The most prestigious literary prize in the sporting world, the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, has announced its longlist for this year’s competition. Since 1989, we’ve seen the likes of Duncan Hamilton, Michael Holding and Jeremy Wilson walk away with the top prize, while last year saw Lauren Fleshman win with her book ‘Good for a Girl’.
The search for this year’s winner has finally been whittled down to a longlist by the reading panel, having sifted through a multitude of entries across a plethora of disciplines within the sports industry.
The 17 books in contention that have made the longlist are:
- These Heavy Black Bones by Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
- A Culture of Kits by John Blair
- Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
- When I Passed The Statue Of Liberty I Became Black by Harry Edward
- Searching for Novak by Mark Hodgkinson
- Unique by Kelly Holmes
- More Than A Game by David Horspool
- Extra Time Beckons, Penalties Loom by Adam Hurrey
- Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes by David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts
- Angel of the Mountains by Paul Maunder
- The Racket by Conor Niland
- Warming Up by Madeleine Orr
- Munichs by David Peace
- My Beautiful Sisters by Khalida Popal
- It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism by Azeem Rafiq
- The Race to be Myself by Caster Semenya
- LIV and Let Die by Alan Shipnuck
Neil Foggin, Media Manager at William Hill, said: “As a member of the reading panel, we’ve had the tough job over the past month of selecting a 17-book longlist from the countless entries to this year’s William Hill Sports Book of the Year, but it’s safe to say the standard has kept on getting better and better.
“We’ve managed to whittle down all the entries to find ourselves with a very strong longlist yet again, covering a huge variety of sports and topics. The beauty of the competition is that it allows authors across all disciplines within the world of sport to tell their own stories and those of others, and our longlist shows just that.
“There is sure to be a book for everyone on this list and we congratulate all the authors who have made it this far. We also wish our judging panel the best of luck in creating the shortlist over the next month, which will undoubtedly be a hard task given the calibre of books entered into this year’s competition.”
