Spectator Sport: Sporting lives

Sadly, no blistering new memoir this year from Max Mosley — A Study In Scarlet: the History of the Whip (published by the British Horseracing Authority) — but there have been plenty of wonderful sporting books this year. Too many to list obviously, so I have chosen just four and, in the Leveson spirit of full and frank confession, all written by or about people I know and admire.

Paul Kimmage’s Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson tells the extraordinary story of the England Under-21 tight head prop who broke his neck on the training ground in 2005 when the scrum collapsed on him, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. The narrative is multilayered and complex, using courtroom script devices borrowed from The Shawshank Redemption to explore how Hampson sees — and is seen by — the people around him. It is a profoundly moving story, very sad, very angry and astoundingly uplifting.