Football Audiobooks | Sports & Recreation

In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving

Leigh Anne Tuohy, Leigh-Ann Touhy, Sally Jenkins, Sean Touhy, Sean Tuohy (Author), Kathleen Mcinerney, Leigh Anne Tuohy, Leigh-Ann Touhy, Rick Adamson, Sally Jenkins, Sean Touhy, Sean Tuohy, Various Narrators, Various Narrators (Narrator)

Audiobook

In the Name of the Father: Family, Football, and the Manning Dynasty

No family in the history of American sports has ascended to the storybook level of greatness and royal succession quite like the Mannings. Although the façade has occasionally cracked-murmurs of locker-room scandal, flashes of fraternal jealousy-this talented trio of quarterbacks is enshrined in American culture, epitomizing once-proud but dying nostrums of Southern Christian manhood. With remarkable nuance, "outstanding biographer" (Dallas Morning News) Mark Ribowsky traces their roots from red-clay Mississippi. From patriarch Archie's heyday at Ole Miss, with its complicated history, to the rise of his Super Bowl champion sons Peyton and Eli, a complex new cultural reality emerges. Drawing on dozens of new interviews, Ribowsky shows that the path to football immortality has not always been smooth, nor completely glorious. The result is a distinctly American saga of a flawed lineage that forever changed the game.

Mark Ribowsky (Author), Barry Abrams (Narrator)

Audiobook

Inseguendo un sogno

Herbert Kilpin è un giovane operaio di Nottingham che cresce tra l'odore di carne della macelleria del padre, dove vive la numerosa famiglia, e la fabbrica di pizzo in cui lavora. L'unico luogo dove trova sollievo ed evasione dalla povertà è il campo da calcio. Testardo e sfrontato, avrebbe tutte le carte in regola per diventare un grande giocatore, se solo fosse in grado di fare squadra e controllare le sue emozioni e i suoi vizi, come quello del bere. Il giorno in cui l'enigmatico e sofisticato imprenditore italiano Edoardo Bosio arriva a Nottingham per rubare qualche segreto sulla lavorazione del pizzo e, perché no, qualche abile operaio da impiegare nella sua fabbrica di Torino, si presenta per Herbert l'occasione della vita. Bosio, che è uno dei primi giocatori di calcio italiani, nota subito le qualità del giovane, sia in fabbrica sia sul campo, e gli offre l'opportunità di andare con lui in Italia. Ad aspettarlo oltremanica c'è un mondo nuovo, nel quale Kilpin dovrà fare i conti con il pregiudizio di classe, le ribellioni di operai scontenti, l'emarginazione dentro e fuori dal campo, ma in cui troverà i compagni con i quali coronare il sogno agognato: creare una squadra per il popolo. E quella squadra farà la storia del calcio mondiale: l'AC Milan.

Cecilia Gragnani, Paul Davidson (Author), Cecilia Gragnani (Narrator)

Audiobook

Inshallah United: A story of faith and football

‘For every Manc a religion’ Manchester. Birthplace of industry, the Stone Roses, the Class of 92 and, in 1979, a small brown man called Noz. This is the story of how, and why, he came to be a strictly halal Stretford Ender. Nooruddean Choudry was born in 1979 — the year Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the last Shah of Iran, and Tim Martin opened his first Wetherspoons. Also that year, a local football club lost the Cup Final to Arsenal courtesy of a man named Sunderland. That club would become an all-consuming obsession for young Nooruddean, who would one day become a small brown man and, vitally, also a Red. Inshallah United is the story of the first British-born son of a Pakistani family living in England’s second city. And geography is important, because if it wasn't for his mum and dad settling in Manchester rather than anywhere else in the world, so much of what makes up Nooruddean's identity could have been so different. As it was, he grew up as a Muslim, Manchester United supporting, Morrissey-loving, Maggie-hating, working-class Manc. Inshallah United is about growing up as a strictly halal Stretford Ender; a devout Muslim and diehard Red. It’s about praying five times a day that United would sign Alan Shearer and knock the Scousers off their perch. And it’s a deeply personal account of life as a Muslim Asian Mancunian kid in the late 80s and 90s, bookmarked by the most successful period in Manchester United's history.

Nooruddean Choudry (Author), Maanuv Thiara (Narrator)

Audiobook

Intensity: Inside Liverpool FC: Our Story

“OUR IDENTITY IS INTENSITY,” declares Liverpool FC assistant-manager Pep Lijnders in this compelling account of the 2021/22 season, and from the very first chapter he takes us on a footballing thrill-ride we will never forget. Liverpool's blistering brand of football has revived a sleeping giant, energised its vast army of fans, entertained crowds at home and all over the world, and redefined coaching excellence. Now Pep tells the inside story of a season which, even by LFC standards, has been truly sensational. Week by week as the drama unfolds it's all here: from pre-season to unforgettable finale; great goals and gruelling schedules; passionate team-talks and personal reflections; unsung heroes and Kop idols; the pride and the passion, the joy and the heartache… and the fun. In his own engaging and inspiring style, Pep takes readers behind-the-scenes at Anfield, the AXA Training Centre and the team hotel; on the pitch, in the dugout and back in the dressing-room away from the media glare. In forming a ‘one-club' mentality, Jürgen Klopp, Lijnders and co have also created countless modern memories for the LFC family, and this unique book chronicles their legacy.

James Carroll, Pep Lijnders (Author), Luke Francis (Narrator)

Audiobook

Johnathan Thurston: The Autobiography

The bestselling autobiography of a league legend. Johnathan Thurston is widely regarded as rugby league's greatest player. This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.

Johnathan Thurston (Author), James Phelps (Narrator)

Audiobook

Keeping Your Head in the Game: Untold Stories of the Highs and Lows of a Life in Sport

Brought to you by Penguin. Elite athletes play out their lives in the most public of arenas. Everything they do is analysed in real time and then picked apart in the pub and in the press afterwards. 'Why did they miss that penalty?', 'What made them fall at the first jump?', 'That press conference was a bit weird.' We can all speculate, but what's really going on? Gary Bloom is a sports psychotherapist. He works with footballers, cricketers, rugby players, jockeys, Olympians and many other athletes besides. They might seem like superheroes on the pitch, but in the dressing room they're just like anybody else, subject to the same emotional pressures that affect us all. In Keeping Your Head in the Game we peer into this highly confidential world. We follow the journeys of ten athletes in their therapy sessions with Gary, from a rugby player arrested for a drunken brawl, through a homesick cricketer on tour, to a snooker player struggling with his feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Structured around the emotions we all experience on a daily basis - shame, anger, fear, jealousy and envy, love -chapter by chapter, the inner traumas that have an impact on the performance of these sports personalities are revealed, explained and resolved.Seeing how they overcome their demons is a powerful way of tackling your own and, as Gary says, happier players play better - in sport and in life. © Gary Bloom 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Gary Bloom (Author), Gary Bloom (Narrator)

Audiobook

King Power

I HAD A HUNCH WE'D BE CHAMPIONS! The most unlikely story in the history of sport, told by our greatest football writerOn 25th March 2015, when King Richard III, recently rescued from a municipal car park, was reburied in Leicester Cathedral, his beloved football team had just lost 4-3 to Tottenham Hotspur and were bottom of the Premier League, relegation certainties. With King Richard finally at rest, everything changed for Leicester City. Here, in his own words, King Richard III tells this, the most remarkable sporting story of all time - how 5,000-1 Premier League outsiders became champions: the goals, the games, the dressing-room banter. He gives us the Jamie Vardy story, from prosthetic-limb factory employee to the most celebrated striker this side of the River Soar; Mahrez, the great Muslim dynamo from Algeria, once stuck in the French seventh tier; the dark days of the sex video and the late December wobble; Lords Drinkwater, Albrighton and the great Tinkerman from Italy, all of them heroes of Shakespearean proportions.This isn't a fairy-tale, this really happened. From the unsanctioned hand of a much-loved Royal, the greatest football book ever written.

Richard III (Author), Peter Joyce (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kingdom Coach: Discovering Coaching Principles from the Life of King David

I had the opportunity to work with several coaches throughout my 10 year coaching career. None as influential to my development as a man than Jon Kitna. He became my friend, mentor and coach. I wanted to honor him by collecting the stories and principles he taught me as a man, and produce a book that would continue a movement. A movement of men who get into coaching for eternal rewards. A book that would serve as a training manual for Kingdom Coaches everywhere - who carry a burden for the fatherless.

Dr. Ron Allen (Author), Dr. Ron Allen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs, and How a Once Swingin' Cow Town Chase

Fresh off of a gutsy, thrilling 2023 Super Bowl win for the Kansas City Chiefs, two inspiring stories that fit perfectly together-a biography of superstar quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who brought the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl win in fifty years in 2020 as well as a second in 2023, along with the historical struggles and recent resurgence of the former "Paris of the Plains," Kansas City. There is nobody like Patrick Mahomes. In three seasons, he has won a Super Bowl and competed in another, earned the titles of First Team All-Pro, NFL Offensive Player of the Year, and league MVP, and turned the Kansas City Chiefs from famed playoff failures into the most successful team in the NFL. With his unique and groundbreaking playing style, and winning personality both on and off the field, Mahomes has become a truly transcendent quarterback in a journey that mirrors and accentuates the rebirth of the once swingin' cow town of Kansas City, Missouri. Once an adventure-filled jazz epicenter and nightlife hub to rival New Orleans, Kansas City's wild edges and captivating neighborhoods were snuffed out in pursuit of a suburbanized dream that largely left out people of color. It's been a long road attempting to move past the scars of segregation and overcome the city's flyover reputation, but Kansas City is now poised to make a comeback, and no other person or team embodies that hope like Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City and Mahomes represent the story of the midwestern American city-how they grew, how they shaped the country, how the sport of football came to mean so much to them, how they failed, and how they are changing. Kansas City-area natives Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd have written for outlets such as The New York Times, The Kansas City Star, and Texas Monthly, bringing their deep connection to the city, football expertise, and polished writing skills to create a serious book about a very entertaining subject-the rebirth of a city, a team's triumph, and how Patrick Mahomes, and the team he led, were exactly what was needed to bring Kansas City back together again.

Mark Dent, Rustin Dodd (Author), Kemet Coleman (Narrator)

Audiobook

L'avvocato del DIOS

Ho creduto di essere io il suo avvocato, quando invece è stato probabilmente il contrario: era lui l'avvocato di noi tutti, ha difeso i deboli e ha incitato a fare delle nostre vite un capolavoro, nel bene e nel male'. Le accuse che il mondo ha lanciato a Diego Armando Maradona sono tutte qui: la droga, i rapporti con le donne, i guai con il fisco e la politica. E poi, fu una vera colpa aver segnato con la mano agli inglesi? Fu suo il gol più bello di sempre? E, soprattutto, era davvero più forte di Pelè? Dieci capi di imputazione per dieci ragionamenti difensivi. Dieci, come il numero che ha incarnato. A condurre l'arringa in difesa del campione è il suo avvocato di fiducia, Angelo Pisani, che il calciatore aveva ribattezzato 'Angelone'; l'uomo che ha tutelato la sua immagine e la sua figura dalle grandi persecuzioni subite: dai nemici del campo a quelli dei palazzi, dalla stampa ai finti amici, fino a quella più grande, la persecuzione dell'uomo sul giocatore. Maradona contro Diego. La sentenza, ora che il tribunale che affronta il suo giudizio si è espanso fino a diventare celeste, sarà clamorosa. Sarà anche l'occasione per ripercorrere i passaggi salienti di una carriera e una vita uniche, vissute sempre al massimo, continuamente in prima pagina. Aneddoti personali inseguono i momenti in campo, mentre l'eco di un'esistenza da rockstar raggiunge ogni punto del pianeta. Di questa micidiale macchina mediatica Maradona sarà a volte vittima a volte burattinaio. Puntualmente, comunque, controvento, dribblando ogni ostacolo e nascondendo la palla al destino, mentre gli avversari di ogni grado continuano a inseguirlo, invano.

Angelo Pisani (Author), Dario Agrillo (Narrator)

Audiobook

Lasting Impact: One Team, One Season. What Happens When Our Sons Play Football

New York Times bestselling author Kostya Kennedy sets this captivating, character-rich story against the back-drop of one of the most pressing questions in sports: should we let our sons play football? At the high end of America's most popular game is the glittering NFL, a fan-stoked money machine and also an opaque enterprise under scrutiny for the physical dangers imposed on its players. Then there's high school football, unrivaled for the crucial life lessons it imparts-discipline, leadership, cooperation, humility, perseverance-yet also a brain-rattling, bone-breaking game whose consequences are at best misunderstood, and, at the very worst, deadly. What is the parent of a young athlete to make of that? The New Rochelle High School team in suburban New York is like many across the country: a source of civic pride, a manhood workshop for a revered coach and an emotional proving ground for boys of widely different backgrounds. In the fall of 2014, New Rochelle's season unfolded alongside watershed NFL head injury revelations and domestic abuse cases (remember Ray Rice?), as well as fatalities on nearby fields. The dramatic story of that season, for players, parents and coaches, underscores fundamental questions. Are football's inherent risks so great that the sport may not survive as we know it? Or are those risks worth the rewards that the game continues to bestow, and that can stay with a young man for a lifetime?

Kostya Kennedy (Author), Kevin Stillwell, Kostya Kennedy (Narrator)

Audiobook

Football Audiobooks in Sports & Recreation