Sports Books 2005: The best books frequently have nothing to do with the ball sports which tend to dominate the airwaves and fill the stadiums.
Two Irish boxing memoirs of distinction were published this year. Pocket Rocket (Mainstream, £12.99) was the inevitable title for the story of Wayne McCullough. But unlike so many sporting autobiographies, this was not glossed over by a ghostwriter.
McCullough's first-hand account of his beginnings in Belfast's Shankill to the highs of his 1995 WBC championship and the brutal punishment he took in the past 10 years is riveting and frightening.
Generally acknowledged as one of the bravest of boxers, McCullough possesses a love of, and devotion to, the fight game that is deepened by a biblical fatalism. And his candid admission that he is prepared to die on the canvas constantly punches home the fact that boxing and death are not exactly strangers.
Dublin heavyweight Joe Egan did not quite scale the heights McCullough reached, but he has always had a fantastic story to tell. Modestly titled Big Joe Egan: The Toughest White Man on the Planet (Pennant, £16.99), it chronicles his lifelong friendship with Mike Tyson from their early days of sparring together under Cus D'Amato in the bliss of the Catskill Mountains.
While Tyson took off like a furnace, Joe became a journeyman boxer, and his everyday triumphs and disasters, including shootouts, arrests and a bust-up with Michael Flatley, make Iron Mike's escapades seem dull in comparison. But his enduring friendship with and unfailing loyalty to the fallen icon provide a constant theme.
Everest has been the subject of many fine books. Grania Willis, the Equestrian Correspondent for The Irish Times, became the first Irish woman to scale the peak from the north side last May. Her account of that epic journey is brilliantly retold in Total High (Red Rock, 19.99). But bravely, she sets those weeks on the Himalaya against her personal story, and it is that as much as the slow trail up Everest that gives this beautifully illustrated book its remarkable power.
The same company has also published the autobiography of Catherina McKiernan. Running for My Life (Red Rock, €14.99), written in collaboration with Ian O'Riordan of The Irish Times, is an intense exploration of the Cavan woman's singular rise through the tough and lonely environment of distance running.
Cork sports writer Dave Hannigan tackles an epic and, to those of us who are non-Rebels, bothersome subject: Giants of Cork Sport (Evening Echo, 25). Anyone vaguely troubled by the notion that Cork folk seem genetically predisposed to excelling at sport will be both fascinated and appalled by this book. They really are that good. Ring, Keane, Sonia, JBM, Jack Lynch: all the icons are there.
But Hannigan is equally interested in the wider sporting heritage and has written terrific accounts of classic events like the 1979 Fastnet race, the Cork city basketball revolution of the 1980s, the great hockey career of Rachel Kohler and the days when George Best turned out for Cork Celtic. After reading this, you have to hand it to dem, however grudgingly.
The most original sports book of the year is Engineering Archie (English Heritage, £18.99). Simon Inglis's beautiful homage to the life and work of the Scot Archie Leitch, who designed many of England's most innovative and empathetic football grounds, inadvertently calls into account the bland, generic sports stadiums that have sprung up in all major cities over the past 20 years.
The winner of the William Hill sports book of the year was Gary Imlach's My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes (Yellow Jersey Press, £15.99), a strange and moving account of the television presenter's protracted battle with the Scottish FA to honour the single international cap his father attained in the 1950s.
As ever, there are a number of compelling books from America. Shirley Povich was one of the last of the old-school American sports columnists, and the fruits of his long and distinguished career are captured in All Those Mornings at the Post (Public Affairs, €20.00).
From his base at the Washington Post, Povich witnessed the defining sporting episodes of the 20th century, sitting ringside for Dempsey-Tunney in 1928, reporting on the fabled Seabiscuit-War Admiral race in 1938, chronicling the rise of Jackie Robinson and Ali to the glossy, commercial era of Michael Jordan.
He was still writing until his death in 1998, and his most memorable pieces are collected here.
The Best American Sports Writing (Houghton Mifflin, 16.99) is hurtling towards its centenary year. The quality of this annual collection varies depending on the guest editor. This year's series has been chosen by Mike Lupica, a prominent New York columnist/personality whose position is reflected in the strong representation of mainstream sports writers.
Still, there are generally three or four outstanding essays. Hard to find in Irish bookshops, it is easily ordered or obtainable from Amazon or Sportspages.
