🥊1980s boxers, 🏀a slam dunk history, ⚽an 80s goalscoring legend, and some 🛼roller hockey

All Sports Books #2 of 2025

A hodgepodge edition with my thoughts on 5 recent or upcoming sports books I read in the last month. Including a very rare negative review!

🥊Heavyweight Title Fights of the 1980’s by Steve Hunt

Just published, this book is exactly what it says in the title - an account of the thirty odd heavyweight boxing fights during the 1980s in which World Titles were contested. The 80s are an overlooked decade in heavyweight boxing as the sport suffered from the retirement of Ali and his great rivals. Larry Holmes never quite got the credit he deserved and the period until the emergence of Mike Tyson towards the end of the decade is left a footnote in the overarching history of the sport.

Hunt has clearly done plenty of research pulling out pre and post fight reactions that help shape the broader narrative of a sport dealing with the end of a Golden Era and the overdue retirement of Muhammad Ali. The book ultimately is the story of Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks and a young Mike Tyson.

Holmes is the most fascinating character in the book, desperate for the recognition he felt he deserved for dominating for so long but lacking a truly great rival against whom he could be compared. The book also shines a light on so many oft forgotten names who had a title shot during the decade only to mostly fade into obscurity.

Hunt excellently puts the fights in the broader context of their time while also alluding to comparisons in boxing history. It’s a very readable book that will send to YouTube to watch many a highlight reel. An enjoyable read and great start to what promises to be an all-time great year for boxing books.

🏀Magic In The Air: The Myth, The Mystery and the Soul of the Slam Dunk by Mike Sielski

Also just published, Magic in the Air is a history of basketball through the lens of the slam dunk. It traces the evolution of the sport through attitudes towards the dunk and some of the game's greatest, if often unknown, characters. The book explores what the dunk has meant at various times through the sports history - from a radical transgression to a display of dominance to a relatively routine demonstration of athleticism.

Each essay stands alone as a fascinating and readable nugget of baseball history. Together they serve as a love letter to the sport and the players who innovated and brought fans to their feet wherever and whenever they played. The level of research undertaken for the book is impressive with the bibliography serving as a reading list packed with unknown gems and long forgotten basketball classics. Add a whole bunch of interviews, a determination to leave no stone unturned, and some great writing you get a superb piece of work.

Definitely check this book out if you like basketball history, the romance of sporting greatness, and simply great sports writing.

⚽ Gary Lineker: A Portrait of a Football Icon by Chris Evans

Gary Lineker might be the most famous ex footballer in Britain. Ask a football fan under 40 to say something about Lineker and they’ll probably say Match of the Day presenter, Walkers Crisps adverts, never shown a yellow card. If they use too much social media, they might mention also his infamous stomach problems during a World Cup game.

As a player, however, Lineker was one of Europe’s greatest ever goalscorers - England’s 4th highest scorer of all-time , winner of the Golden Boot in World Cup 1986, and a former Barcelona number 9. This new biography seeks to remind fans about Lineker’s on-field exploits and his remarkable consistency in front of goal.

The challenge for a biographer of Lineker, and the reason there hasn’t been a bio in more than 30 years, is that Lineker’s story lacks any of the off-field drama or bad behaviour which enlivens any footballer’s bio. The risk is that a story of goals, transfers and bland platitudes becomes, well, bland. Evans has, however, done a great job in telling the story of Lineker’s career while not shying away from the lack of stories of nights out or misdeeds. It’s to Evans credit that he has managed to tell the story in a readable enjoyable way.

Lineker’s time at Barcelona is particularly interesting, an in particular Cruyff’s somewhat odd insistence he wasn’t the right fit for his 4-3-3 formation. So too are the deep dives on his England career and his Golden Boot performance in Mexico 86. As good a bio as could be written about the on-field career of a man who never even received a yellow card.

🛼Roll With It: A Trip Back to the 90s - Gen X style by Brad Porteus

I try and read a bunch of books each year by first time authors who aren’t with a big publisher. Brad reached out and charmingly convinced me - I wasn’t surprised to find out he worked in marketing - to read his memoir of his post college attempts to break it into the world of sports business and his stint as GM of a professional roller hockey team.

Brad, like most of my reviews, is relentlessly positive. Part memoir of growing up Gen X in America, part reflection on the lowest levels of sports business, the book is charming and readable. The sports stuff is fascinating - all the little details that go into organizing games and selling tickets. You could imagine Brad telling the various anecdotes with a big smile and shaking his head about how out of his depth he felt! Ultimately Brad’s positive personality shines through which makes the book an uplifting one.

It’s different than what I normally read and much of the Gen X stuff passed me by (especially as a non-American) but I’m glad I checked it out. If you’re looking for a quirky, positive memoir and are nostalgic for 90s US culture, you’ll definitely enjoy this.

🎾Searching for Novak: The man behind the enigma Hardcover by Mark Hodgkinson

The idea of telling Novak Djokic’s life story through focusing on his mindset and mental approach to the game sounded like a fascinating approach. Sadly, the book reads like Novak paid someone to be relentlessly positive to the point of sycophancy about his every decision or idea. The stuff on his childhood in Serbia during NATO bombings is quite interesting. However, the book is lacking any objectivity. Far too long, far too biased, I read far too much of it. Avoid!