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David Owen is a journalist and expert in horse racing. In April 2013, Bloomsbury published Foinavon: The Story of the National’s Biggest Upset , the definitive story of the 1967 Grand National, when the 100-1 outsider picked his way through a field of fallen horses and strolled carefully home, well clear of the field. It won the prestigious 2013 Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award in the United States and has been shortlisted for the Racing Book of the Year at the 2014 British Sports Book Awards. (DL)
John Osborne graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2004 and is now a hugely successful poet with sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival and many other literary festivals and events nationwide. His show, “John Peel’s Shed”, was recorded for Radio 4. John has had poetry published in The Guardian and Spectator and has appeared on Colin Murray’s Radio 1 Show and with Richard Bacon on Five Live. His first book, Radio Head (Simon and Schuster, 2009), was selected as Book of the Week by Radio 4 and was serialised in the Daily Mail. This brilliantly observed memoir of a year listening to virtually every radio station in the UK attracted a raft of stunning reviews. His second book, The Newsagent’s Window, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2010 and has been broadcast on Radio 4. John’s latest book,Don’t Need the Sunshine was published in June 2013 and is the subject of his latest show which received its premiere at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe. John is currently working on a new show for Radio 4 called “The New Blur Album” and collaborating with Molly Naylor on a TV series. (RW)
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Tom Palmer writes football stories for children aged 7 to 13. His first two series,Football Academy and Foul Play (Puffin), fea9ture the shady world of child detectives as well as straightforward football action. His new series, “The Squad” (Puffin), is about an England youth football team, five of whom are international spies as well as footballers. Tom’s books are set in places as far-flung as the Arctic Circle, Moscow, Ghana and Leeds. Tom is also the author of “Over the Line” (Barrington Stoke, 2014). He is well-connected in the literacy world, working regularly for the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency. He works with over 200 schools a year, targeting reluctant readers who love sport with his innovative Football Reading Game.
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Brian Reade is an award-winning journalist who writes two weekly opinion columns for the Daily Mirror, on Current Affairs and Sport. He was born in Liverpool in 1957 and began his journalism career on the Reading Evening Post in 1980, working as a football writer and columnist at the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo before moving to the Mirror in 1994. In 2000, he was named Columnist of The Year at The British Press Gazette Awards, and, in 2004, was Sports Columnist of The Year in the Sports Journalism Awards. In 2008, Reade released his first book, 44 Years With The Same Bird, documenting his life spent following Liverpool FC, which became a massive bestseller. More recently, Quercus published another bestseller, An Epic Swindle: 44 Months with a Pair of Cowboys, which charts the ownership of Liverpool FC by Hicks and Gillette. (DL)
Ronald Reng is one of Germany’s most prestigious sports journalists and has written for a variety of publications across Europe. His intimate and insightful memoir of the late Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper who took his life in 2009, won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in 2011 and was shortlisted for the British Sports Book Awards in 2012. Published by Yellow Jersey, A Life Too Short was described by the William Hill panel as ‘an outstanding piece of sports writing.’ The book was first published in Germany and has since been translated into several languages. Reng is also the author of The Keeper of Dreams: One Man’s Controversial Story of Life in the English Premiership, the story of the goalkeeper, Lars Leese, and his time at Barnsley. His most recent book about the Bundesliga, ‘Spieltage’, has just been published in Germany and will be published in the UK this year by Simon and Schuster. (DL)
Tina Renton made the headlines in 2011 and has just published a book about her experience entitled You Can’t Hide (Simon and Schuster). After a rocky start and the birth of her two children, Tina decided to return to education and graduated from the University of Essex in Law in 2009. As part of her degree, she specialised in evidence-based cases, and it was then that she first believed she stood a chance of bringing her abuser to justice, in spite of the fact that the abuse had happened twenty years ago. Tina’s brave fight attracted newspaper headlines and her remarkable story is guaranteed to bring hope to the thousands of people who are seeking justice decades after they have been abused. You Can’t Hide was published by Simon and Schuster in February 2013. (RW)
Ian Ridley was voted Sports Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards, 2007. He is the football correspondent for The Mail on Sunday and the co-author of Tony Adams’ autobiography, Addicted, and the author of Floodlit Dreams. His most recent book, a biography of Kevin Keegan, was published by Simon and Schuster and he has just published Extra Time with referee Mark Halsey. (DL)
Stephen Roche is a retired professional road racing cyclist. In a 13-year professional career, he peaked in 1987, becoming only the second cyclist to win the Triple Crown of victories in the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia stage races, plus the World road race championship. In 2012, Yellow Jersey published his his autobiography, Born to Ride. (DL)
Barney Ronay writes about sport for The Guardian where he has had a Saturday column for the last six years and is also a regular on the Football Weekly podcast. He has written several books about sport, including Any Chance of A Game? and the award-winning The Manager: The Absurd Ascent of The Most Important Man in Football, plus some earlier titles with big writing and lots of pictures that he doesn’t like to talk about. (DL)
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