Dave Bowler – författare

A biography of world cup winning football manager Sir Alf RamseyEngland has never had a more successful national coach than Sir Alf Ramsey. A cultured full-back with Tottenham''s push and run stylists, he turned to management once his international career had been cut short by Puskas'' rampant Hungarians. At Ipswich Town he piloted a collection of comparative journeymen from the depths of the Third Division South to the heights of the League Championship, acquiring the job of England manager along the way.Fêted for winning the 1966 World Cup, castigated for the way he won it with his ''wingless wonders'', then reviled for going out of the 1974 competition, Ramsey''s achievements are lost in the legends of Russian linesmen, Bogotá and a Polish clown. Yet he was a commanding general, a footballing intellect beyond compare and a man who deserves more than caricature.Thoughtful and incisive, Dave Bowler''s biography features extensive interviews with Geoff Hurst, Walter Winterbottom, Mick Channon, Tom Finney, Ray Wilson and Jimmy Armfield, among others, and reassesses Ramsey''s contribution to the English game.

The first critical biography of the English national football team.From Stanley Matthews to Bobby Moore to Michael Owen, all the icons of the English game have worn the famous white shirt. It is those players and their achievements that make the shirt special and still make England the nation the rest of the world wants to beat.Three Lions on the Shirt is a history of the England team throughout the last century. From back in the days when players received a match fee of 10/- for an international, and were selected from the likes of Wednesday Strollers, Clapham Rovers and Darwen, through the post-war humiliation at the hands of the USA and Hungary to England''s finest moment in 1966; from the disappointment of the seventies and the eighties to the relative renaissance of the nineties, Dave Bowler chronicles the vicissitudes of a team lambasted and worshipped in equal measure.Three Lions on the Shirt is the first critical biography of the national team: it features original interviews with over fifty plays and managers, past and present, including Tom Finney, Geoff Hurst, Gary Lineker, Rodney Marsh, Cyrille Regis, Les Ferdinand, the Neville brothers and Paul Merson.

The biography of Danny BlanchflowerIn these days of player'' agents, corporate hospitality, share options and television bonuses, it''s often the football, the glory and the romance of the game, that gets overlooked.Back in the 1950s and 1960s there was no footballer in love with his trade than Danny Blanchflower. An elegant and inspirational midfield force, he captained the Spurs 1961 Double-winning side and led Northern Ireland, against the odds, to the quarter-finals of the 1958 World Cup. Equally eloquent off the field, he was no stranger to controversy, writing about the game with a great clarity and passion, and working tirelessly as an innovator, forever trying to transform football as a spectacle for player and fan alike.Drawing on extensive interviews with family, friends and colleagues (including Jackie Blanchflower, Sir Stanley Matthews, Johnny Haynes, Geoff Hurst, Pat Jennings and Derek Dougan), Dave Bowler skilfully recounts the story of one of football''s greatest thinkers and iconoclasts.

The authorised biography of Bill Shankly.Bill Shankly is one of football''s greatest heroes. The former coal-miner from Ayrshire gave his life to football. Best remembered for his outstanding Liverpool sides that included Hunt, Keegan, Smith, Clemence and Hughes, he led Liverpool to three Championships, two F.A. Cup and the UEFA Cup.Told with the full co-operation of his family, and including exclusive interviews with those who lived and worked with Shankly, this is the definitive biography of the man who, when asked whether football was a matter of life and death, replied: ''No, it''s much more important than that''.

The unauthorised biography of the world''s most entertaining - and Britain''s most successful - cricketing all-rounderIn his prime, year in, year out, Ian Botham provided the most memorable moments of the cricketing season. Yet there has always been more to Botham than just cricket, and this biography examines why he inspires both admiration and fury in his fans. Primarily a celebration of Botham and cricket, NO SURRENDER explores the life and times of the most important cricketer of the past quarter century.