Ball sports / ball games

NOW WITH A NEW CHAPTERThis is a special era in the history of tennis.

'Completely brilliant' Ian HislopIt seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe.

'Mercenaries', 'cheats', 'destroying the soul of (English) football', 'destroying the link between football clubs and their supporters': foreign football players have been accused of being at the origin of all the ills of contemporary football.

Once the preserve of the English, now, for nations the world over, summertime means cricket bats to be oiled, rain forecasts analysed and tea in the pavilion.

"e;Bloody obvious isn't it: tell the defenders to route one out to Drogba"e; "e;That's what they've been doing all night and look where it's got them"e;"e;The final ball has just not been weighted enough; in any case, his touch is too heavy"e;"e;GBP120,000 a week and look how little they put themselves about"e;"e;Players today are mercenaries: in my day they lived and died for their local team.

The fiercely honest, fearless, darkly funny autobiography of global tennis star Maria SharapovaIn the middle of the night, a father and his daughter step off a Greyhound bus in Florida and head straight to the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy.

With a flamboyant approach to the game on and off the pitch, Australia's greatest bowler Shane Warne is an irresistible cricketing force.

In the 1970s, an age long before World Cups, rugby union to the British public meant Bill McLaren, rude songs and, most of all, Wales.

For 125 years, the GAA has been a fixed point in a fast-changing age, and this oral history marks the125th anniversary of the Association.

As former England striker and television pundit Jimmy Greaves famously said, football is 'a funny old game'.

In 100 GAA Greats, John Scally celebrates the most significant players Gaelic games have brought us in their 125-year history.

Tipperary native Paddy Russell has been one of the leading referees in the GAA for the past 30 years.

Brian Clough's forty-four-day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974 is one of the most infamous episodes in British football history.

Mark Ramprakash is arguably the greatest English batsman of his generation, but he is also an enigma.

Wales were written off as no-hopers at the start of the 2008 Six Nations.

For 16 years, Darragh S wore the number 8 jersey for Gaelic football's most celebrated county, stoking the fires in Kerry's engine room.

Since making his national debut in 1998, Stephen Jones has emerged from the shadows of the true greats of Welsh rugby, such as Barry John, Phil Bennett, Jonathan Davies and Neil Jenkins, to make the fly-half position his own.

Don Revie and Brian Clough were born a brisk walk away from each other in Middlesbrough, in 1927 and 1935 respectively.

The 2007-08 season for Leeds United Football Club will have been anything but regular.

In July 2009, former Celtic and Wales soccer star John Hartson was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had also spread to his lungs and brain.

Voices from Croke Park charts the journeys of 12 true greats of the Gaelic games, each of whom has helped shape the rich history of football and hurling.

No one feels the heat of an Ashes battle more than the captains of England and Australia.

For more than 120 years, Rangers and Celtic have vied for supremacy in one of the world's sporting hotbeds.

Alun Carter experienced the highs and lows of the Wales national rugby squad throughout his 12 years working for the WRU.

Welsh footballer Alan Curtis is synonymous with Swansea City, having played for the club during three different spells, but he also played for Leeds United, Southampton and Cardiff City, and won thirty-five caps for his country during an action-packed playing career that spanned two decades.

Sir Ian Botham and the Ashes are as closely intertwined as willow and leather or Merv Hughes and his moustache.

In My Sporting Heroes, one of the country's great sportsmen, Sir Ian Botham, draws up his template of what he believes makes a true sporting hero.

West Ham United last won a major trophy in 1980, but the roller-coaster ride of the past three decades has produced enough twists and turns, heroes and villains and contrasting emotions to grace the script of the most thrilling TV soap opera.

Who controls football in Britain today?

Ever since he was a two-year-old golf prodigy, Eldrick 'Tiger' Woods has often been viewed less as a human being and more as a ball-striking machine - and his carefully guarded image and emotionless persona seemed to guarantee that it would remain that way.

During a glorious but controversial career, Frank McGarvey won every major trophy in Scottish football.

On 6 February 1958, a plane took off from a snowy Munich airport carrying probably the finest club side the world has ever known.

Before the Thai millions and Abu Dhabi billions, Manchester City was always a club that attracted fierce controversy.

6 February 2008 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Munich air disaster in which twenty-three people, including eight of Matt Busby's 'Babes', lost their lives.

Gideon Haigh's first collection of cricket pieces, "e;Game for Anything"e;, was published by Aurum in 2004 and soon sold out.

Arsene Wenger is credited with revolutionising one of the biggest clubs in Europe famously bringing free-flowing football to boring, boring Arsenal and with influencing approaches to the modern game.

Cake: the utterly distinctive memoirs of Shane Curran.

Johnny Sexton - the man who pulled the strings for the Lions - gives an intimate insight into the rugby life in Becoming a Lion.

Geordan Murphy does not come from the leafy suburbs of south Dublin or the rugby hotbeds of Limerick or Cork.

'He's one of the best players I've ever played with.

UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE 2021/22 SEASON THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERThe behind-the-scenes story of the Marcelo Bielsa revolution at Leeds United and their first season back in the Premier League after sixteen years of hurt.

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR FOOTBALL FANSThere's no one quite like Klopp.

Ronnie is snooker's most written and talked about player, and its greatest showman.

"e;Table Tennis - Tips from a World Champion?

The book offers an in-depth look at teaching techniques, skills and tactics for the soccer coach.

What is the secret of Dutch Soccer?

This book offers some of the best articles from the NSCAA's Soccer Journal from the last twenty years.

The book gives a comprehensive overview of the history of Futsal, its greatest moments and its contribution to the development of soccer idols like Ronaldo and Ronaldinho.

As most other team sports, rugby is a sport of technical finesse, tactical boldness, and refined and complex physical development.

Want to learn to dribble and feint like Maradona or Ronaldinho, and to juggle the ball like Jay-Jay Okocha or Edgar Davids?