This is what academic types like to call “Sport and Society”. It’s that part where the activities of athletes connects with real life, and makes their skills more than just “Good at running around with a ball.”
My recommendation here is a little out of the mainstream. The Final Whistle is a book about rugby, which is certainly not an everyday sport in North America. But, really, it’s not. It’s about fifteen players from the Roslyn Park club in London, who served and died in the First World War. Nominated for the Times Sports Book of the Year.
“This is the story of fifteen men killed in the Great War. All played rugby for one London club; none lived to hear the final whistle. Rugby brought them together; rugby led the rush to war. —- together their stories paint a portrait in miniature of the entire war. An old press cutting gave numbers – 350 served, 72 died – but no names. So began a quest to rediscover these men and capture their lives, from their vanished Edwardian youth and vigour, to the war they fought and how they died.’
‘Haunting and beautiful . . . this tells the story of men from one rugby club but it is a universal narrative of heroism and loss. He writes superbly and has produced a book of commendable scholarship. I cannot recommend it enough.’ Fergal Keane”
