Sam's grandfather, Pops, always taught Sam that the most important aspects of rugby are sportsmanship and teamwork. Things are not great at home, with Pops having Alzheimer's and Sam's mother trying to make ends meet, but Sam's struggles really begin when his school is shut down and he transfers to Rosedale Heights. Sam feels like he's alone against the world trying to prove himself — and failing. He has trouble fitting in with the snobby Rosedale team, especially Bittner, who resents Sam's presence. In an act of retaliation, Sam breaks a teammate's nose, and he knows he's lost sight of what rugby is supposed to be about. When Sam scores the winning try in a game, he wonders if it was for his own glory or for the team. All seems lost when, set up by Bittner, Sam gets kicked off the team under suspicion of stealing. Can Sam prove his innocence and get back in play for the highly anticipated England game? And can he play the kind of rugby that will make Pops proud?

In his 15-year career as one of the most popular figures in Welsh rugby, Martyn Williams has played against some of the giants of the sport. Known as ‘Nugget’ to the fans, Martyn has captained his country on many occasions and was a key player in two Welsh Grand Slam-winning campaigns. In Rugby Rivals he picks his personal top ten players from all the world rugby stars he’s ever played against. From Martin Johnson and Shane Williams to Jonah Lomu and Richie McCaw he gives an insight into what makes them tick and reveals what they are really like off the pitch. Rugby Rivals is a compelling read that will provoke debate among rugby fans and provide a great starting point to anyone interested in the game. Author Information Known as “Nugget”, Martyn Williams is one of the most popular figures in the rugby world. He first made his name as a young flanker for his home-town club Pontypridd in the mid-1990s.For the past 15 years has been a major player in the Welsh squad. He has featured in two Grand Slam-winning campaigns and was named Player of the Six Nations in 2005. He has captained his country on many occasions and has been on three British Lions tours, to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. After leaving Pontypridd in 1999, he joined Cardiff Blues and has been with the club ever since. In 2010 he was granted a testimonial.

Highlighting rugby, the fastest growing sport in America, this book tackles the issue of girls playing full-contact sports. Maddy and her friends are a small town group determined to form a girls' junior rugby team while they navigate learning both the rules of the game and the rules set out by the school board. The adults are concerned about the girls' safety and even Maddy worries that she is too small for the rough game. But the persistence of the diverse group of girls wins the day and the book becomes a celebration of the empowerment and self-esteem young girls get from participating in sports.

A collection of real-life stories from people who have improved their lives through better literacy. Foreword by Scott Quinnell Some people take the power of words for granted. But for the thousands of people who struggle with poor literacy, words can be scary things. The men and women featured in this book have overcome their fears to improve their reading later in life. Whether they are famous businessmen or sports stars, teenagers in care, middle-aged mums, young soldiers or refugees forced to flee bloodshed in their own home countries, they all share a common desire to learn. Their stories will inspire others to follow journeys of their own. Alison Stokes is a writer and journalist, who writes for national magazines in the UK and US and regional newspapers in Wales. For many years she was a features editor at Trinity Mirror’s South Wales Echo. She also works as a part-time university lecturer in journalism and publishing manager.

They excite and inspire us, frustrate and disappoint us - when great sporting rivals meet, we live each moment with them as their fortunes fluctuate. During the past few decades, we have witnessed many superbly matched opponents in a wide range of sports. Who can forget the marathon matches played by John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, the nail-biting ...

This collection of essays is the third iteration in a series of publications dealing with Olympic studies that initially developed out of the tripartite relationship between Western University (Canada), Victoria University, Melbourne (Australia), and the German Sport University Cologne (Germany). However, for this collection, papers were solicited from around the world in order to approach the topic from different and much wider perspectives. To this end, this book combines a diverse range of scholarly analyses that seek to understand how the recognition of the voices of athletes have developed over many decades. In essence, the sequence of chapters in this book are based around three perspectives, namely: the lives and biographical profiles of athletes; the decision-making processes of, and for, athletes; and the formal and informal institutional representation of athletes. While the touchstone is primarily the voices of athletes associated with Olympic-related sports, consideration is also given to the actions and opinions of athletes expressed in other sporting spheres. This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

This book delves into the complex, yet fascinating evolution of football. From a relatively unruly mob game played on festival days, the game was adopted, codified and 'civilised' by the major English Public Schools and then diffused into the wider society to become a codified, modern sports-form. The birth of the Football Association in 1863 in London provided compromise rules, enabling teams geographically divided by distance and football's differing interpretations to oppose each other, which marked a pivotal moment for the sport. Thereon, history records the establishment of the FA Cup, football's internationalisation, the advent of professionalism and, perhaps finally, the establishment of a national league structure, all of these developments originally taking place in the British Isles. Within this multifaceted framework, eminent sociologists and historians have attempted to wrestle with these processes. As a result, over the past two decades, researchers and academics have reached the conclusion that, although a solid grounding in the macro-history of football is required, testing the existing hypotheses and questions in the early development of the game is best explored by drilling down deeply into local studies using a micro-historical approach. Consequently, many of the chapters included in this book, on Staffordshire, Norfolk, London, Sheffield, East Lancashire, Rugby School, follow this methodology. This book is an essential read for students, scholars and academics of sports studies, history, sociology, development and management, as well as an engrossing read for anyone interested in the early history of football. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Soccer & Society.