Book 9 in the acclaimed Rugby Spirit series. Eoin's back playing rugby, but this time he feels out of his depth. He's been promoted early to the Senior Cup team – where he's the youngest ever player – and he's not sure if he's ready for it. It's hard finding his feet among the older boys. A discovery from the earliest days of Irish rugby brings more ghostly encounters for Eoin – and leads him and his friends to tackle a series of crimes at the national stadium. Robberies, rucks and Senior Cup rugby make it a term to remember!

The official guide to rugby in North America, revised and updated Rugby For Dummies is the guide to rugby in North America, endorsed by USA Rugby and Rugby Canada, the official regulating bodies for the sport. It gives you a look at how rugby is played, offers strategies for winning, and covers every level of the sport, from high school to college (including women's rugby) to the international leagues. Plus, this new edition addresses changes to the rules of rugby, includes new rugby player bios, and looks at rugby's upcoming return to the Olympic games. Inside you'll find easy-to-understand explanations of rugby rules and positions, plus in-depth lessons on skills, fitness training, and winning techniques. Add in entertaining stories from rugby in North America and around the world, and you've got the definitive book on rugby! Covers every level of the sport Includes the latest rules and information on rugby Discusses rugby's return to the Olympic games Whether you're new to rugby or a scrum veteran, this friendly guide is for you.

Chess was invented more than 1,500 years ago, and is played in every country in the world. Stephen Moss sets out to master its mysteries, and unlock the secret of its enduring appeal. What, he asks, is the essence of chess? And what will it reveal about his own character along the way? In a witty, accessible style that will delight newcomers and irritate purists, Moss imagines the world as a board and marches across it, offering a mordant report on the world of chess in 64 chapters – 64 of course being the number of squares on the chessboard. He alternates between “black” chapters – where he plays, largely uncomprehendingly, in tournaments – and “white” chapters, where he seeks advice from the current crop of grandmasters and delves into the lives of great players of the past. It is both a history of the game and a kind of “Zen and the Art of Chess”; a practical guide and a self-help book: Moss's quest to understand chess and become a better player is really an attempt to escape a lifetime of dilettantism. He wants to become an expert at one thing. What will be the consequences when he realises he is doomed to fail? Moss travels to Russia and the US – hotbeds of chess throughout the 20th century; meets people who knew Bobby Fischer when he was growing up and tries to unravel the enigma of that tortured genius who died in 2008 at the inevitable age of 64; meets Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, world champions past and present; and keeps bumping into Armenian superstar Levon Aronian in the gents at tournaments. He becomes champion of Surrey, wins tournaments in Chester and Bury St Edmunds, and holds his own at the famous event in the Dutch seaside resort of Wijk aan Zee (until a last-round meltdown), but too often he is beaten by precocious 10-year-olds and finds it hard to resist the urge to punch them. He looks for spiritual fulfilment in the game, but mostly finds mental torture.

This text provides an introductory look at the opportunities and goals in the field of sport and exercise psychology.

This is a unique collection of personal stories of people involved in sport. Four main sections are covered: being introduced to sports; becoming an athlete; doing sports, and life beyond the playing field.

Discover the secrets to high performing teams from the success stories of sport, military and restaurants – and what to do if your team isn’t working. Teams are everywhere: At work we are part of many different teams: the department team, the sales team, the planning team and the project team. At play we join the football team, the netball team, the swimming team, the bridge team and the dance team. Socially we support teams, watch teams and are served by teams in restaurants, hotels, shops and at events. But how much do we really know about them, what makes a successful team and why do teams fail? Effective teamworking is a perennial issue – there are so many difficulties and traps. We have all worked in teams and seen these problems at first hand and have suffered from them. This book will help you to identify the most common issues and give you and your team the tools to improve them and achieve better teamwork and performance. get the best out of yourself and others and avoid the common pitfalls that prevent teams from being the best they can be. We will look at how sports and business teams are developed and work, as well as giving examples and learning lessons from specialist teams in the many different areas such as the military, restaurants, orchestra’s, aerobatics and many more. These examples will be woven in throughout the book, and lessons drawn about what we can learn for our own teams. Developing high performance teams and effective teamwork is a perennial issue for team leaders and team members alike. Most of us work in teams yet few of us have the capacity to fully assimilate what it takes to resolve common issues such as conflict, low engagement, lack of purpose and accountability in teams. This book is for team players, team leaders and anyone who is setting up and supporting a team. It sets out all that you need to know to create a successful team and how to fix it if things start to go wrong. We think the combined experience of the authors and their direct experience of working with both sports and organisational teams is unique. The combination of an academic perspective with a high level practical experience of coaching and leading high performance teams brings clarity and understanding to the concepts , balanced with a pragmatic perspective on how to put these into practice The book draws together the combined experience of Nigel Melville as a High Performance sports coach and Chief Executive , and Mike Brent as an academic, author of several bestselling business books and specialist in team dynamics.

Gael Force provides a wealth of interesting facts and engaging anecdotes as well as profiles and photographs of the coaches, captains, and players. Merv Daub takes the reader through a century of Queen's football, from the first "Dominion" championship in 1893 with Curtis and his boys, through three consecutive Grey Cup wins in the 1920s, the 1934-35 victory of the "Fearless Fourteen," the 1955 season when Gus Braccia, Ronnie Stewart, Gary Schreider, Lou Bruce, Al Kocman, "Jocko" Thompson, and the rest of that "band of merry men" brought Queen's back into the limelight, the golden years of the 1960s, to the 1978 and 1992 Vanier Cup championship seasons. Gael Force is a tribute to the long-standing football legacy at Queen's and an important historical and sociological study of college sport in Canada.

Football at Queen’s University has one of the richest and longest histories of any sport in Canada. The Golden Gaels have been a presence in Canadian football at both the amateur and professional levels since 1882. Gael Force traces this history, chronicling the team’s ups and downs and integrating them within the history of the university, the country, and the sport in general. Providing a wealth of interesting facts and engaging anecdotes as well as profiles and photographs of the coaches, captains, and players, Merv Daub takes the reader through more than a century of Queen’s football. Drawing from a wealth of sources, Daub recounts the team’s key milestones including their first Dominion championship in 1893 with “Curtis and his boys,” three consecutive Grey Cup wins in the 1920s, the 1934–35 victory of the “Fearless Fourteen,” the 1955 season when Gus Braccia, Ronnie Stewart, Gary Schreider, Lou Bruce, Al Kocman, “Jocko” Thompson, and the rest of that “band of merry men” brought Queen’s back into the limelight, the golden years of the 1960s, and the 1978 and 1992 Vanier Cup championship seasons. Adding twenty more years of football history since Gael Force was first published in 1996, this new edition includes the 2016 season played at the revitalized Richardson Stadium. It is both a tribute to a long-standing football legacy at Queen’s and an important historical and sociological study of college sport in Canada.

A collection of texts providing a useful resource for students in the field of sports studies. Subject headings include approaches to the study of sport, the development and structure of modern sport, sport and power relations, and major issues in contemporary sport.

For decades, sports economics has been set within the framework of equilibrium economics, in particular when modelling team sport leagues. Based on a conviction that this does not reflect real life, this book addresses a gap in the literature and opens up a new research area by applying concepts drawn from disequilibrium economics. It is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on economic disequilibrium in sports markets and competitive imbalance in sporting contests. The second part concentrates on soft budget constraints and their consequences for club governance and management.