{"title":"Books by Duncan Hamilton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781529408447","title":"Injury Time","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'One of the best football books I've ever read.' John Motson on \u003ci\u003eProvided You Don't Kiss Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed by that attitude. I can assure you it's much more important than that' - Bill Shankly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat Shankly said isn't even half-true. In fact, it's bollocks. Football isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. If nothing else, I know that much.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a player, Thom Callaghan was defined by the winning goal he scored in an FA Cup final. The goal wasn't the blessing he imagined it would be. His whole career was defined by that brief moment of glory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith his playing days over, Callaghan, still a local hero, is tempted back to his old club as caretaker manager. His task to rescue it from relegation. He's got the job solely on the recommendation of his former boss and mentor Frank Mallory, now desperately ill and responsible for the team's precipitous decline.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCallaghan is pitched into the Premier League during the last months of the 1996-1997 season, where - among reputations more gilded than his own - he finds himself pitted against the likes of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, chasing their fourth title in five years, and also one of the newest recruits to the English game, Arsene Wenger.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCan Callaghan save his club from what seems the inevitability of the drop? Does Mallory - eccentric, inspirational and manipulative - even want him to succeed? What if the prize of a personal triumph isn't worth it in the end?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eInjury Time \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eis the first novel from the multiple award-winning sportswriter Duncan Hamilton.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43204715708594,"sku":"9781529408447","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529408447_ed215702-321b-4acc-a6eb-044cf142a7f4.jpg?v=1786023301"},{"product_id":"9780008232696","title":"A Clear Blue Sky","description":"\u003cp\u003eWINNER OF THE WISDEN BOOK OF THE YEARAs a young boy of eight, Jonny Bairstow was dealt a cruel blow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis father David ‘Bluey’ Bairstow, the combative and very popular wicketkeeper and captain of Yorkshire, took his own life at the age of forty-six. David left behind Jonny, Jonny’s sister Becky and half-brother Andy, and his wife Janet, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer at the time of his death. From these incredibly tough circumstances, Jonny and his family strived to find an even keel and come to terms with the loss of their father and husband.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJonny found his way through his dedication to sport. He was a gifted and natural athlete, with potential careers ahead of him in rugby and football, but he eventually chose cricket and came to build a career that followed in his father’s footsteps, eventually reaching the pinnacle of the sport and breaking the record for most Test runs in a year by a wicketkeeper.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten with multiple-award-winning writer Duncan Hamilton, this is an incredible story of triumph over adversity and a memoir with far-reaching lessons about determination and the will to overcome.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56221256941941,"sku":"9780008232696","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780008232696_b2f58272-2071-4d7d-bf2c-cf5b845cb41b.jpg?v=1785658722"},{"product_id":"9780099558583","title":"Immortal","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe two time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award on George Best, considered the greatest footballer of our time.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo other imposed himself so completely on to the romantic imagination. No other was so emblematic of the era during which he flourished. And no other will ever be as memorable as George Best. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the field Best's skills were sublime and almost other-worldly. Off it, he had a magnetic appeal. He was treated like a pop icon and a pin-up; a fashion-model and a sex-symbol. Every man envied him and every woman adored him. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo mark the 50th anniversary of his debut for Manchester United, Duncan Hamilton examines Best's crowded life and premature death. But most importantly, Hamilton presents Best at his glorious peak - the precocious goals, the labyrinthine runs, the poise and balletic balance and the body swerves. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is George Best: footballing immortal.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223671189877,"sku":"9780099558583","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099558583_f988610b-842b-499b-b531-eeebb07bed3f.jpg?v=1786011835"},{"product_id":"9780857381484","title":"A Last English Summer","description":"Combining reportage, anecdote, biography, history and personal recollection, A Last English Summer is an honest and passionate reflection on cricket's past, present and future. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2009 the county system looked directionless and obsolete; more than ever the players blessed with central contracts seemed apart from, rather than a part of, the domestic game; the home Ashes series was for the first time only available on pay-TV; and, of course, the juggernaut of Twenty20 threatened to flatten all but the Test form of the game, suggesting it may soon eclipse even that as well. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuncan Hamilton has preserved this seminal, convulsing season, which in years to come may be seen as a turning point in the history of cricket. 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I'm not sure he could write a dull sentence if he tried'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSpectator \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of Duncan Hamilton's favourite writers on cricket, Edmund Blunden, wrote how he felt going to watch a game: 'You arrive early, earlier even than you meant . . . and you feel a little guilty at the thought of the day you propose to give up to sheer luxury'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFollowing Neville Cardus's assertion that 'there can be no summer in this land without cricket', Hamilton plotted the games he would see in 2019 and write down reflectively on some of the cricket that blessed his own sight. It would be captured in the context of the coming season in case subsequent summers and the imminent arrival of The Hundred made that impossible. He would write in the belief that after this season the game might never be quite the same again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe visits Welbeck Colliery Cricket Club to see Nottinghamshire play Hampshire at the tiny ground of Sookholme, gifted to the club by a local philanthropist who takes money on the gate; his village team at Menston in Yorkshire; the county ground at Hove; watches Ben Stokes's heroics at Headingley, marvels at Jofra Archer's gift of speed in a Second XI fixture for Sussex against Gloucestershire in front of 74 people and three well-behaved dogs; and realises when he reaches the last afternoon of the final county match of the season at Taunton, 'How blessed I am to have been born here. How I never want to live anywhere else. How much I love cricket.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eOne Long and Beautiful Summer\u003c\/i\u003e forms a companion volume to Hamilton's 2009 classic, \u003ci\u003eA Last English Summer\u003c\/i\u003e. It is sports writing at its most accomplished and evocative, confirming his reputation as the finest contemporary chronicler of the game. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303101968757,"sku":"9781529408393","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781529408393_8a84da4d-50b7-4ac4-9016-9b4191074854.jpg?v=1786023299"},{"product_id":"9781529419986","title":"Answered Prayers","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Year 2023\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA\u003ci\u003e Daily Express\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Year 2023\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Magnificent, moving, often funny and deeply researched account . . . Is this just a book for those who know football? Far from it: this is a story of glory and the impermanence of fame' \u003ci\u003eSunday Times \u003c\/i\u003e(Book of the Week)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Like Alf Ramsey's 1966 team, this book has depth, it has riches and it's a winner  - the finest piece of sports writing I have read in ages and a superb piece of contemporary history' Peter Hennessy\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEngland. 1966. The World Cup.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuncan Hamilton watched England beat West Germany as an eight-year-old boy in the company of his father and grandfather. He recalls 'Wembley, spread out in the sun; the waving flags; the delirious, joy-of-all-joys moment of the final whistle; the trophy sparkling in the late afternoon light'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut, seeing the whole game again during the misery of the first Covid lockdown, finally made him realise what Alf Ramsey and his players had no inkling of, which was what came next for them. How, for many of those boys of summer, almost everything after that shimmering moment amounted to an anti-climax or a setback. How '66 was not a beginning, a guaranteed path towards more success, but a slow decline and fall, and also a disproportionate number of disappointments. And how the triumph of '66 was dulled through constant repetition, the same images always flashed before us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHamilton recognised, too, how many myths and misconceptions had grown around the match.\u003cbr\u003eHe decided to revisit '66, tracing the very roots of a story - as well as the hidden figures within it - that really began during the era of post-War austerity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnswered Prayers\u003c\/i\u003e provides, at last, a full account of English football's greatest achievement and the failures that followed it. 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