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19th October 2016
05:08pm BST
Author Buzz Bissinger wanted to get an insight into the role that high school football has in communities in the United States and so immersed himself into life in the football-mad town of Odessa, Texas for a year in the late 1980s.
The result was a riveting read, not just about the obsession with the sport in the town, but about issues such as politics, race and social equality; a book that was so influential that it spawned a movie and was the inspiration for a wildly popular TV series.
The lid has been well and truly blown off the culture of doping and cheating since, but Paul Kimmage’s first-hand account of the murky world of professional cycling, first published as far back as 1990, remains one of the best and most important books on sport ever written.
It was an incredibly brave move by Kimmage to open up about the use of performance-enhancing medication in the sport – including a confession about his own use of amphetamines – and it was not until years after that its significance was properly appreciated.
There aren’t that many autobiographies in this list, but the incredible life story of arguably Ireland’s most beloved footballer was never in danger of missing out.
Most Irish football fans would have been aware of Paul McGrath’s battle with the bottle before he told his story to Vincent Hogan, but some of the anecdotes detailing the woe it caused McGrath and those close to him are enough to move a reader to tears.
It’s not all darkness and depravity, however and as you’d expect from a member of Jack’s Army during the glory years of Irish football, there are plenty of rip-roaring stories in here too. Overall, a fascinating insight into one of the most fascinating sportspeople Ireland has ever produced.
Access to the dark secrets of Tiger Woods’ personal life was granted to pretty much everyone following the stunning revelations about his infidelities in 2009 and it turns out there was plenty more light to be shed on what he’s like behind closed doors.
Hank Haney, Tiger’s coach for the best part of six years, was one of the precious few to infiltrate Tiger’s inner sanctum and The Big Miss is full of titbits about Woods’ complicated personality and his obsession with the Navy SEALs, a subject expanded upon in this revelatory Hunter Thompson piece.
The concept of Moneyball is applied so often in virtually every sport that it’s nearly considered old hat at this stage, but the impact it had on baseball, America’s game, was truly ground-breaking.
Explaining the system of sabermetrics used to great effect by Billy Beane with the Oakland A’s doesn’t necessarily make for a great book on paper, but Michael Lewis manages to turn in an informative and entertaining read.
Countless sports stars steer clear of the faintest whiff of controversy when telling their life story, never mind recalling experiments with crystal meth, as Andre Agassi does in his.
Searing honesty is a prevailing theme throughout Open and it’s a lesson that his counterparts could learn when committing their stories to print, even if it’s just for more of the type of tales that reveal how much of a tight ass Pete Sampras really is.
More books have been written about the late Muhammad Ali than probably any other figure in sporting history and in fairness to ‘The Greatest,’ he provided more than enough material for them.
The work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Remnick is as good a place to start with Ali as any and provides great detail in the account of his rise to prominence and journey to becoming one of the biggest figures in the history of sport.
Who’d be a football manager?
The rewards are often lucrative, but the pressures of the job and the insecure environment in which managers operate are laid bare in a book whose title was inspired by Arsene Wenger, who likened management to "living on a volcano: any day may be your last".
Calvin interviews a selection of managers, including Brendan Rodgers, Roberto Martinez and Eddie Howe in a book (the winner of the 2015 William Hill Sports Book of the Year) that helps explain why so few survive in such a cutthroat profession.
If this book wasn’t published, then Kevin Cassidy would probably have an All-Ireland medal in his back pocket and the most awkward TV interview in the history of the GAA would never have taken place.
The consequences for Cassidy, one of six inter-county players and one manager profiled in This is our Year, was, of course, the main talking point to emerge from a book that ruffled more than a few feathers back in 2011.
In some ways, that's a pity as it has somewhat overshadowed what was a fascinating fly-on-the-wall account of what goes on inside GAA dressing rooms, a sanctuary that’s increasingly difficult to access in the modern era.
Any suggestions to add to the list? Feel free to let us know on Facebook or Twitter, or at editorial@JOE.ie.
Part Two coming soon.
