Sport Archives

The long-awaited autobiography of one of Australia’s surfing legends. On the surface he was Tom Carroll, dreamer, cheeky grommet, brilliant surfer, Australian sporting hero, fitness fanatic, businessman, family man, big wave charger. Inside turned the terrible wheel of drug addiction, part family curse, part legacy of the footloose surf culture he’d done so much to legitimise. Tom&#... Read more

I’ll let you behind the curtain of having the best job in the world. Publishers are awesome, and very generous. So when a book comes along that excites and surprises a publisher, so much so that we only get to look at a quick teaser before release instead of the entire book, we tend to take notice. Mike Tyson’s autobiography Undisputed Truth is one of those books. As the sports nerd... Read more

Legendary Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has spent a lifetime in football, but it appears he’s saved some of his best kicks for his former players in his long awaited autobiography. In it Ferguson has labeled his former golden boy David Beckham as “the only player I managed who chose to be famous”. Ferguson said he decided to sell Beckham after he accidentally kic... Read more

Last night Stephen Fry posted an open letter on his blog to David Cameron, Sebastian Coe and members of the IOC, asking them to boycott the next Winter Olympics, due to be held in Russia in 2014. Fry’s comparison of Vladimir Putin’s current stance on the LGBT community to Hitler’s treatment of Jews during the 1936 Berlin Olympics is terrifying. As he states, “…the ... Read more

Last night England retained the Ashes because it rained. Yes that’s a little strange, in the ultra-professional world of international sport. But cricket is a little strange. You never know what to expect. It’s not all rain delays, dyed hair-tips and white pants in cricket. Sometimes, shock horror, they even read! Here are some of world cricket’s finest players talking about t... Read more

The incredible story of Dick Johnson – the Aussie battler who became an all-time V8 great. Ford legend Johnson did not get his break in motorsport until he was famously smashed out by a rock in the 1980 Bathurst 1000. But true to his never-say-die attitude, he went on to establish one of Australia’s most successful V8 Supercar teams, amidst a dramatic career that, on many occasions, almos... Read more

With the Australian Cricket Team on the brink of annihilation, times are tough for cricket lovers. To soften the blow Booktopia’s resident cricket nerd Andrew Cattanach takes a look at some of the best cricketing memoirs around, and finds his love of the pun, as well as anecdotes of the leather and willow, comfortably satisfied. No Holding Back by Michael Holding Pun: It’s quite sim... Read more

The fairytale ended last week as a teary Peter Moody and owners of Black Caviar announced they would be retiring the national icon, with her amazing unbeaten stretch stopping at 25. I was lucky enough to be at Randwick for her last run, although the 28,000 spectators there didn’t know at the time. Premier Barry O’Farrell had earlier in the week clamboured for headlines with his misj... Read more

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST CONTAINS GRATUITOUS MAN LOVE. Imagine two men. One capable of changing history with drift and turn from the rough, the other capable of making it riveting to those who think drift and turn from the rough was illegal in Tasmania until 1997. Imagine they meet, one as artist, the other his subject. Imagine no longer. I will say from the outset that I think Gideon Haigh is the... Read more

 The Booktopia Book Guru asks Matthew Mitcham Olympic Gold Medallist and author of Twists and Turns Ten Terrifying Questions  ———————— 1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? All in Brisbane. QEII (coopers plains), raised in Camp Hill (I had no chance to be straight!) educat... Read more