Search results for ""author paul donnelley""

Firsts, Lasts & Onlys is a tennis fan's delight, chock-full of astonishing events, time-honoured anecdotes and extraordinary facts. The book takes a light-hearted but authoritative look at every major tennis tournament in the world, including the Wimbledon Championships. Discover how the first championships - held in 1877, the same year as the first cricket Test match - were almost an afterthought. Did you know that no women were allowed in the first tournament? Or that the All England Club was actually founded to promote croquet? The book is packed with fascinating trivia that will tantalise and enthral. When did strawberries and cream become a Wimbledon staple? Who was the first man to win all four major titles in the same year? Who is or was Roland Garros? Filled with bizarre curiosities from the sport's past - from the heir to the throne whose death was caused by tennis, to the vicar who won Wimbledon, to the murderer who reached a final - this is a book every tennis fan should own.

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The Arsenal Companion collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about Arsenal FC. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. Heard the one about the glam rock single, 'A Love Song For My Lady', recorded by Charlie George as 'Charlie Gorgeous'? How about the linesman's injury that led to commentator Jimmy Hill running the line at Highbury? Do you know which former full-back managed the club for the shortest ever spell? Which 80s star advertised fitted kitchens and a white leather suit for Top Man? Or which 60s stopper was known as 'Sponge' due to his ability to soak up pressure? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia, essential for any fan who holds the riches of red-and-white history close to their heart. Featuring a foreword by Frank McLintock.

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From the thousands of matches ever played by Arsenal, stretching from a muddy field on the Isle of Dogs in the 19th century to the Premier League era and the pristine perfection of the Emirates Stadium, here are 50 of the club's most glorious, epochal and thrilling games of all! Expertly presented in evocative historical context, and described incident-by-incident in atmospheric detail, Arsenal Greatest Games offers a terrace ticket back in time, taking in their first FA Cup win in 1930, 1930s dominance of domestic football under the great Herbert Chapman, through to the great 1971 double-winning side; on to the exploits under George Graham in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Arsene Wenger's revolution and his all-conquering invincibles of 2004. An irresistible cast list of club legends - Frank McLintock, Charlie George, Thierry Henry, Ian Wright, Dennis Bergkamp - comes to life in these thrilling tales of goalscoring feats, great comebacks, Wembley glory and the odd glorious yet crushing disappointment. In all, a journey through the highlights of the Gunners' history which is guaranteed to make any fan's heart swell with pride.

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A fun and informative trip around the highways (not forgetting the low ways) and byways of Great Britain. Within its pages you will find love and romance, murder and mayhem, royalty, aristocrats and commoners, politics and politicians, sex and scandal, sporting triumphs and sporting disasters, millionaires and eccentrics, film stars and train robbers and much more besides. Why were some customers at Harrods offered cognac or smelling salts during their visit to the store? What links DJ “Whispering Bob” Harris to a split pair of velvet trousers? Which high street store issued a patent for a drug to treat syphilis? The staff of which shop had uniforms by Mary Quant and hairstyles by Vidal Sassoon? Who placed a sign on her bedroom door bearing the legend ‘Chief Chick’? Did you know that the cashpoint was invented while someone was having a bath?

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Firsts, Lasts & Onlys: A Truly Wonderful Collection of Horseracing Trivia is filled with improbable facts and mind-boggling trivia that will test and tease every horseracing enthusiast.Try these questions for size: How did the word ‘thoroughbred’ come into existence, and what is a dam sire? Which Grand National-winning horse opened supermarkets after he retired and was sent requests for autographs? Which BBC sports commentator often had bad luck around the time of the National? Which classic race almost came to be known as the Bunbury?The perfect gift for every horseracing fan, this is a book you can pick up while waiting for the stewards’ inquiry for the 3.15 at Newmarket and learn something new, weird or fascinating. Often all three.

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Firsts, Lasts & Onlys is a rugby fan's delight, chock-full of astonishing events, time-honoured anecdotes and distinctly unlikely facts. Beginning in 1823 with an event that probably didn't happen, the book charts the history of the sport to the present day. Did you know that Wasps were not included at the formation of the Rugby Football Union because their representative went to the wrong venue and got drunk? Or that the first international was won by Scotland because the umpire, a Dr Almond, adjudged: 'When an umpire is in doubt, I think he is justified in deciding against the side which makes the most noise. They are probably in the wrong'? Do you know which was the first novel to mention rugby? When the last 20-a-side rugby match was played? Or why a fan cut off his testicles to celebrate a win? All this, and so much more.

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