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'Tony Adams calls it a “celebration of recovery.” It’s a monument to candour too. Gruesome memories come with smiles… The fresh detail in his new autobiography, 1996, adds layers that are both harrowing and redemptive as he goes about the work of helping others.' PAUL HAYWARD, The ObserverIt was the summer of Euro 96 and England was in party mood as the nation hosted a major tournament, revelling in watching Gazza and Co reach the semi-finals. For the national team's captain Tony Adams, though, it masked a misery that had been building all year, with his wife leaving and his children being removed from him as a result of his dangerous and damaging drinking.Following Gareth Southgate's crushing penalty miss against Germany, Adams proceeded to embark on a 44-day bender to drown sorrows that learned how to swim and led him into some seamy, sordid situations. Finally, he could take no more and desperation drove him to quit the booze and get help. A year that had begun in dark despair would end in a new lightness of being.In 1996, Adams revisits in candid, graphic detail that year when football came home but England's thirty years of hurt continued. And, as he reaches his 60th birthday, he reflects with trademark honesty and accumulated wisdom on his own remarkable thirty years off hurt.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: This book contains themes and language that may not be suitable for children. When Seth Burkett travelled to Brazil for a youth tournament with his local team Stamford, he was stunned by what happened next. Spotted by a scout, he accepted an offer to join Sorriso Esporte Clube in the central state of Mato Grosso and became a media celebrity as well as the only English professional in the football-crazy country. THE BOY IN BRAZIL is a charming and insightful account of his magical season in the sun as an 18-year-old in Sorriso - Portuguese for smile - and takes a bittersweet look at the beautiful game and cultural concerns of the vibrant nation which would host the 2014 World Cup finals. On his journey from boy to man, he would discover an uncanny and unexpected family link to the foundation of the sport in Brazil. He would also come to see, through a tragedy in Sorriso and the sad fate of its football club, that a childhood dream joyously fulfilled also had a dark side. SHORTLISTED: Best football book, Cross Pens British Sports Book Awards 2015.

Darren and Gary Barker were the Fabulous Barker Boys. As amateurs, Darren won a Commonwealth Games gold medal while Gary, four years younger, won a Junior Olympic Games title.Then sadly, cruelly, Gary's life was cut short in a car accident when he was just 19, devastating the Barker family. Darren could not face boxing again.Inspired, however, by a brilliant therapist and mentored by a sympathetic trainer in Tony Sims, who had his own story of tragedy and loss, Darren got back into the ring and worked his way up to a world title shot. After first losing to the legendary Argentine, Sergio Martinez, and undergoing two hip operations, Darren finally returned to Atlantic City to wrest the IBF world title from the Australian Daniel Geale. A DAZZLING DARKNESS is written in collaboration with Ian Ridley, Sports Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards 2007 and author of the best-selling Addicted, the autobiography of the former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams. It is story of triumph out of tragedy, hope from despair, achievement from adversity.

The heady Saturday afternoon of July 30th 1966 at Wembley Stadium was the crowning moment of the English game, when Alf Ramsey's team won the World Cup and the nation's fanatical football public consummated their relationship with the sport they had invented.John Moynihan's THE SOCCER SYNDROME is a celebration of that love affair. Written in the build-up to the tournament, Moynihan captures beautifully the mood of the national sport, from the days when football brightened up dreary post-war Saturday afternoons at the time of baggy shorts, Brylcreemed centre-forwards and such revered figures as Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney, to the Swinging Sixties with its heroes such as Bobby Moore and Jimmy Greaves.Written unashamedly from the standpoint of the smitten fan, Moynihan also regales us with hilarious personal stories, from waiting in vain for his hero Tommy Lawton's autograph to watching the 1958 World Cup final in a Paris bar whilst trying to console a love-struck girl friend.These among other gems have seen THE SOCCER SYNDROME rightly come to be regarded as a classic of football writing.

BEING gay in football - as fan or player - is to risk the homophobia that has run through the game for years. But things are changing. Gradually a few brave professional players have come out. And someone like NEIL BEASLEY now feels able to tell his poignant and uplifting story in Football's Coming Out. Coventry City fan, player for Birmingham Blaze - National Gay Football Supporters Network League champions - as well as chairman of the club, Neil tells honestly of the pains of growing up gay in the sport and fighting for his right to enjoy the game he loves without prejudice.

With more than 20 million followers across their social media channels, @WoodyandKleiny have established themselves as two of the world's foremost internet content creators. But how did they do it? The Social Struggle: How We Took Over The Internet shares their story of initial failure that through determination became success. From overcoming broken homes and broken dreams, filming blurry videos for no more than 100 views, working every hour of the day for four years to make a handful of loose change, @WoodyandKleiny's tale is sure to inspire readers around the world.

Susie Petruccelli grew up in a sports-mad, male-dominated family in California, fighting to find her own identity and path.And she did. She won a place on the soccer programme at Harvard University and felt on top of the world - talented, strong, loved and worthy. Less than a year later, however, it had all slipped away. The prize-winning RAISED A WARRIOR is Susie's honest, human and cathartic story of how she, as player and mother, rediscovered herself and the love of a game that almost broke her. Alongside, she examines the growth of the women's game and the issues still confronting the sport as it fights for the equalities it deserves. WINNER OF THE VIKKI ORVICE PRIZE.

"Really beautiful... If you're an Everton fan, you must buy this book. If you're a football fan of a certain age, I would really recommend it as well. A really funny, smart writer talking about football, his family and what it means. You will laugh and cry." Richard Osman, The Rest Is Entertainment podcastJIMMY MULVILLE is one of the most significant figures in British television as owner and managing director of Hat Trick Productions, creators of such hit shows as Drop The Dead Donkey, Outnumbered and Have I Got News For You.He is also a lifelong devotee of Everton FC, having grown up less than a mile from Goodison Park, and has loved them then left before returning to them over the course of their modern history of 80s success followed by regular Premier League struggles.In There's Gonna Be A Show, the Liverpool comprehensive kid who read Classics at Cambridge University tells how Everton have been the backdrop to his father's suicide and his own drug addiction; how he reconnected with his home city after getting clean and sober and helped Bill Kenwright buy the club.Taking as starting point the last game at Goodison Park, sponsored by Hat Trick, and ending with the first game at the new Hill Dickinson Stadum, this is a beautifully written memoir of football's emotional potency and poignancy.

SHORTLISTED, WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK of the YEAR, 2020. When Ian Ridley's wife, the trailblazing sports reporter Vikki Orvice, died of cancer at the age of 56, he found himself plunged deep into a sadness that he expected and a world of madness that he did not.In an attempt to make sense of it all and seek some solace from the brutality of his grief and anxiety, he embarks on a summer of watching county cricket. Reliving bitter-sweet memories in places he and Vikki had visited together, he is alternately unnerved and consoled by the ebbs and flows of his mourning. But gradually, against a backdrop of the County Championship's peace and solitude - with the sun on his back and tea, cake and crossword at his side - he finds a way to survive the rhythms and cadences of his grief. The Breath of Sadness is an unflinching account of how we carry on when we are left behind, and a poignant, tender and candid exploration of love and loss.

When Seth Burkett answers a tweet calling for overseas players to join a professional Sri Lankan football team in a new tournament, he has no idea what awaits him. The team is Trinco Titans, owned by Sri Lankan cricketing legends Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, and he will be spending the summer playing in the North Eastern Premier League. Unfortunately, he is in the dark about the quality of football, the standard of pitches, the delicate local political tensions, even the dates of the fixtures... Before long, he is fully immersed in the Titans family, experiencing everything the country has to offer him: new friendships, picture-postcard beaches, a relaxed approach to organisation and time-keeping, thousands of new Facebook followers, and a crash course in the Teardrop Isle's recent troubled history.There will be results to forget but it will be a summer to remember.