Harry Pearson – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2020 – CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019'A joy.' – Ned BoultingEvery nation shapes sport to test the character traits it most admires.In The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman, committed Belgophile and road cycling obsessive Harry Pearson takes you on a journey across Flanders, through the lumpy horizontal rain, up the elbow juddering cobbled inclines, past the fans dressed as chickens and the shop window displays of constipation medicines, as he follows races big, small and even smaller through one glorious, muddy spring.Ranging over 500 years of Flemish and European history, across windswept polders, along back roads and through an awful lot of beer cafes, Pearson examines the characters, the myths and rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its lycra-clad priests.

Slipless in Settle is a sentimental journey around club cricket in the north of England, a world far removed from the clichéd lengthening-shadows-on-the-village-green image of the summer game. This is hardcore cricket played in former pit villages and mill towns. Winner of the 2011 MCC Cricket Book of the Year, it is about the little clubs that have, down the years, produced some of the greatest players Britain has ever seen, and at one time spent a fortune on importing the biggest names in the international game to boost their battle for local supremacy.Slipless in Settle is a warm, affectionate and outrageously funny sporting odyssey in which Andrew Flintoff and Learie Constantine rub shoulders with Asbo-tag-wearing all-rounders, there's hot-pot pie and mushy peas at the tea bar, two types of mild in the clubhouse, and a batsman is banned for a month for wearing a fireman's helmet when going out to face Joel Garner . . .

A book in which Wilf Mannion rubs shoulders with The Sunderland Skinhead: recollections of Len Shakleton blight the lives of village shoppers: and the appointment of Kevin Keegan as manager of Newcastle is celebrated by a man in a leather stetson, crooning 'For The Good Times' to the accompaniment of a midi organ, THE FAR CORNER is a tale of heroism and human frailty, passion and the perils of eating an egg mayonnaise stottie without staining your trousers.

Most British travel writers head south for a destination that is hot, exotic, dangerous or all three. Harry Pearson chose to head in the opposite direction for a country which is damp, safe and of legendary banality: Belgium. But can any nation whose most famous monument is a statue of a small boy urinating really be that dull? Pearson lived there for several months, burying himself in the local culture. He drank many of the 800 different beers the Belgians produce; ate local delicacies such as kip kap (jellied pig cheeks) and a mighty tonnage of chicory and chips. In one restaurant the house speciality was 'Hare in the style of grandmother'. 'I didn't order it. I quite like hare, but had no wish to see one wearing zip-up boots and a blue beret.' A TALL MAN IN A LOW LAND commemorates strange events such as The Festival of Shrimps at Oostduinkerke and laments the passing of the Underpant Museum in Brussels. No reader will go away from A TALL MAN IN A LOW LAND without being able to name at least ten famous Belgians. Mixing evocative description and low-grade buffoonery Harry Pearson paints a portrait of Belgium that is more rounded than a Smurf after a night on the mussels.

This is a book about men and war. Not real conflict but war as it has filtered down to generations of boys and men through toys, comics, games and movies. Harry Pearson belongs to the great battalion of British men who grew up playing with toy soldiers - refighting World War II - and then stopped growing up. Inspired by the photos of the gallant pilot uncles that decorated the wall above his father's model-making table, by Sergeant Hurricane, Action Man and Escape from Colditz, dressed in Clarks' commando shoes and with the Airfix Army in support, he battled in the fields and on the beaches, in his head and on the sitting-room floor and across his bedroom ceiling. And thirty years later he still is.ACHTUNG SCHWEINEHUND! is a celebration of those glory days, a boy's own story of the urge to play, to conquer - and to adopt very bad German accents, shouting 'Donner und Blitzen' at every opportunity. This is a tale of obsession, glue and plastic kits. It is the story of one boy's imaginary war and where it led him.

Ten years in the making, Dribble! is an A-Z of credulity-twanging facts and stories about what Pele once memorably dubbed 'my bloody job'. It includes definitive explanations of everyday phrases such as 'the magic of the cup' and 'low centre of gravity'; a complete guide to becoming a terrace character and an in-depth account of how Roy Keane's pyjamas got him a smack on the nose . . . It also addresses hitherto ignored aspects of the beautiful game, including its longstanding relationship with Country and Western. Johnny Cash dubbed himself 'The Man in Black' in homage to his idol, referee Arthur Ellis and wrote what is arguably the greatest song ever written about the life of an assistant referee - 'I Walk the Line'.

Some men are born medium-paced, some achieve medium-pace, and some have medium-pace thrust upon them.Bowlers who take wickets not with pace or spin, but - at speeds between 65 and 85mph - by nagging accuracy are the commonest in cricket. So far, however, nobody has paid them any attention. Yet seam bowling remains one of cricket's most mysterious arts. George Hirst, one of the best early exponents of swerve, was as puzzled by it as his opponents. 'Sometimes it works,' he said, 'and sometimes it doesn't.'Examining the history of medium-pace bowling, explaining how swing both normal and reverse actually works, and telling the story of some of the great and not-so-great dobbers such as Shackleton ('His bowling, like his hair, never less than immaculate,' noted Wisden approvingly), Trundlers will bring bread-and-butter bowlers who 'do a bit off the seam', 'wobble the odd one about' or simply 'nag away at off-stump' out into the limelight for the first time. Warm, affectionate and told with Harry Pearson's trademark humour, Trundlers celebrates dobbers in all their sleeves-rolled-up, uncomplaining workaday glory.

Winner of the MCC Book of the Year AwardHis father was a first-class cricketer, his grandfather was a slave.Born in rural Trinidad in 1901, Learie Constantine was the most dynamic all-round cricketer of his age (1928-1939) when he played Test cricket for the West Indies and club cricket for Nelson. Few who saw Constantine in action would ever forget the experience. As well as the cricketing genius that led to Constantine being described as 'the most original cricketer of his time', Connie illuminates the world that he grew up in, a place where the memories of slavery were still fresh and where a peculiar, almost obsessive, devotion to 'Englishness' created a society that was often more British than Britain itself. Harry Pearson looks too at the society Constantine came to in England, which he would embrace as much as it embraced him: the narrow working-class world of the industrial North during a time of grave economic depression. Connie reveals how a flamboyant showman from the West Indies actually dovetailed rather well in a place where local music-hall stars such as George Formby, Frank Randle and Gracie Fields were fêted as heroes, and how Lancashire League cricket fitted into this world of popular entertainment.Connie tells an uplifting story about sport and prejudice, genius and human decency, and the unlikely cultural exchange between two very different places - the tropical island of Trinidad and the cloth-manufacturing towns of northern England - which shared the common language of cricket.

The remarkable story of three Yorkshire cricketers from the Golden Age - George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Schofield Haigh - who transformed their county's fortunes, inspired a generation of cricketers and left a unique legacy on the game.Between them, Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh scored over 77,000 runs and took almost 9000 wickets in a combined 2500 appearances, helping Yorkshire to seven County Championship triumphs. The records they set will never be beaten, yet the three men - known throughout England as The Triumvirate - were born in two small villages just outside Huddersfield, in Last of the Summer Wine country. Hirst pioneered and perfected the art of swing and seam bowling, Rhodes took more first-class wickets than anyone else in history, while the genial Haigh's achievements as a bowler at Yorkshire have been surpassed only by his two close friends; their influence would extend far beyond England, as they all went to India to coach, laying the foundations of cricket in the subcontinent. Pearson, whose biography of Learie Constantine, Connie, won the MCC Book of the Year Award, brings the characters and the age vividly to life, showing how these cricketing stars came to symbolise the essence of Yorkshire. This was a time when the gritty northern professionals from the White Rose county took on some of the most glittering amateurs of the age, including W.G.Grace, C.B.Fry, Prince Ranji and Gilbert Jessop, and when writers such as Neville Cardus and J.M.Kilburn were on hand to bring their achievements to a wider audience. The First of the Summer Wine is a celebration of a vanished age, but also reveals how the efforts of Hirst, Rhodes and Haigh helped create the modern era, too.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MCC / CRICKET SOCIETY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD George Hirst, Schofield Haigh and Wilfred Rhodes were known as The Triumvirate. Inseparable pals off the field and a devastating combination on it, the trio helped turn Yorkshire into the greatest county cricket team of the early 20th century. George Herbert Hirst was one of the most popular sportsmen of his era, his brilliance with bat and ball matched by the warmth of his personality. Schof was the greatest wet wicket bowler of his time, his flow of cheery wisecracks masking insecurities about his form and fitness. Wilfred was quiet and watchful, his analytical brain marking him out as the Sherlock Holmes of the summer game. Together they left a legacy of great deeds, good humour and decency: gentle men from a gentler time.

The battle of Byland, on 14 October 1322, was a crucial battle in the Wars of Scottish Independence. This absorbing study from Harry Pearson sheds new light on one of the most overlooked battles in British history.The area of the North York Moors National Park contains some of the most dramatic and scenic landscapes in the North of England, and none more so than the section of the Cleveland Way, which clings to the edge of the escarpment that marks the western boundary of the Hambleton Hills. On a clear day, the entire Vale of Mowbray can be seen. When visiting the area today it is hard to imagine thousands of English and Scottish troops engaged in bitter conflict there.At first light on the morning of October 14th in 1322, the armies of two kings confronted each other over this same ground. The soldiers of King Edward II of England looked down from the heights at a force of several thousand men led by King Robert I 'the Bruce' of Scotland, as they deployed below Sutton Bank in the area around Gormire Lake, with thousands more approaching from the direction of Northallerton to the north-west.Although a daunting sight for the English defenders, they no doubt had confidence in the strength of their seemingly impregnable position. The early morning air would have been thick with the call of shouted orders and war cries and the clamour of the readying of weapons, armour and harness as the Scots drew up into battle-formation, ready to attack up the steep, narrow, and heavily defended pass.Complete with fresh research and over 100 images and maps, this new edition of _Clash of Crowns_ tells the story of the ensuing battle, the dramatic circumstances which brought it about and the impact of the outcome on the history of the British Isles.

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE 2020'One of the funniest books I've read' Arthur Mathews, co-writer of Father TedWidely regarded as one of the best football books ever written, The Far Corner was a vivid portrait of the sport in the north-east and of the people who bring such passion to it. Now, a generation later, Harry Pearson returns to the region to discover how much things have changed - and how much they have remained the same. In the mid-1990s, Kevin Keegan brought sporting romance and expectation of trophies to Newcastle, Sunderland moved the the Stadium of Light backed by a wealthy consortium, Middlesbrough signed one of the best Brazilians of the era and won their first major trophy - even little Darlington had a former safe-cracker turned kitchen magnate in charge, promising the world. The region even provided England's two key players in Euro 96 in Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne - the far corner seemed destined to become the centre of England's footballing world. But it never happened.Using travels to and from matches in the 2018-19 season, The Farther Corner will explore the changes in north-east football and society over the past twenty-five years. Visiting new places and some familiar ones, catching the stories, the sentiment and the sound of the supporters, locating where football now sits in the life of a region that was once proud to be what John Arlott suggested was ‘The Hotbed of Soccer’, it will be about love and loss and the happiness to be found eating KitKats and joking about Bobby Mimms on cold February days in coal-scented northern air. The region may have been left behind in the Champions League stakes, but few would doubt the power of its beating heart.

Writer Harry Pearson takes a warm and witty journey around Britain in pursuit of the lost folk sports that somehow still linger on in the glitzy era of the Premier League and Sky Sports to find out how and why they have survived and to meet the characters who keep them going.When Victorian public schoolmasters and Oxbridge-educated gentlemen were taming football, codifying cricket, bringing the values of muscular Christianity to the boxing ring and the athletics field, games that dated back to the pagan era clung on in isolated pockets of rural Britain, unmodified by contemporary tastes, shunned by the media and sport’s ruling elites. Here they remain, small, secret worlds, free from media scrutiny and VAR controversies, wreathed in an arcane language of face-gaters, whack-ups, potties, gates-of-hell and the Dorset flop; as much a part of the British countryside as the natterjack toad and almost as endangered. No Pie, No Priest! travels through Britain in search of the nation’s traditional rural sports, seeking out the championship of Knur and Spell (a Viking forefather of golf) on the West Yorkshire moors; watching Irish Road Bowling in County Armagh (once a surprising interest of England cricket captain Mike Brearley), Popinjay at Kilwinning Abbey in Ayrshire, the Aunt Sally competitions of Oxfordshire, and taking in world championship Stoolball (often considered the dairymaid’s form of cricket) and Toad-in-the-Hole in West Sussex.No Pie, No Priest! combines sports reporting, travelogue and history, and features a cast of bucolic eccentrics and many deeply impenetrable regional accents.

Writer Harry Pearson takes a warm and witty journey around Britain in pursuit of the lost folk sports that somehow still linger on in the glitzy era of the Premier League and Sky Sports to find out how and why they have survived and to meet the characters who keep them going.When Victorian public schoolmasters and Oxbridge-educated gentlemen were taming football, codifying cricket, bringing the values of muscular Christianity to the boxing ring and the athletics field, games that dated back to the pagan era clung on in isolated pockets of rural Britain, unmodified by contemporary tastes, shunned by the media and sport’s ruling elites. Here they remain, small, secret worlds, free from media scrutiny and VAR controversies, wreathed in an arcane language of face-gaters, whack-ups, potties, gates-of-hell and the Dorset flop; as much a part of the British countryside as the natterjack toad and almost as endangered. No Pie, No Priest! travels through Britain in search of the nation’s traditional rural sports, seeking out the championship of Knur and Spell (a Viking forefather of golf) on the West Yorkshire moors; watching Irish Road Bowling in County Armagh (once a surprising interest of England cricket captain Mike Brearley), Popinjay at Kilwinning Abbey in Ayrshire, the Aunt Sally competitions of Oxfordshire, and taking in world championship Stoolball (often considered the dairymaid’s form of cricket) and Toad-in-the-Hole in West Sussex.No Pie, No Priest! combines sports reporting, travelogue and history, and features a cast of bucolic eccentrics and many deeply impenetrable regional accents.