THE BUMPER BOOK OF FOOTBALL by Hunter Davies
Quercus £19.99

With his infectious passion, unerring journalistic instincts and love for the national game, Davies has produced a Christmas present to himself, and a wizard treat it is, especially for those who have never entirely left childhood behind. Chapter titles include Football History, Fascinating Facts, Quotations and Superstitions. (Manager: “A black and white cat ran across our pitch during the last game. Since then our luck has been patchy.”) Above all, it is beautifully produced, a loving homage to the golden age of proper footie magazines, so hip, hip, hurrah, as well, for the designers.

YOU’LL WIN NOTHING WITH KIDS: Fathers, Sons and Football by Jim White
Little, Brown £12.99

You can find some of the best and rest of humanity in the most unlikely situations; White finds plenty of both, and evokes them with great wit, in this inside account of junior football. The author, a professional sportswriter of unusual sensibilities, volunteered to be the manager of his son’s football team, and was later inveigled into being chairman of the club. One of the worst of his many headaches in the role was the protracted political fallout that followed the purchase of a kettle. The football, mostly, was equally hair-tearing. His account is by turns hilarious, pitiful and touching.

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MONTY’S TURN by Monty Panesar
Hodder £18.99

Many recent sporting memoirs have left a sour taste, but Panesar, 25, has a heartening story to tell and not a trace of cynicism. Panesar’s father emigrated from the Punjab and worked nightshifts at the Vauxhall car plant in Luton. Young Monty learnt his cricket under the inspirational tutelage of a friend and workmate of his father. Blessed with boundless enthusiasm, Panesar became the youngest player ever to be picked for Bedfordshire. He turned up with his kit in a plastic bag. The pride felt when he played for England can hardly be imagined.

MORE THAN A GAME: The Story of Cricket’s Early Years by John Major
HarperCollins £25

In his preface, Major admits that when he was prime minister and “Cabinet debated policy and took decisions” (he mostly plays a straight bat but is not above a side-swipe), folded messages would be brought in by the duty clerk and passed from Major to Robin Butler, the cabinet secretary, and then to Ken Clarke, the chancellor. They were Test-match scores, and grimaces or smiles would follow. At least they were doing no harm. Major’s passion illuminates a beautifully produced and engaging account of the game’s history from its origins to the first world war.

MY STORY by Lewis Hamilton
HarperCollins £18.99

Inflicting a ghosted autobiography on the world in the early stages of a sporting career is almost invariably a mistake except for the money, and Hamilton admits that he had barely read a book before deciding to have one written for him. For one so young, Hamilton can seem too good, and goody-goody, to be true. In his first Formula One season, he hardly put a foot wrong until he had the world championship at his mercy. But having learnt that life, like the winning flag, is chequered, he should be all the better for it.

BEST OF BRITISH: Hendo’s Sporting Heroes by Jon Henderson
Yellow Jersey £9.99

From Robin Hood to Kelly Holmes and Jonny Wilkinson, 100 British sporting heroes. The idea is obvious and would usually be assigned by a quick-buck publisher to a quick-fire hack. But with thorough research, gentle humour, erudition and felicity of phrase, Henderson has produced a collection of gems. His selection is splendidly eclectic but unavoidably controversial, and most readers will be disappointed by some omissions. How, for example, could he repeat Alf Ramsey’s grievous error before the 1966 World Cup final – and leave out Jimmy Greaves?

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