Paul Hayward began his career as a sports journalist at the Racing Post before moving to The Independent to become racing correspondent. He then branched into general sport and became Chief Sports’ Writer at the Telegraph before occupying the same position at The Guardian, Mail and The Observer. During that time, he was named Sports’ Writer of the Year in 2002 and 2003 at the British Press Awards and Best Football Writer at the Sky Sports Awards in 1997, 1999 and 2001.
Hayward returned to The Guardian and its sister paper The Observer in 2009 as a senior sportswriter, predominantly covering football, until he re-joined The Telegraph in 2011, again as its chief sportswriter. He took time off from writing in 2015 to undergo cancer treatment but recovered in time to cover the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Paul has also been named Sports’ Writer of the Year at the SJA British Sports Journalism awards in 1996, 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2018. He co-wrote autobiographies with Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Bobby Robson and Michael Owen. He wrote a landmark 150-year biography of the England men’s football team (1872-2022) for Simon & Schuster and recently co-wrote Kevin Sinfield’s autobiography ‘The Extra Mile’ for Penguin Random House.
Twitter: @_PaulHayward