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Fringes
- Life on the Edge of Professional Rugby
- Narrated by: Ben Mercer
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prize 2020
Sports books tend to detail extraordinary achievements, triumphs against the odds, or commemorate World Cup winning captains.
This book does not do that.
For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story. In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby.
This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don't exist. You earn but you don't drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals. Only the minority taste the top, only one person gets to lift the cup or win the medal, only 15 get to play for England at any one time. For the rest, that’s not the case.
Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who, after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different - help an amateur team turn professional. This is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport - where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name.
It's about how it feels to live year to year, with teammates constantly on the move. It's about how professionalism irreversibly changes the French club Stade Rouennais as they move up the divisions, about the tension between progress and identity in a rugby team. It's also about how it feels to actually be out there on the field, how it feels to occasionally do something extraordinary and how it feels when this is no longer enough for you to make the sacrifices that you need to make to keep playing.
There's no ghostwriting - it's an unmitigated meditation on how it feels and what it means to play rugby for a living, to dedicate yourself to an uncompromising but occasionally beautiful game.
If you've wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.
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Story
In No Spin, Shane sets the record straight. From his extraordinary family history to his childhood as a budding Aussie Rules footballer in suburban Melbourne. From the legendary 'Gatting ball' to his history-making 700th Test wicket. From the controversy surrounding the diuretic pill in South Africa to his high-profile relationship with Hollywood star Elizabeth Hurley. Nothing is off limits, and Shane tackles it all with his trademark directness and humour.
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Great story
- By Abishek on 06-09-20
By: Shane Warne, and others
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The Russian Five
- A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage
- By: Keith Gave
- Narrated by: Bob Brill
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Detroit Red Wings were rebooting their franchise after more than two decades of relative futility, they knew the best place to find world-class players who could turn things around more quickly were conscripted servants behind the Iron Curtain. All they had to do to get them was make history by drafting them and then figure out how to get them out of the Soviet Union.
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Very interesting
- By Kandace on 04-23-21
By: Keith Gave
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Furious George
- My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection
- By: George Karl, Curt Sampson
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A man of deep passion and intensity, George Karl earned his bad boy reputation while playing at the University of North Carolina, a rap that continued through the five years he spent with the San Antonio Spurs - and long after he stopped playing. Karl's beery nights, fistfights, and barking followed him into a 35-year coaching career. In a game defined by big stakes and bigger egos, rabid fans and an unforgiving media, Karl was hired and fired a dozen times.
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Pathetic little black book.
- By Brad Howard on 04-20-20
By: George Karl, and others
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The Breaks of the Game
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 17 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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A New York Times best seller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions. The tactile authenticity of Halberstam's knowledge of the basketball world is unrivaled. Yet he is writing here about far more than just basketball. This is a story about a place in our society where power, money, and talent collide and sometimes corrupt, a place where both national obsessions and naked greed are exposed.
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This book is a must read for all NBA junkies.
- By Kyle on 06-13-18
By: David Halberstam
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Badasses
- The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden's Oakland Raiders
- By: Peter Richmond
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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A book that explores the enduring legends of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden's Oakland Raiders, Badasses is the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football. Peter Richmond, co-author of the New York Times best seller The Glory Game, offers a fascinating look at the 1970s Oakland Raiders, led by colorful greats from another era.
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Good story, slightly obnoxious author and reader
- By Harry Seaward on 01-06-19
By: Peter Richmond
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Tales from the San Francisco 49ers Sideline
- A Collection of the Greatest 49ers Stories Ever Told
- By: Matt Maiocco, Roger Craig
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The San Francisco 49ers shaped the NFL throughout the 1980s with their unique blend of precision, panache, and preparation. Three decades later, NFL teams are still copying the system and the methods that made the 49ers unlike any other organization in professional sports. Now fans of this dynamic franchise will relive all the action and thrills of 49ers football through the eyes of one of the greatest San Francisco legends of all time: Roger Craig.
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Boring!
- By JayMK on 05-14-24
By: Matt Maiocco, and others
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The Football Ramble
- By: Marcus Speller, Pete Donaldson, Luke Aaron Moore, and others
- Narrated by: Marcus Speller, Pete Donaldson, Luke Aaron Moore, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Downloaded over 10 million times a year, The Football Ramble podcast has established itself as the essential independent voice of football punditry. The weekly podcast has resonated with supporters around the world, and their sold-out live shows have been a massive hit with supporters. This audiobook is a collaboration by all four presenters and tackles the real issues from fans you won't see or hear on Sky Sports - or anywhere else, for that matter.
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Best Performance
- By Amazon Customer on 11-15-16
By: Marcus Speller, and others
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Strokes of Genius
- Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played
- By: L. Jon Wertheim
- Narrated by: Edward Bauer
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 2008 Wimbledon men's final, Center Court was a stage set worthy of Shakespearean drama. Five-time champion Roger Federer was on track to take his rightful place as the most dominant player in the history of the game. He just needed to cling to his trajectory. So in the last few moments of daylight, Center Court witnessed a coronation. Only it wasn't a crowning for the Swiss heir apparent but for a swashbuckling Spaniard.
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Nostalgia at its best
- By komenak on 03-03-24
By: L. Jon Wertheim
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Overtime
- Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?
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Good story.... but
- By Amazon Customer on 10-07-19
By: John U. Bacon
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My Story
- By: Steven Gerrard
- Narrated by: Michael Ryan
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of My Story by Steven Gerrard, read Michael Ryan. Steven Gerrard is the former captain of Liverpool football team and of the England national football team and is the only player ever to have scored in a FA cup final, a league cup final, a UEFA cup final and a champion's league final. His entire career, since 1998, has been spent at Anfield with Liverpool.
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Ohhhh, ya beautyyy!!
- By Gabriel on 09-29-15
By: Steven Gerrard
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The Cup They Couldn't Lose
- America, the Ryder Cup, and the Long Road to Whistling Straits
- By: Shane Ryan
- Narrated by: Shane Ryan
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The task facing Steve Stricker at the 2021 Ryder Cup was enormous. It was his job, as the American captain, to stare down almost 40 years of Ryder Cup history, break a pattern of home losses that had persisted almost as long, and reverse the tide of European dominance in one of golf's most tense and emotional events. This was the epitome of a must-win, but it was also something more—in the entire 93-year history of the event, no American side had ever faced this kind of pressure.
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Great listen
- By Amazon Customer on 05-27-24
By: Shane Ryan
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From Darkness to Dynasty
- The First 40 Years of the New England Patriots
- By: Jerry Thornton
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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From Darkness to Dynasty tells the unlikely history of the New England Patriots as it has never been told before. From their humble beginnings as a team bought with rainy-day money by a man who had no idea what he was doing, to the fateful season that saw them win their first Super Bowl, Jerry Thornton shares the wild, humiliating, unbelievable, and wonderful stories that comprised the first 40 years of what would ultimately become the most dominant franchise in NFL history.
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great narration, great book
- By BenRias on 01-25-18
By: Jerry Thornton