Crowood Sports Guides are the perfect tool for anyone wanting to improve their performance, from beginners learning the basic skills to more experienced participants working on advanced techniques. In this second edition of Snooker & Billiards - Skills, Tactics Techniques, the history of the game is covered along with the rules of the game; choosing the right equipment and top tips from many of the game's great players. All the skills and techniques are explained clearly with full-colour s...

Throughout its chequered history, snooker has had more than its fair share of heroes and villains, champions and chumps, rascals and rip-off artists. In the last 20 years, every sleazy scandal imaginable has attached itself to this raffish sport: corruption, match fixing, bribery, sex, recreational drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, ballot rigging, fraud, theft, domestic violence, common-or-garden violence, paranoid politicking, dirty tricks - all against a background of inept petty tsars...

A gripping biography of snooker legend Ronnie O'Sullivan, charting his triumphs and personal battles.Explore the extraordinary life of Ronnie O'Sullivan, from his early days as a snooker prodigy to his rise as a five-time world champion. Clive Everton, "The Voice of Snooker," traces O'Sullivan's journey through triumphs and tribulations, revealing the man behind the cue.Discover how O'Sullivan battled inner demons, family turmoil, and addiction, emerging as...

Are you a snooker fan? Do you play regularly? Are you familiar with the rules and terminology of snooker? Would you like to know more about the professional players who make the game look so easy? If you answered yes to any of these questions you won’t want to be without 101 Things You May Not Have Known About Snooker.Do you know how snooker got its name, who is the only player so far to have won the world title at junior, amateur and professional level or which five players have achieved ...

Multimillionaire at 32Youngest Premier League football club owner at 36His club and a fortune lost at 42Owning your childhood club - that's the dream, isn't it?Simon Jordan made his fortune building a mobile phone company from scratch. When he sold it for £75 million, he bought Crystal Palace FC, the club he'd supported as a boy, and led them into the Premier League.Ten years later Palace was in admi...

THE NO. 1 BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD'As elegant and powerful as a Federer backhand ... It’s Kitchen Confidential for tennis.' Ed Caesar‘Witty and insightful … an homage to the game he clearly still loves’ ***Irish Times'***A crushing reminder of the grist from which sporting greatness emerges' The Economist

'The dream was football . . .'John Giles had a gift. At the age of three, he could kick a ball the way it was supposed to be kicked. And he knew that every hour that passed without kicking a ball was an hour wasted.'It was the same dream that most of the kids had at that time . . .'In A Football Man, Giles tells the story of a dream pursued and realised beyond his wildest imaginings, from his humble beginnings in Ormond Squar...

**The Rocky Road is the autobiography of Eamon Dunphy - the man the Guardian called '**the most entertaining, blindingly brilliant pundit of all time'.For more than thirty years, no commentator on Irish sport, politics and culture has been the object of so much love, hatred and fascination as Eamon Dunphy. Now, in The Rocky Road - one of the most hotly anticipated Irish autobiographies of recent times - Dunphy takes us behind the scenes o...

'Elite athletes aren't born. They're made.'Michael JohnsonFrom a living icon of the Olympic Games – as both an athlete and now as a BBC broadcaster – Gold Rush is a compelling analysis of the fascinating combination of psychological and personal qualities, as well as internal and external factors, that go to create an Olympic champion.This exciting new book is based on Michael Johnson's own experiences as an iconic four-time Olympic champion, and on the knowledge he h...

Voices from the Back of the Bus provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at international rugby at the height of a golden period. Recounted with genuine warmth and much humour, over a hundred players recall the scrapes, the games, the laughs, the glory and the gritty reality of the pre-professional game.Packed with true rugby tales from the days when men played purely for the love of the game and of their nation, and multimillion-pound contracts and sponsorship deals were un...

Based on exclusive interviews with 40 celebrated players, past and present, Legends of Irish Rugby is a veritable who's who of the sport.Immortals such as Jack Kyle, Willie John McBride, Tony Ward, Brian O'Driscoll, Gordon D'Arcy and Paul O'Connell bare their souls to reveal themselves as men of vision, passion and dedication - men who, through their glories, disappointments and dramatic deeds, have inspired others to realise their dreams.In this engrossing and ent...

Dan Carter's last game as an All Black culminated with him declared Man of the Match following the 2015 Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham - an unforgettable ending to the career of the greatest fly-half of all time.But along with the triumphs of his signature World Cup win, his performance against the Lions in 2005, and an unprecedented run of Bledisloe Cup successes, there was also the pain and doubt he felt during a prolonged period of injury and rehab following the 2011 World ...