Winx - Biography of a Champion by Trevor Marshallsea

$39.99 AUD

Category: Biography

WINX: BIOGRAPHY OF A CHAMPION BY TREVOR MARSHALLSEA Phar Lap, Kingston Town, Black Caviar - now a new superstar has captivated the heart of the nation. The beautiful bay Winx has transcended the track to become a national icon, earning the affection and acclaim usually reserved for just a chosen few. Si nce the start of her extraordinary winning streak, Winx has run like a horse possessed. Now ranked No 1 in the world, she has won 23 races in a row and counting, including three Cox Plates, matching Kingston Town's record. As well, she's won 17 Group 1 races, breaking a record held since 1984. In 2017 she was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, only the third horse to be so honoured after Sunline and Black Caviar. At this rate, Winx might just become the greatest Australian horse that ever raced. But the wins and accolades are just part of the Winx story, a story that hasn't been told in full until now. Winx: biography of a champion, is a book not just about an extraordinary horse, but about the people who made it all happen, their hopes, dreams, a whole lot of hard yakka and, sometimes, hard cash. By racing aficionado and bestselling writer of Peter Moody's A Long Way from Wyandra and with 48 pages of stunning colour photographs, the book is essential reading for racing fans everywhere. This great Australian sporting legend deserves nothing less. ...Show more

OPPY - The Life of Sir Hubert Opperman by Daniel Oakman

$39.95 AUD

Category: Biography

Hubert 'Oppy' Opperman was a sporting icon, a cycling phenomenon whose epic feats of endurance captivated the cycling world. For over two decades, he dominated almost every race he entered and shattered record after record in Australia and Great Britain. In 1928, he led the first Australasian team to ev er contest the Tour de France. But Oppy was more than a just a champion. During the Great Depression, a time of painful economic and social change, he became a transcendent symbol of Australian fortitude. He became a household name, a legend - as popular as the cricketer Don Bradman and the racehorse Phar Lap. Until now, Oppy has never been the subject of a complete biography. By peeling away decades of mythology, Daniel Oakman tells Opperman's story like never before. As well as vividly retelling his sporting triumphs, this book is the first to consider the legacy of Opperman's post-cycling career. It explores the emotional pain of his private life, the controversies that dogged his seventeen-year political career, including his post as Immigration Minister in the Menzies Government and the remarkable and far-reaching changes he helped bring to Australian immigration policy. This meticulously researched biography gives readers a thrilling insight into the brutal world of professional cycling and an intimate portrait of an extraordinary Australian. ...Show more

Fair Go, Sport by Peter FitzSimons

$29.99 AUD

Category: General

Fitzy at his passionate best with chest-puffing tales of great sportsmanship and fair play. The idea for this book is simple. In the year when Australian cricketers have colluded to nakedly cheat, when attendance rates for all of soccer, rugby union and rugby league have either drifted or roared south, there is an obvious disaffection with modern sport and all the grubbiness that has come with it. Over the last 30 odd years, in articles and books, Peter FitzSimons has tried, among other things, to capture the best, most inspiring, and most heart-warming tales of sports, together with profiling the characters who gave us that magic - or at the very least, engaged us. One thing that became apparent over the years was that there was frequently more reaction for stories about unknowns, and golden greats of yesteryear rather than the modern big bird professionals. Fair Go, Sport is what he regards as the best of such tales. Most, but not all, are Australian based. Ideally, they represent the best of sport, or at least the most alluring, and inspirational, before the 'serious-ification' of the whole shebang started to squeeze the life out of it, on so many different levels at once.This is Fitzy at his passionate best. He reminds us that there really are good guys in sport, and that fair play still exists. ...Show more

Steve Smith's Men: Behind Australian Cricket's Fall by Geoff Lemon

$29.99 AUD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: 3 Biography

He was top of the world, with numbers bettered only by Don Bradman - then captain Steve Smith led his Australian team into a cheating scandal that stunned cricket. Media exploded and million-dollar contracts were torn up. Australia's prime minister expressed the public anger and disappointment: 'Our cri cketers are role models, and cricket is synonymous with fair play.' But there was more to the story than the actions of a few young men. A tangle of personality, politics and culture had led them to this point. Geoff Lemon witnessed that story from commentary boxes and press conferences, and was there in South Africa for its final act. This is a frank, fearless and often humorous account of the path from Ashes high to Cape Town low, from someone who watched it all unfold. ...Show more

Sporting Chance A by Titus O'Reily

$34.99 AUD

Category: General | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

In sport, the term 'good bloke? doesn't mean what it says. Like 'fun run?, it often actually means exactly the opposite.Titus O?Reily, the sports historian Australia neither needs nor deserves, examines why our nation?s sportspeople are so readily forgiven for doing terrible things. With ridiculous tale s from Australia?s chequered sporting history, A Sporting Chance dissects the scandals big and small, the mistakes made in covering them up and the path athletes tread back to redemption. From the Essendon supplements saga and the sandpaper-loving Australian cricket team to whatever it is Nick Kyrgios has done now, Titus reveals the archetypes at the heart of our greatest sporting scandals. There?s the corrupt cop who gave us the race that stopped a nation and the boxing champion who refused to train. There?s the cashed-up businessmen who bankrupted clubs and the commentators who can?t get their foot out of their mouth. And of course there?s the good blokes, like Wayne Carey, Matthew Johns and Shane Warne, who it seems we?ll forgive for absolutely anything. In his rambling and at times incoherent style, Titus asks the question- are Australians really that forgiving of their sporting heroes? With the rise of social media, women?s sport and the drive towards greater equality, are the good blokes of Australia?s sporting landscape an endangered species? ...Show more

Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

$24.99 AUD

Category: Biography

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER Far more than a superb memoir about the highest levels of professional tennis, Open is the engrossing story of a remarkable life.   Andre Agassi had his life mapped out for him before he left the crib. Groomed to be a tennis champion by his moody and demanding father, by t he age of twenty-two Agassi had won the first of his eight grand slams and achieved wealth, celebrity, and the game's highest honors. But as he reveals in this searching autobiography, off the court he was often unhappy and confused, unfulfilled by his great achievements in a sport he had come to resent. Agassi writes candidly about his early success and his uncomfortable relationship with fame, his marriage to Brooke Shields, his growing interest in philanthropy, and--described in haunting, point-by-point detail--the highs and lows of his celebrated career. ...Show more

Winx: The Authorised Biography by Andrew Rule

$44.99 AUD

Category: Sport/Games

In Winx: Greatest of all Racehorses, Andrew Rule, her owners, her breeder, her trainer and her rider tell the real story behind the story of the world's greatest racehorse.

Shadows On The Pitch - the long summer of 2017-18 by Gideon Haigh

$34.99 AUD

Category: Sport/Games

This collection of Gideon Haighs previously published articles distils from his daily reporting the essence of the 2017-18 cricket season, from victories and celebrations to the controversy that captured the worlds attention. The Australian mens cricket team arrived in Bangladesh in mid-August 2017 and departed South Africa in mid-April 2018, having deployed thirty-seven players in eleven Tests, ten one-day internationals and seven T20 internationals. They came from behind to draw a series in Asia; they regained the Ashes, rising from fi fth to third in the worlds Test championship; they slipped to fourth on the ODI table and rose to second in the T20I rankings. But the souring of the achievements began around 3pm on 24 March 2018 at Newlands, when umpires summoned Cameron Bancroft to discuss attempts to alter the condition of the 42-over-old ball to which they had been alerted.Ten weeks earlier, Bancroft had posed on a stage at the Sydney Cricket Ground celebrating victory over England; within two weeks, he and three of his fellow revellers, captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and coach Darren Lehmann, had become casualties of perhaps the angriest and suddenest sports controversies of the century. ...Show more

Grand Finals Vol. I - 1897-1938 by Slattery Media Staff; Ashley Browne (Editor)

$24.95 AUD

Category: Sport/Games

There is no greater prize in Australian team sport than the VFL/AFL premiership flag. Premiership players are forever recognised and their deeds of their teams long celebrated. This book, the first in a three-volume series, recounts in details the players, the officials, the matches and the other key ev ents that shaped the premiership team every year. The Grand Finals themselves are also recounted in great detail while the key statistics for the premiership teams are also featured. ...Show more

Able: Gold Medals, Grand Slams & Smashing Glass Ceilings by Dylan Alcott

$39.99 AUD

Category: Biography

The incredible life of an astonishing athlete   Dylan Alcott has never let his disability get in the way of what he wanted to achieve. His family treated him no differently to any other kid, and it was the best thing they ever did. Growing up, Dylan always had a positive attitude to life. So when he discovered sport, he'd have a go at anything and could always be found at the centre of the action, giving his best and playing to win. Then he tried wheelchair basketball and tennis and was hooked.     Fast forward ten years or so, and the now three-time Paralympic gold medallist, Order of Australia recipient, Grand Slam tennis champion and philanthropist combines elite sport with a love for music (he's a triple j radio announcer and is famous for his crowd surfing). But Dylan's greatest passion is changing the way those with disabilities are perceived, and to inspire young people - whether they have disabilities or are able-bodied - to achieve their dreams. It's a passion that drives him every day of his life.     In Able, Dylan shares his story. It's the tale of someone who's proud of who he is, who has a go, does everything with heart and soul, who always sees the upside and never takes himself too seriously. As inspiring, honest and funny as its author, Able proves that for every one thing you can't do, there are 10,000 other things that you can. ...Show more

Crossing the Line: How Australian Cricket Lost Its Way by Gideon Haigh

$24.95 AUD

Category: General

Race Across the World: The Incredible Story of the World's Greatest Road Race - the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon by John Smailes

$32.99 AUD

Category: General

The rollicking adventure of the world's greatest car race - the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon. 1968, ninety-eight competitors stormed out of London on the world's greatest automotive adventure, the London to Sydney Marathon, the most ambitious and epic car race ever staged.  Four weeks later the y arrived in Sydney-or at least half of them did. The others lay in ruin along its 10,000-mile route. Unimaginable now in either concept or execution, the marathon captured the rapt attention of the countries through which it passed, and of the world, as it created front-page news. It was more than a car race, more than a rally, more than the trials that opened up outback Australia only a decade before: it was the world's most gruelling test of driver and vehicle.For Australians, the race became a focal point of the rivalry between local car-manufacturing giants Holden and Ford, as the Monaro Coupe and the iconic Falcon GT went head to head. Neither was to win, but the story of their duel is motor-sporting legend.John Smailes was a young journalist at the time, covering the race for the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Fifty years after this extraordinary race was run, John's dramatic, compelling and utterly fascinating story-drawing on his own first-hand, eyewitness account and enhanced by in-depth interviews over the intervening years with all the race's key participants-brings the marathon vividly to life. ...Show more