Books by historians at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)’s International Centre for Sports History and Culture (ICSHC) have been winning national acclaim.
Two books by current academics Professor Tony Collins and Professor Robert Colls have made 2015’s top picks by national newspapers, while Honorary Research Fellow David Goldblatt
(below) has scooped the world’s top literary sports prize, The William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.
Professor Martin Polley, Director of the ICSHC, said, “To have these three honours for our colleagues in the space of a week is wonderful. It helps to raise the profile of the work of the Centre and of DMU, and it highlights the ways in which academic history can be accessible to wide audiences. Tony, Rob, and David have all made a real impact with their work.”
Professor Tony Collins’ Oval World made the list of Sports Books of the Year in The Times, The Guardian and The Sunday Times. It read: “Rugby does not have the literature it deserves, which makes Tony Collins’s attempt to tell its story all the more noteworthy.”
Tony spent months researching the book which was launched in Leicester alongside packed lectures.
Robert Colls’ George Orwell: English Rebel (Oxford University Press) was praised by the Independent on Sunday as “impressive for both the quality of its insights and the stylishness of its prose”.
Professor Colls, who is Professor of Cultural History, earned rave reviews for his biography of Orwell. The IoS reviewer David Evans writes: “His readings of Orwell’s fiction – especially Coming up for Air (“Orwell’s reconciliation with his class and country”) – are lucid, persuasive and very funny.”
ICSHC Research Fellow David Goldblatt’s The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award – the world’s most prestigious literary sports prize. Watch a video interview here.
John Gaustad, chairman of the judging panel, said: “This is a serious, insightful yet compellingly readable book on a subject that affects the lives of everyone in the country, be they football fans or not.”
He was announced the winner by broadcaster John Inverdale at a ceremony at Bafta in London. Goldblatt’s previous work includes The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football and Futeball Nation about Brazilian teams.
The judging panel comprised the retired footballer and former chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association, Clarke Carlisle, the broadcasters John Inverdale and Danny Kelly, the journalist and author Hugh McIlvanney, and the columnist and author Alyson Rudd.
Posted on Monday 14 December 2015