Sport
The Wigan Warriors Quiz Book
Compiled by Ewan Phillips
Q. Who scored a try while unconscious against Bradford in the 2011 Challenge Cup?
Q. Which Wigan star of the 1980s wore two earrings?
Q. Which Wigan forward did Gaby Roslin say she ‘quite fancied’ after his appearance on The Big Breakfast in 1992?
Think you’re an expert on Wigan RLFC? Let quizmaster Ewan Phillips – the man behind TV’s Mock the Week, Big Fat Quiz of the Year and more – test your knowledge of 2018’s Betfred Super League champions.
Prepare to be grilled on players and events legendary and random through every era from Northern Union to today. This captivating memory-jogger guarantees family fun.
No Final Whistle
By Seth Burkett
“A great story for all football fans…” – Willian, Chelsea and Brazil
With an introduction by Sam Clucas, Swansea City
Alfie Bennett is going to be a superstar. He is absolutely sure of it. Every second of his life is dedicated to football. And when he gets signed up by the famous Borough Academy, it looks as if he’s well and truly on the way to achieving his dream. Yet life at Borough isn’t all that it seems…
‘A passion for the beautiful game shines through in this wonderful title…’ – International Soccer Network
Ronnie Gives Rugby League a Try!
Author: Leon Crick. Illustrations: Dave Bull.
Learn to read with Ronnie the Rhino! RHINOS READING is a project launched by Leeds Rhinos Foundation that aims to support children’s literacy and introduce them to rugby league via stories featuring the superstars of the club – and this is the first book in the new series. Who better than the world’s most famous rugby league mascot to launch it?
Champion of Champions
A boy. A bike. A legend.
By David Brayley
What if you were a professional road cyclist and – due to a run of bad injuries and loss of form – were told your career will be finished if you didn’t succeed in one of the world’s toughest races? Daniel’s dream of being a leading professional cyclist is under threat but, far from being worried, he believes he has the answer. All he has to do is remember it.
For that, he must go back to the very beginning of his journey as a 14-year-old rider in the leafy lanes of Wales’s Gower Peninsula, and then make a shock detour to rural Italy, where he first hears what will become his mantra – “Be the best that you can be.”
The eccentric stranger who tells him so also introduces Daniel to the legendary Italian racer, Fausto Coppi, and inspires the teenage boy with stories of Coppi’s excellence, bravery, success and ultimate heartbreak. But the eerie man with detailed knowledge hides a dark secret. Once before he tried to inspire a teenage cyclist and the horror of that episode is slowly revealed to Daniel.
In a story that threatens to tear a family apart, can Daniel navigate his past and call on the reasons that led to him becoming a professional cyclist in the first place? If so, he may just be able to deliver a performance in the brutal Milan-San Remo race and save not only his cycling career but everything his life has meant so far.
Will the memories be too painful? Or will they lead on to ultimate glory?
Touchstones
Rugby League, Rock’n’Roll, The Road and Me
by Steve Mascord
Steve Mascord – born Andrew John Langley – was obsessed with rugby league and rock’n’roll. Long after almost everyone he knew, he clung to these things like twin teddybears, turning at least one of them into a career and making a bit of money out of the other.
At the age of 47 he owned precisely nothing aside from hundreds of records and CDs and almost every edition of Rugby League Week ever printed. He was unmarried, had no car or property and was the proud owner of $50,000 of credit card debt. Then one day he discovered the truth about himself.
He always knew he was adopted but it turned out he was part of a bohemian family, his mother forced to give him up after suffering a mental breakdown. She searched for him until her dying day. Steve met uncles and cousins and aunties he never knew existed and for the first time in his life he felt whole. And he looked around that storage room full of CDs and football magazines and felt sad; a sense of loss. He appeared in newspapers and on radio and television and people thought he was successful but had he really created a life for himself? Or was he living in a childhood fantasy, compensating for what had been missing, ready to fall down on top of him as traditional media imploded?
Steve thought ‘enough of being Steve Mascord, who is not a real person. Time to finally be Andrew John Langley’. Having figuratively thrown all his toys out of the cot, he decided to conduct an audit. Which ones to pick up off the floor and keep in his new life, and which to leave laying there forever.
