William Hill Sports Book of the Year
Encyclopedia
The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British literary award
Literary award
A literary award is an award presented to an author who has written a particularly lauded piece or body of work. There are awards for forms of writing ranging from poetry to novels. Many awards are also dedicated to a certain genre of fiction or non-fiction writing . There are also awards...

 sponsored by bookmakers William Hill. It claims to be "the world's richest sports book prize" at £22,000 (as of 2010). The award is dedicated to rewarding excellence in sports writing
Sports journalism
Sports journalism is a form of journalism that reports on sports topics and events.While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department, because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports...

 and was first awarded in 1989.
Commenting on the prizes prestige, "Although it is a sports book prize, it has the prestige and the commercial clout to lift the winning book out of the sport section", said Gary Imlach
Gary Imlach
Gary Imlach is a British author, journalist and broadcaster, specialising in sport. Imlach is particularly associated with non-mainstream sports, working for many years as the face of Channel 4's coverage of American Football and the Tour de France, having transferred to ITV when the station...

 who won in 2005. Other sports writing and book prizes include the PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing, CASEY Award
CASEY Award
The CASEY Award has been given to the best baseball book of the year since . The honor was begun by Mike Shannon and W.J. Harrison, editors and co-founders of “Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine.”-CASEY Award recipients:...

, the Jerry Malloy Book Prize, the Seymour Medal, and the SPORTELMonaco Best Illustrated Sports Book.

The same panel of judges is used each year, chaired by John Gaustad, the founder of the Sportspages bookshop on Charing Cross Road, and including broadcaster John Inverdale
John Inverdale
John Inverdale , is an English radio and television broadcaster who works for the BBC, mainly covering sporting events.-Biography:...

 and acclaimed sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney
Hugh McIlvanney
Hugh McIlvanney is an award-winning, Scottish sports writer. He currently holds a long-running column on the back page of The Sunday Times sports section.- Life and career :...

. In its early years the prize was presented in the Sportspages bookshop each November; however Sportspages went out of business at the end of 2005 and the prize moved elsewhere.

History

The first award was held in 1989, when Dan Topolski's book about one of the most controversial University Boat Races was declared the winner.

The status of the award, and of sports books generally, were enhanced greatly in 1992 when Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is an English novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.-Life and career:Hornby was...

's first novel, Fever Pitch
Fever Pitch
Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life is the title of a 1992 autobiographical book by British author Nick Hornby. The book is the basis for two films: Fever Pitch was released in 1997, and Fever Pitch in 2005...

, took first prize. Both Fever Pitch and True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny have subsequently been adapted into feature-length motion pictures. In the first 21 years of the award, only two writers, Donald McRae
Donald McRae (author)
Donald McRae is a South African writer. McRae is noted as the only two-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing in 1996 and In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens in 2002. His other works include The Great Trials of...

, in 1996 and 2002, Duncan Hamilton
Duncan Hamilton (journalist)
Duncan Hamilton is a British author and newspaper journalist and two-time winner of the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year award....

, in 2007 and 2009, have won the William Hill award more than once. Unsurprisingly, given cricket writers' often literary aspirations and the appetite for books on cricket, by 2010 the summer game had been the subject of the prize-winning book six times in 22 years.

The award has not been without controversy. In 2000, the award went for the first time to a "ghosted" book, Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong is an American former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, after having survived testicular cancer. He is also the founder and chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research and support...

's It's Not About The Bike. At the time, some observed the irony of the award going to the American Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...

 winner, when, in 1990, Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage is an award-winning sports journalist who writes for the Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom and is a former professional road bicycle racer.Kimmage was born into a cycling family...

's stern critique of doping in cycling, Rough Ride
Rough Ride
Rough Ride is a William Hill Sports Book of the Year, written by Irish journalist Paul Kimmage in 1990.It is an autobiography that charts the author's upbringing in Dublin and his obsession with cycling, which started with his father being a top-level Irish amateur...

, had been declared the winner.

The judges' choice in 2006, Geoffrey Ward
Geoffrey Ward
Geoffrey Champion Ward is an author and screenwriter of various documentary presentations of American history. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1962.He was an editor of American Heritage magazine early in his career...

's Unforgivable Blackness, was criticised because it had been first published in 2004.

In 2010, Duncan Hamilton
Duncan Hamilton (journalist)
Duncan Hamilton is a British author and newspaper journalist and two-time winner of the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year award....

, a winner twice in the previous three years, was again included in the short-list, although on this occasion, when the award was announced on November 30 in London, the prize was won by Brian Moore, the former England rugby union international, for his autobiography, Beware of the Dog.

2011 was another controversial year with a last minute addition to the shortlist of Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson, a biography of quadriplegic Matt Hampson
Matt Hampson
Matt Hampson is a former English rugby union prop who became quadriplegic after a scrummaging practice accident for England under 21 on 15 March 2005....

, by 1990 winner Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage is an award-winning sports journalist who writes for the Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom and is a former professional road bicycle racer.Kimmage was born into a cycling family...

, despite it not being included on the longlist. The shortlist also included a book on bullfighting
Bullfighting
Bullfighting is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France and some Latin American countries , in which one or more bulls are baited in a bullring for sport and entertainment...

, Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison
Alexander Fiske-Harrison
Alexander Rupert Fiske-Harrison is an English writer and actor. He is best known for writing and acting in The Pendulum in London's West End and for his research into bullfighting for his book Into The Arena, which has led The Times to describe him as "the bullfighter-philosopher." Into The Arena...

, despite journalists including Fiske-Harrison himself arguing that bullfighting was not a sport, leading to the employment of security for the first time at the ceremony at Waterstones of Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...

. In the end the prize went to A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke, about Robert Enke
Robert Enke
Robert Enke was a German football goalkeeper.Enke played at leading clubs in several European countries, namely Barcelona, Benfica and Fenerbahçe, but made the majority of his appearances for Bundesliga side Hannover 96 in his homeland.He won eight full international caps for the German national...

 who committed suicide, by Ronald Reng.

Winners

style="text-align:center; background:DarkSlateBlue; color:gold;"|William Hill Sports Book of the Year
Year Title Author(s) Featured subject Featured sport
1989 True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny Dan Topolski
Daniel Topolski
For the stand-up comedian and actor, see Dan AntopolskiDaniel Topolski is an author, former rower and rowing coach, and summariser on BBC television....

 & Patrick Robinson
The Boat Race
The Boat Race
The event generally known as "The Boat Race" is a rowing race in England between the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, rowed between competing eights each spring on the River Thames in London. It takes place generally on the last Saturday of March or the first...

Rowing
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

1990 Rough Ride: An Insight into Pro Cycling Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage is an award-winning sports journalist who writes for the Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom and is a former professional road bicycle racer.Kimmage was born into a cycling family...

Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage is an award-winning sports journalist who writes for the Sunday Times newspaper in the United Kingdom and is a former professional road bicycle racer.Kimmage was born into a cycling family...

Cycling
Bicycle racing
Bicycle racing is a competition sport in which various types of bicycles are used. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, bike trials, and cycle speedway. Bicycle racing is recognised as an Olympic sport...

1991 Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times
Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times is an award-winning biography of the boxer Muhammad Ali, written in 1991 by Thomas Hauser. It won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award in that year....

Thomas Hauser
Thomas Hauser
Thomas Hauser is an American author.He made his debut as a writer in 1978 with The Execution of Charles Horman; An American Sacrifice. Horman's wife, Joyce and father, Ed Horman cooperated with Hauser on the book describing both the fate of Charles and his family's quest to uncover the truth in...

Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...

Boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

1992 Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is an English novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.-Life and career:Hornby was...

Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is an English novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.-Life and career:Hornby was...

Football
1993 Endless Winter: The Inside Story of the Rugby Revolution Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones (journalist)
Stephen Jones is a Welsh journalist and the rugby union correspondent for The Times and The Sunday Times, and has been for over 20 years and has been twice-named Sports Correspondent of the Year by the Sports Journalists' Association.-References:...

Rugby football
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

Rugby football
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

1994 Football Against the Enemy Simon Kuper
Simon Kuper
Simon Kuper is a British author. He writes about sports "from an anthropologic perspective."Kuper was born in Uganda of South African parents in 1969, and moved to Leiden in the Netherlands as a child, where his father, Adam Kuper, was a lecturer in anthropology at Leiden University. He has also...

Football Football
1995 A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour John Feinstein
John Feinstein
John Feinstein is an American sportswriter, author and sports commentator who wrote the top two best-selling non-fiction sports books in history, A Good Walk Spoiled and A Season on the Brink.-Early life:...

PGA Tour
PGA Tour
The PGA Tour is the organizer of the main men's professional golf tours in the United States and North America...

Golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

1996 Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing Donald McRae
Donald McRae (author)
Donald McRae is a South African writer. McRae is noted as the only two-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing in 1996 and In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens in 2002. His other works include The Great Trials of...

Boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

Boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

1997 A Lot of Hard Yakka Simon Hughes
Simon Hughes (cricketer)
Simon Peter Hughes is an English cricketer and journalist. He is the son of the actor, Peter Hughes, and the brother of the historian Bettany Hughes.-Cricket career:...

Simon Hughes
Simon Hughes (cricketer)
Simon Peter Hughes is an English cricketer and journalist. He is the son of the actor, Peter Hughes, and the brother of the historian Bettany Hughes.-Cricket career:...

Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

1998 Angry White Pyjamas: An Oxford Poet Trains with the Tokyo Riot Police
Angry White Pyjamas
Angry White Pyjamas is a book written by Robert Twigger about his time in a one-year intensive program of studying Yoshinkan aikido.-Summary:...

Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger is a British poet, writer and explorer. He lives in Cairo, Egypt.-Life:Twigger was educated at Balliol College, Oxford University. He first began to study engineering, but after six weeks switched to politics, philosophy and economics. His attendance record was poor, and he left...

Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger is a British poet, writer and explorer. He lives in Cairo, Egypt.-Life:Twigger was educated at Balliol College, Oxford University. He first began to study engineering, but after six weeks switched to politics, philosophy and economics. His attendance record was poor, and he left...

Aikido
Aikido
is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit." Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to...

1999 A Social History of English Cricket Derek Birley
Derek Birley
Sir Derek Birley was an English educator and writer who had a strong interest in sport, especially cricket.He was educated at grammar school in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, and at Queens' College, Cambridge University....

Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

2000 It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life is a 2000 autobiographical book by cyclist Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins.The book was written shortly after Armstrong had won the 1999 Tour de France: he went on to win it six further times in successive years, establishing a record...

Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong is an American former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, after having survived testicular cancer. He is also the founder and chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research and support...

, Sally Jenkins
Sally Jenkins
Sally Jenkins is an American sports columnist and feature writer for The Washington Post. Prior employment includes senior writer for Sports Illustrated. She is a graduate of Stanford with degree in English Literature....

Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong
Lance Edward Armstrong is an American former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times, after having survived testicular cancer. He is also the founder and chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer research and support...

Cycling
Bicycle racing
Bicycle racing is a competition sport in which various types of bicycles are used. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, bike trials, and cycle speedway. Bicycle racing is recognised as an Olympic sport...

2001 Seabiscuit: The True Story of Three Men and a Racehorse
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Seabiscuit: An American Legend is a non-fiction book written by Laura Hillenbrand published in 2001 about the thoroughbred race horse, Seabiscuit. It won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and was made into a feature film in 2003. It has also been published under the title: Seabiscuit - The...

Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Hillenbrand is an American author of books and magazine articles.Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Hillenbrand spent much of her childhood riding bareback "screaming over the hills" of her father's Sharpsburg, Maryland, farm. A favorite of hers was Come On Seabiscuit, a 1963 kiddie book. "I read...

Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit
Seabiscuit was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in the United States. From an inauspicious start, Seabiscuit became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression...

Horse racing
Horse racing
Horse racing is an equestrian sport that has a long history. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in ancient Babylon, Syria, and Egypt. Both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC...

2002 In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens Donald McRae
Donald McRae (author)
Donald McRae is a South African writer. McRae is noted as the only two-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing in 1996 and In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens in 2002. His other works include The Great Trials of...

Joe Louis
Joe Louis
Joseph Louis Barrow , better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time...

, Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete who specialized in the sprints and the long jump. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the...

Athletics
Athletics
Athletics may refer to:* Athletics , an umbrella sport, comprising track and field, cross country, road running and racewalking** Track and field* Athletics , a term for athletic sports and culture based on human, physical competition...

, Boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

2003 Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football Tom Bower
Tom Bower
Tom Bower is a British writer, noted for his revelatory investigative work such as his unauthorized biographies.A former Panorama reporter, his books include unauthorised biographies of Tiny Rowland, Robert Maxwell, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Geoffrey Robinson, Gordon Brown and Richard Branson...

Football Football
2004 Basil D'Oliveira: Cricket and Conspiracy: the Untold Story Peter Oborne
Peter Oborne
Peter Oborne is a British journalist and political commentator. He was educated at Sherborne School and The University of Cambridge. He is a Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph columnist, author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, and, with Frances Weaver, the...

Basil D'Oliveira
Basil D'Oliveira
Basil Lewis D'Oliveira CBE , known affectionately around the world as "Dolly", was a South African-born English cricketer. D'Oliveira was classified as 'coloured' under the apartheid regime, and hence barred from first-class cricket, resulting in his emigration to England...

Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

2005 My Father & Other Working Class Football Heroes Gary Imlach
Gary Imlach
Gary Imlach is a British author, journalist and broadcaster, specialising in sport. Imlach is particularly associated with non-mainstream sports, working for many years as the face of Channel 4's coverage of American Football and the Tour de France, having transferred to ITV when the station...

Stewart Imlach
Stewart Imlach
-External links:* * by Angus Robertson MP....

Football
2006 Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson Geoffrey Ward
Geoffrey Ward
Geoffrey Champion Ward is an author and screenwriter of various documentary presentations of American history. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1962.He was an editor of American Heritage magazine early in his career...

Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson (boxer)
John Arthur Johnson , nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” was an American boxer. At the height of the Jim Crow era, Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion...

Boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

2007 Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough Duncan Hamilton
Duncan Hamilton (journalist)
Duncan Hamilton is a British author and newspaper journalist and two-time winner of the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year award....

Brian Clough
Brian Clough
Brian Howard Clough, OBE was an English footballer and football manager. He is most notable for his success with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. His achievement of winning back-to-back European Cups with Nottingham Forest, a traditionally moderate provincial English club, is considered to be...

Football
2008 Coming Back to Me Marcus Trescothick
Marcus Trescothick
Marcus Edward Trescothick MBE is an English cricketer. He plays first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club, and represented England in 76 Test matches and 123 One Day Internationals. A left-handed opening batsman, he made his first-class debut for Somerset in 1993 and quickly established...

Marcus Trescothick
Marcus Trescothick
Marcus Edward Trescothick MBE is an English cricketer. He plays first-class cricket for Somerset County Cricket Club, and represented England in 76 Test matches and 123 One Day Internationals. A left-handed opening batsman, he made his first-class debut for Somerset in 1993 and quickly established...

Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

2009 Harold Larwood Duncan Hamilton
Duncan Hamilton (journalist)
Duncan Hamilton is a British author and newspaper journalist and two-time winner of the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year award....

Harold Larwood
Harold Larwood
Harold Larwood was an English cricket player, an extremely accurate fast bowler best known for his key role as the implementer of fast leg theory in the infamous "bodyline" Ashes Test series of 1932–33....

Cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

2010 Beware of the Dog Brian Moore Brian Moore Rugby football
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

2011 A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke Ronald Reng Robert Enke
Robert Enke
Robert Enke was a German football goalkeeper.Enke played at leading clubs in several European countries, namely Barcelona, Benfica and Fenerbahçe, but made the majority of his appearances for Bundesliga side Hannover 96 in his homeland.He won eight full international caps for the German national...

Football
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