), complete with match reports and interviews with some of the greatest players ever to grace the pitch. Every women's FA Cup Final goal scorer can be confirmed in one place for the first time, and the achievements of previously unknown record holders can at last be fully recognised. But this is more than just a stats book; it is a tribute to the pioneers of the game, who fought to overturn a fifty-year ban on female players and who paved the way for the incredible game we have today.

Jason Robinson began playing full-time rugby at the age of 16 with Wigan Warriors, the most successful club in Rugby League at the time. He made the transition to Rugby Union with Sale Sharks in 2000 and was fast-tracked to the England squad. His speed, unpredictability and charisma has ensured that he is now widely acknowledged as one of the most exciting players in the world. His extraordinary turnaround from hard-drinking, deeply troubled teenager to born again Christian and dedicated family man makes his story all the more intriguing. Fully updated with all the drama and excitement of the 2003 Rugby World Cup, in which Jason was a crucial and inspiring team member, this edition includes a player's account of England's triumphant victory in the final against Australia.

Few rugby players have matched the achievements of Welshman Mervyn Davies, the shrewd, gutsy number 8 with the heart of a lion. In what was a remarkable career, he won two Grand Slams, three Triple Crowns, earned thirty-eight consecutive Wales caps, was captain of his national team and played in two victorious Lions tours. From the tail end of the 1960s through the first half of the glorious '70s period, 'Merv the Swerve' - with that mop of black hair and trademark headband - cut an iconic figure in the world's great rugby arenas. Teammates and opponents respected him, fans loved him and he was a natural leader of men both on and off the field.Then, in March 1976, everything changed. Mervyn was leading Swansea in a semi-final cup clash when he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage. He began that fateful Sunday preparing for just another high-profile game but ended it fighting for his life. Wales, and the watching sporting world, could do nothing but wait and hope. And just when the odds seemed stacked irreversibly against him, Mervyn did what he had always done: he beat them. Mervyn's life story is one of what was and what might have been. From locker-room tales to the loneliness of rehabilitation, Mervyn's account is funny, moving and honest. He writes about his many highs and lows, about losing rugby but regaining his life, and shares his thoughts on the days he spent in shadow and in strength.

Phil 'The Power' Taylor is the uncontested king of darts, his sixteen world championship titles between 1990 and 2013 far outclassing anything else the game has seen. He started out as a protégé of Eric Bristow, the Crafty Cockney, having wandered into his Burslem pub with a set of darts his wife had given him for his birthday. At that time Taylor was earning £52 a week working in a ceramics factory and hardly played. But jaws dropped and pint mugs tipped over as this newcomer suddenly unleashed a gift for flight that had soon eclipsed even the Crafty Cockney himself, and amassed Phil a haul of over 200 professional tournament victories. Staying Power is a year in the life of a legend, twice nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, a man who made darts look a doddle to British pub-goers everywhere and set his seal on the game as the bloke to beat. A year of triumph and disaster, in which Taylor crashed out of the world championship in the second round to young outsider Michael Smith and fell asleep at home on Christmas day, exhausted from the strain of constant winning. A year when he played arguably the greatest ever game of darts, in the Grand Slam semi-final against recent world champion Adrian Lewis the two slugging it out to the wire. A year in which Taylor rocked Australia, fêted like royalty. A year of spats and hecklers, clashes on stage and off, of head-to-heads with the Dutch superstar Michael van Gerwen. But most of all this is a year in which Phil Taylor, one of sport's greatest champions, has looked hard at his life in his determination to stay in power.

My Kaleidoscopic Life is an account of the life during a century of upheaval and social change. It is a record of adaptation to circumstances and potential opportunities, rather than any burning ambition to become rich or famous. However, the frequent changes in direction and necessary adaptation are certainly unusual. They provide unique and intimate glimpses into rarely described aspects of social history from before World War Two to post-Brexit Britain.

Jamie Peacock is the ultimate modern forward in rugby league. Taking the hard hits, making the toughest yards and leading by example in the Super League and international arenas, 'JP' has come through adversity, on and off the pitch, to become one of the most respected players of his generation. His strength, determination and unfailing will to win have seen him claim the 'Man of Steel' and 'International Forward of the Year' awards, along with a host of other individual honours, while picking up Super League titles and Challenge Cups with Bradford and Leeds. His autobiography No White Flag is a revelatory and inspirational account of a life in professional sport, from starting out as a skinny youth and being told he wouldn't make the grade to dark days in hospital waiting rooms with his career hanging by a thread – culminating in the euphoria of winning the Grand Final with hometown club Leeds Rhinos and leading Great Britain to a historic series whitewash over New Zealand in the autumn of 2007. Forthright and to the point, Jamie pulls no punches in describing rugby league as he sees it. Replete with opinions and anecdotes, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in what it takes to become one of sport's true gladiators.