Sport magazine 330

Issue 330 | November 8 2013

Forget me not Frank Lampard has unďŹ nished business with both club and country

Contents

16

Issue 330, November 8 2013 Radar 05 Hidden treasures Travel back through sporting history with some rather unusual artefacts from the sports world

06 Literary leanings The must-read sports books this winter. Plus: the football boots set to leave the Brazilians in the shade

08 Dangerous driving?

Baby-faced MotoGP rider Marc Marquez on his championship hopes oFeatures this coming week

16

Frank Lampard The Chelsea and England midfielder on life as an ageing Blue, and why he wants to go to one more World Cup

25 Sam Warburton The Wales rugby union captain talks life after the Lions, inevitable injuries and Wales’ Autumn Internationals

32 Sports writing: a study As the William Hill Sports Book of the Year announces its shortlist, we ask the experts what makes for a compelling sporting read

Cover image: Ben Duffy. This page: Mark Thompson/Getty Images, Ben Moon, Stu Forster/Getty Images

38

25

38 Scott Jurek The ultramarathon runner on pounding hundreds of miles, puking, and then pounding some more

Extra Time

08

52 Kit The goggles that are set to revolutionise your ski season

54 Entertainment

Call of Duty: Ghosts, George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in space. Plus, The Hobbit gets even longer

56 Grooming The only places to go if you’re currently growing a mo

54

60 Gadgets Tesco enters the tablet fray, and a genius tiny tracker for lost luggage | November 8 2013 | 03

Radar

p06 – Our pick of sporting reads for the winter months ahead

p08 – MotoGP championship leader Marc Marquez on his debut season

sporting treasures A

wealth of unusual sporting artefacts are on ‘display’ at the ‘National Museum of the History of Sport in Orkney’.

They start with the Big Bang (“the first sporting contest”), and move swiftly from the earliest life forms (including the Shola Amoeba, found when a lab assistant spilled a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale on a copy of Alan Shearer: My Story So Far) through to some of the items you can see here.

And they are all featured in Tutenkhamen’s Tracksuit: The History of Sport in 100-ish Objects by Tyers and Beach, who have photographed each item from the ‘exhibition’ with illuminating accompanying text. Above is SLAAM! by Andy Murray – a “talented but frustrated Scottish painter” for whom a “meeting with Czech brutalist I. Lendl and one vibrant exhibition in New York changed everything”.

Other important items include flat-pack furniture instructions drawn up by the Swedish FA’s young footballers to fund their academy – a certain Mr Eriksson’s work in this area can be seen to the right.

There are also original ‘whiff-waff paddles’, invented at a dinner party by an ancestor of our esteemed mayor; the first ever FA Cup recording by the Old Etonians back in 1882 (We Are All Presently Bound for Wembley) and a more modern invention – the Barmy Army knife, giving England fans all the tools they need for a day at the Ashes.

Tutenkhamen’s Tracksuit by Tyers and Beach, Bloomsbury, £12.99 | November 8 2013 | 05

Radar

W

e’re not entirely sure you’re meant to wear football boots for playing on sand, although they might be helpful if you want to be a Lee Cattermole-style beach enforcer.

This shot definitely got us excited about the World Cup, though. The boots pictured below, sunning themselves on Rio’s Copacabana beach, come from the adidas Samba Collection.

Sport reads W

inter is drawing in, and there’s no better place to be than curled up in front of the fire (okay, in front of the TV) with a glass of wine (a can of Foster’s) and a good read (a sports book).

Here, then, is our pick of the tomes hitting bookstores (Amazon) this month.

The Pain and the Glory £20, HarperCollins The official Team Sky diary of their Giro d’Italia campaign and their Tour de France victory is a lot more insightful than the ‘Day 12: I’m kind of bored of climbs now’ that our cynical side expected. Yellow Jersey winner Chris Froome has pitched in (Day 19: ‘My legs hurt’), as has team mastermind Dave Brailsford, and there’s excellent

06 | November 8 2013 |

photography from Scott Mitchell. It’s most revealing on the sheer scale of the operation involved in getting one man and his bike across the line first in what remain two of sport’s most gruelling challenges.

At Speed: My Life in the Fast Lane Mark Cavendish, £20, Ebury Press It’s been a turbulent few years in the breathless life of sprint specialist Mark Cavendish, but he’s paused for long enough to pen this book – or, at least, to dictate it to someone. It covers a lot of ground, starting with the build-up to his World Championship win in 2011, and covering his move to and departure from Team Sky, the birth of his daughter Delilah, and his Red Jersey win at the Giro d’Italia in 2013.

He might have mellowed a bit since becoming a father, but as you’d expect from British cycling’s ‘bad boy’, there’s quite a lot of swearing.

Pushing the Limits Casey Stoner, £18.99, Orion Books Retired double MotoGP world champion Casey Stoner is still just 28. He’s made a move into four-wheel racing with V8 Supercars, but this book is very much

A new boot has been released from each of the company’s four ranges ahead of the competition, in bright colours that will be the centre of attention when they’re worn by the likes of Lionel Messi, Mesut Ozil and this week’s Sport cover star Frank Lampard. adidas Samba Collection, including adiZero f50, Predator, Nitrocharge and 11Pro boots, out now

looking backwards – very much your traditional sporting ‘rise to glory’ story. It starts in the Australian outback, with a young Stoner pulling donuts in the dust on his parents’ farm, and follows his journey to the top of his sport. The quote on the book’s dust jacket is: “If you never give up, anything can happen.” Which does seem slightly disingenuous for someone who retired at 27. Still, a must-read for MotoGP fans.

Clips of the Week: Best Bloopers from talkSPORT £10, Simon & Schuster If you’re one of the million or so people who tune into Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs’ show on talkSPORT each weekday afternoon, you’ll love this selection of the funniest quotes from Clips of the Week. Every Friday, the duo highlight some of the slips of the tongue, interviewing incidents and other comedy moments from the past seven days of talkSPORT broadcasts – mainly involving Alan Brazil. One of our favourites is his summary of the 2008 Champions League final (including penalties): “Moscow, crikey, what a game it was. And to end like that. John, slipping – left leg went... BANG!”

Radar

MARC MARQUEZ

MotoGP’s hot younG star

You’ve had an amazing season, with 15 podiums including six wins. Did you expect to do this well at the start of the year?

“Honestly? No. We approached this season as a learning experience to prepare ourselves in the best possible way for next year, but in reality it has been much better than that. I felt so good on the bike right from the beginning, and all the team at Honda have helped me incredibly.”

You were disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix in October for failing to pit within 10 laps under the special race rules. When did you realise what had happened?

“When I saw the flag and my number, I came in immediately – but I wasn’t totally sure what it was for. After I found out, obviously I was very upset. But it’s a mistake that could easily happen.

Sometimes I can make a mistake and crash out of the race, and sometimes the team can make a mistake. We must take the good times and bad times together – this is what makes a special team.”

08 | November 8 2013 |

Are you feeling the pressure now, with Jorge Lorenzo just 13 points behind going into the final race?

“The pressure is there, but this is my first season, so there isn’t as much pressure as there is for Lorenzo. It will be an exciting race in Valencia.”

What’s it like racing against people such as Valentino Rossi?

“At the beginning it was very strange.

I kept thinking to myself: ‘I’m racing with Valentino!’ But now it feels normal. I feel like a MotoGP rider, and I feel I belong.”

Do you get on well with the other riders, or they do resent your instant success?

“I have a good relationship with most of them; I don’t feel any resentment.

We may not say much more than ‘hi’ and ‘how are you?’ We’re not friends, but then we’re also not not-friends!”

S

traight out of Donkey Kong’s mansion, this bananashaped pool table would make for an appealing conversation-starter in anyone’s home. Granted, a bunch of those conversations would revolve around where exactly you’re meant to break from – or what on earth is the matter with you – but it’ll be worth the confusion. Trust us.

Each limited-edition table is handmade in England from hardwood, leather and brass. Our only tip: try and be red, if you can – we have a feeling the yellow balls might be quite difficult to spot. £12,000, firebox.com

What’s your best memory of the season?

“My victory in Austin [Texas, at the Grand Prix of the Americas] was really special.”

If you win the championship, how will you celebrate?

“With my team. But this is too early to speak about...” [Smiles] For a full race preview, turn to page 42

Mark Thompson/Getty Images

A

thrilling MotoGP season draws to a close on Sunday, so we caught up with Marc Marquez – the 20-year-old on the verge of lifting the championship trophy in his debut year.

Banana shots

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Radar Editor’s letter If you can’t stand the heat... then you’re probably not the England captain www.sport-magazine.co.uk @sportmaguk facebook.com/sportmagazine

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No heating up Cook However hard Shane Warne tries, the England captain is unruffled ahead of the return Ashes

Editor Tony Hodson @tonyhodson1

Shane Warne in the Aussie great’s latest tirade against the man who led England to a comfortable 3-0 Ashes win in the summer just gone.

I do feel a bit for Warne. Had we experienced the traditional gap between Ashes series, his poorly veiled attempt at winding up Cook – along with Steven Gerrard, one of international sport’s rare non-sweaters – wouldn’t have come across as repetitive and tedious as it has done.

Warne spent a large proportion of his Sky commentary shifts this summer rambling on about Cook’s leadership of England in the field, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the majority of viewers didn’t much give one as long as England got the job done. Having grown up on a diet of watching our cricket teams getting routinely battered by Australia, I was more than happy to feast on Cook’s negative victories.

Along with Brian Lara and Graham Thorpe (come on, you know you’re with me), Warne comprises the holy trinity of cricketers I loved watching in my teens. Many speak of him as the greatest Test captain Australia never had, and they may be right – but the fact is that Warne has never truly

known the consistently intense pressures of captaincy at Test level, and certainly not in the Ashes. He can happily sit behind his microphone, slamming Cook (next week’s cover star, by the way) as much as he likes. But, as Andrew Strauss told us only weeks ago, the art of captaincy is about much more than what actually happens on the field.

Off the field, an England team that has its share of personalities clearly finds Cook a positive, engaging and imaginative enough character that, when they do step out to play for him, they give him their all. That’s why we won the Ashes this summer, and that’s why I am confident we will repeat the feat down under this winter. And, through it all, you can bet that Cook will remain as sweatlessly composed as ever. That, right there, is captaincy.

Double world and Olympic champion Mo Farah is named on the three-man shortlist for World Athlete of the Year; double Olympic champ Laura Trott racks up another two golds at the Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester; and Nick Matthew becomes world squash champion for a third time, coincidentally also in Manchester. Last weekend was, once again, a very good one for British sport.

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egative, boring and not very imaginative. So goes the captaincy of Alastair Cook, according to

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Radar Opinion

Flats on Friday

David Lyttleton

David Flatman

Hart flakiness a real head-scratcher

I

can’t actually believe all the coverage Joe Hart’s dropping has garnered.

Lucrative shampoo adverts aside, Hart is an employee with a job description, just like all of us.

Sure, he probably earns more than you or I – and, due to the exposure football receives, automatically becomes a quasi-celebrity. But an employee he remains, and he must do the job for which he is paid.

Whatever your job is, I bet you cock it up every now and then; I certainly do. In fact, a life conducted in the world of professional sport has led to me actually seek criticism in order to optimise my performance. Having your performance played out – literally – in front of the colleagues whose respect means so much, and picked apart frame by frame, may sound a horrific experience for the average civvy. For the professional sportsman, however, this is the norm. Add in the slow-motion pecking you can receive from studio-based experts, and there is no place to hide.

Joe Hart played poorly a few times and got dropped. This is life as a pro, and it is as it should be.

You could argue that men like Lionel Messi and

12 | November 8 2013 |

Cristiano Ronaldo are undroppable, but they achieve this status by repeatedly delivering. Do you think Messi will play every week for Barcelona until he is 50? No, at some point he will lose his spark and it will become clear to those in the know that it will not return. He will then be replaced. Alan Shearer was replaced. Jonny Wilkinson was replaced.

So all this talk of Joe Hart’s exclusion from the Manchester City starting 11 being good for him because it will remove him from the limelight and give him a chance to breathe is, for me, a load of tosh.

He was crap and he got dropped. We’ve all been there. He didn’t need removing from the limelight, as he seems to love it. All this endorsement work – all these TV and magazine interviews – is great, and he indeed comes across as a good bloke.

“Whatever your job is, I bet you cock it up now and then”

But it is all optional. Paul Scholes, for example, never advertised shampoo.

Hart is a top player. Soon, he will be back stopping shots and yelling whatever it is these keepers seem to yell at their defenders every five minutes. But we sometimes seem to elevate footballers to such a height that they become close to invincible.

I recall once sitting in a team review meeting two days after we had played Northampton. I had been in good form and played well that day, earning plaudits from pundits and journalists alike. “Three f***ing times I’ve told you not to do that, Flats, and you’re not listening,” said our coach. “So you can listen from the stands this weekend, see if that helps it sink in.”

This was in front of the whole squad and I was, at that time, a clear first-choice player. I didn’t like it, but he was right: my concentration had gone.

Players get it, so Hart is probably wondering what all the fuss is about, too. This will keep him grounded and make him stronger, which will make him even better come World Cup time – when I fully expect him to be the man for England. @davidflatman

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14 | November 8 2013 |

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| 15

Frank Lampard

Chelsea’s all-time top goalscorer speaks exclusively to Sport about a golden past, a blue present and why he’s happy to finally be able to look ahead to a special future

They have been 48 hours of miserable contemplation for Frank Lampard, who – despite the disappointment – does his best to shrug off the defeat to Newcastle as a mere ‘blip’ in what has been an otherwise impressive opening to the Blues’ 2013-14 campaign.

“I think we have to take it as a blip, because these things can happen,” he explains. “But up until then we’d been on a very good run of wins. It just shows the strength of the Premier League, really. Whether you’re playing a team like Newcastle or a team like Crystal Palace, where they’re already fighting for their lives, you have to turn up with all 11 players at their best. It’s the competitive nature of the league.

We didn’t perform, so we lost.”

Lampard’s no-nonsense appraisal is testament to the fact that he’s been here before. Many times. From the highs of league titles and Champions League victories to the lows of managerial upheavals and international heartbreak, the Chelsea midfielder is well versed in what separates the blips from the more serious warning signs.

His calm demeanour on this Monday afternoon at Chelsea’s Cobham base – where a collection of snappers are lining the perimeter in the hope of catching an irate Jose Mourinho kicking David Luiz’s backside – should settle the nerves of any prematurely anxious Blues fans.

Mistake Lampard’s serenity for indifference at your peril, however.

At the age of 35, he is all too aware that he is entering the final stretch of a long, trophy-laden career. And, as Sport quickly discovers, it’s that knowledge that is making him a more dangerous and dogged opponent than he’s ever been.

It was a tough weekend for Chelsea.

Do you find it easier to deal with the highs and lows of football after so many years at the top?

“It still bothers me when we lose.

It actually bothers me even more as I get older. I was very upset on Saturday night after the loss against Newcastle.

I think I’ve always been pretty intense

like that, really – getting upset with a loss or a personal bad performance.

I suppose, as you get older, there’s kids and family life to bring you out of it quicker – but I’m still very intense with myself. I’m my own biggest critic. So, if I’ve had a bad game, I analyse it for two or three days before I have to start looking ahead to the next game.”

Jose Mourinho isn’t one for hiding his disappointment. After Saturday’s defeat, he said: “I made 11 mistakes.

I should have picked another 11.”

Is he the same old Mourinho he was at his first spell at the club?

“I think his experiences elsewhere have probably tempered him in different ways. But, looking at it from where we are as players, he hasn’t really changed. He is who he is. He used to get upset and quite vocal with a loss, but I always liked that about him because then you know where you are.

Some managers don’t say anything after a bad result, and you’re left wondering what they’re thinking.

He was very to-the-point on Saturday, and he was right in what he was saying. But, at the same time, when we win he’s very emotional with the lads and celebrating. For me, one of the beautiful things about him is his personality – and that hasn’t changed.”

How did you feel when you first found out he was returning to the club for The Special One: Part Two? “It was a bit surreal, because there was gossip about it for a long time.

But, having been here on the day he left, you thought with all the water under the bridge since then… well, it was very surreal. Personally, I was delighted because I knew what a great manager he’d be for the club and for me. At that later stage of your career, it’s great to have a manager you trust and who understands you – and you understand him. We have a lot of young players here, too. They need direction, a good leader and someone to take them forward. For me, he was the man that was going to do it, and is doing it.”

Was it comforting to have someone so familiar return after a season that held so much managerial unrest?

“Yes, he’s a manager who really has the club in his heart, and I think the > | November 8 2013 | 17

Ben Duffy Photography

S

ome 48 hours have passed since Chelsea suffered a 2-0 reverse in the northeast.

Frank Lampard A goal to aim for: Lampard steers home the equaliser for England in the friendly against Ireland at Wembley in May

that’s just the nature of it. I was prepared to look elsewhere if I had to, and there were some good options for me. I wasn’t upset with Chelsea – I understand them wanting the club to develop. It was just up to me to prove that I could stay here and perform.

Because, if you don’t do that, then you know you deserve to move on. At the top level, you’re given what you deserve in football.”

There was also a lot of uncertainty over your own future last season.

Was that a difficult period for you?

“It wasn’t difficult on the pitch because it spurred me on. Looking back, it was great for me, really, because I wanted to prove what I could do. Off the pitch, it was difficult – I didn’t like the idea of leaving, I didn’t want to leave and that was probably the first time I’ve been in that position. But I think you do have to come to terms with it as you get a bit older. You go year by year rather than with four or five-year contracts, and

The MLS was one option that emerged. Bt did you have concerns that playing in America might affect your England career?

“It wasn’t a main concern, no. The MLS would have been a fantastic option for me if Chelsea had decided: ‘Okay we’re going to finish it there.’ So I looked at it.

The MLS is a league that’s moving forward and they’re very good people out there, I know that for a fact.

Whether I’d ever play out there, I don’t know now. But certainly, I don’t look down on the MLS. The international

Special times: Lampard and Mourinho celebrate beating Barcelona in 2005

“You do look back and wish the ‘Golden Generation’ had done better, but I wouldn’t say we should be winning things. It’s difficult to win something” thing didn’t bother me because I felt that, if I went anywhere and played well enough, then I’d be in contention. And, if not, then I wouldn’t be – whether I’m at Chelsea or anywhere in America.”

For England, would a World Cup in Brazil be the perfect way to call time on your international career?

“Yeah, it would be. If I can stay involved, have a good season and go there as an experienced player, then it will obviously be my last World Cup. I haven’t had fantastic memories of previous World Cups, so I would love to be involved in such a huge thing for us. It’s the perfect thing for me to have as a goal to drive myself towards at the end of this season. There are a lot of young players coming through, though, and still plenty of time before it comes around. But I’ll be very, very proud if I can go and make it my last one.”

How does this crop of England players compare to previous squads you’ve been a part of?

“It’s very exciting – particularly when you look at the previous couple of performances. When you look back a couple of years, people were bemoaning the fact that we were lacking a little bit of youth, exuberance

18 | November 8 2013 |

and speed – people who can do things attack-wise with the ball. Now you look at it and all of a sudden you see Andros Townsend, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling coming through, and see all the options they bring going forward. That’s what wins international games, so I’m excited from that point of view. You still need balance and a base to the team, though – some experience. And I think we have that. In the squad for the previous round of qualifying games, there were three players with 100 caps. It’s a two-way thing because it’s up to the experienced players to help the younger group, and up to the young ones to bring their energy to the mix.”

You were a key part of England’s ‘Golden Generation’. Do you look back now and scratch your head over why nothing ever came of it?

“Yes and no. The ‘Golden Generation’ wasn’t ever created by the players themselves. People proclaimed it as such – mostly in the press, actually – but it should never have been named that until we did win something. You do look back and wish we’d done better, but I wouldn’t say we should be winning things. It’s so difficult.

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fans certainly have him in their hearts. When he spoke at the press conference, it was all about stability and a future. After the interim manager thing, it was refreshing to talk about a two or three-year plan and to be able to look to the future.

That was a good feeling for everyone at the club – not just for me. After the instability of the past couple of years, it’s nice to be a bit more settled.”

Frank Lampard

every two years, and you’re up against the likes of Brazil, Italy, Spain and Germany – it’s a difficult thing to go and win something. But yes, I’m disappointed that we didn’t at some stage do even what England did in 1990, when they got to the World Cup semis and the whole nation was behind them. We never quite got on that sort of run, which is disappointing.”

Do the pressures that come with playing for England just wash over you, having already won 102 international caps?

“I think with experience you probably can handle games a bit more calmly, but I certainly get more of a buzz about playing for England now – the appreciation level has gone up for me 20 | November 8 2013 |

as I’ve got older. You realise that it’s not gonna last much longer than next year or whatever it is, and that you need to perform to stay up with the young guns. I was always very proud of playing for my country, but in the past 18 months I’ve enjoyed it more than I ever have before.”

The England shirt can bring intense levels of scrutiny, as we saw last month, when Jack Wilshere was asked to comment on foreign-born players playing for England. Do you see that as a sort of rite of passage young players have to go through, or does the media take unfair advantage of the less experienced players?

“It’s tough. My whole issue with that was that Jack said what he thought

– and, when you actually read the context of it, he wasn’t being ultracritical of anyone, but it just blew up into this whole storm. I thought, if you’re going to ask young players to stand up, then you have to allow them to express an opinion. We value that.

I know people read the newspapers or watch interviews and get the hump with every player saying: ‘Oh, it was a game of two halves and we’re all behind the manager,’ and all this sort of talk. That stuff is very easy to spout, but he gave his opinion and I thought it was a fair enough opinion, so I think we have to appreciate and respect that.”

Have you been through anything like that in your own career?

“You do speak to the press sometimes in a difficult moment and you come away after and think: ‘Did I say something there that might sound bad, because I didn’t mean it to be like that?’

Even as an experienced player, I’ve said many a thing that in the interview sounded great to me, and then I read the headline afterwards and thought: ‘That really doesn’t sound that good.’

But I would say the relationship between England and the press has

been better in the last 18 months.

There were periods before in my career where we were just clashing – the press felt they didn’t get enough access and that the lads didn’t really appreciate them. And then the lads thought: ‘We can’t talk to you because you’re gonna twist things on us.’ But between the FA and the press, they’ve worked hard to turn that round. The feeling around the Poland game and when we qualified was a really nice, positive feeling. Hopefully we can take that into the World Cup.” You’ve played under a range of quite different managers for club and country. What differentiates the best managers from the not-so-good ones?

“It’s how they deal with players individually. I don’t think it’s as much about tactics, although that is obviously a big element. But I think at the top level it’s about manmanagement, talking to players and appreciating how a player feels. Then you get a two-way respect, and I think that’s what the manager here is very good at. He has a relationship with every player, whether they’re playing, on the bench, in the stands or injured >

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Ben Duffy Photography

“You do speak to the press sometimes in a difficult moment and come away thinking: ‘Did I say something there that might sound bad?’”

Frank Lampard or whatever. That way you get the best back from players. I really feel like I know what the manager wants from me, and that’s a big thing. Sometimes I think there’s a bit of magic there, too – Mourinho has it, and people like Sir Alex Ferguson have it. They look quite hard-nosed from the outside, but when you actually go behind the scenes they work with their players very well.”

Quick-fire Frank Nickname: Frankie or Lampsy?

“I get very used to ‘Lamps’ in football – I get called that in the dressing room all the time. But I quite like Frankie, really.”

You can have one old Chelsea player back in the squad – who are you recalling?

“Easy – Didier Drogba by a mile. Because of what he did for us in every game, but particularly in big games and finals.

And also just for what he was like to have in the dressing room – a huge character and a great bloke.”

It’s about spending quality time with the boss, then?

“I think so. It’s not like you’re best friends – it’s a manager-player relationship, but I just think it’s about that understanding of players. Some managers are very staunch: ‘We must all be at dinner at this time, and we must all do this,’ kind of thing. I think that’s a bit dated, and you have to be a bit more appreciative that the modern-day player is not the same as those from 20 years ago. I don’t know exactly why that is – maybe it’s just the whole way football has gone, but I just think you have to treat each player in different ways these days.”

Has your own view on the role of a football manager changed over the years?

“I do think the idea of the old-fashioned manager who sits at a desk and controls the whole club has moved on.

Maybe some managers still want to keep hold of that, but football clubs are such huge entities now. Look at Chelsea, with the academy that

Frankie’s Magic Football: Lampard with one of his series of books for children

Is it a role you can see yourself taking on one day?

“Possibly, yeah. I’d like to do my badges, which I haven’t started yet just for lack of time. I’ve been in the game a long time now, so I wouldn’t mind a bit of a break. But, if I can get my badges in the next two or three years – towards the back end of my career – then it’s certainly something I’ll look at.

When you work with a lot of managers

Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images, Clive Rose/Getty Images, 2008 Rex Features

“In your career, you go through different phases of how you think about things. Writing a book at 26, you can’t put a complete perspective on it” requires a link with the senior team.

You have to look to the future now, whereas I think in the old days it was more like: ‘He looks a good player, we’ll go and put a bid in.’ Now you have to look at the background of a player and what they’re like, so you need other people around you who can do all that.

As a manager, I don’t think you can be focused here and be scouting all around the world at the same time. I do like having a manager who has a very big personality and the power of that, though. I think you still need that domineering character to control the club in a football sense, but there has to be a bigger team there as well, that you have to be able to work with.”

22 | November 8 2013 |

you kind of see the good and the bad – or whatever you think is good and bad – and it does make you think: ‘Can I test myself and try to do all those good things?’”

You’ve written a series of children’s books, but what kind of books do you enjoy reading when you’re not writing them?

“I like reading biographical books.

At the minute I’m reading a book on Abraham Lincoln, which is quite out of the box for me because I’m not into American politics. But, as I’m reading this book, I am getting quite interested in it, and it’s making me want to read a bit more on it. I didn’t know much about

Lincoln, but someone told me about this book and I like learning from other people’s experiences. Before this one, I read another book someone recommended to me about a fella who travels through India. It’s got a funny name… Shantaram [by Gregory David Roberts, in which a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict flees to India] – that was it.”

So you’re not one for reading sports books?

“It has to be a person who really interests me. I wrote a book when I was younger and, to be honest, I kind of wish I hadn’t done it then, because if I could do it now it would be a lot better – because I’m more experienced.

In your career, you kind of go through phases of how you think about things.

Writing it at 26, you can’t put a complete perspective on it. So, if I could have my time again, I’d wait until the end of my career.”

You could always do another one…?

“I’m not sure, you have to be quite dramatic – as we’ve seen with recent serialisations, and sometimes I’m not sure whether those things should all be said. But saying that, I might be sitting here in two weeks punting my book, so let’s just say I’m not sure!”

Sarah Shephard @sarahsportmag Frank Lampard is wearing the new adidas 11Pro football boots, part of the adidas Samba Collection inspired by Brazil. Visit www.adidas.com or join the conversation @adidasUK #adipure #allin

Day off breakfast: a fry-up or yoghurt and granola?

“Um, it depends. I do like a good fry-up, but we obviously can’t have loads of them. But, yeah, if I have a day off I’d like a nice fry-up.”

Homeland or Breaking Bad? “I watch both. I would have said Homeland before, but I’m going Breaking Bad after the last series.

It was one of those slow-burners that in the beginning I wasn’t sure about. But, when you stick with it, it’s probably the cleverest series that I’ve watched. Homeland is great, but Breaking Bad nicks it.”

Gym session or yoga session?

“Gym. I do yoga, but I’ll go for the gym ahead of that – I like to sweat if I train. Yoga can make you sweat, and I like to balance it by doing both. But if I had to choose, I’d go for gym and a good sweat.”

Sir Alex Ferguson’s book or Harry Redknapp’s?

“I’ve got to say Harry Redknapp’s book, haven’t I? I know that Harry’s great with his words, and he’s got a lot of fun stories – but obviously Ferguson’s book has a lot of appeal too.”

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Sam Warburton

lEadEr standIng by We sit down with Wales skipper Sam Warburton ahead of his side’s Autumn Internationals to talk Lions, injuries and his plans for the future

Saturday Wales v south africa | MillenniuM stadiuM, cardiff | BBc tWo 5.30pM

t David Jones / PA Images

he past year has been a good one for Sam Warburton. After helping Wales to a second successive Six Nations title, the Cardiff Blues man led the Lions to Australia and their first series win for 16 years.

Now back from the injury that ruled him out of the decisive third Lions Test, Warburton’s focus is on the month ahead, and four tricky southernhemisphere match-ups that lie in wait for Wales.

After the Welsh domination of the Lions, though, the international camp must be a strange place to be at the moment, with so many faces bringing a Lions aura with them.

“There hasn’t really been any Lions talk, to be honest,” Warburton insists when we ask him about the atmosphere in the camp. Not even a cheeky Lions top being worn by the captain in training?

“Not a chance,” he laughs. “The senior players would put me back in my place pretty quickly if I did. No, the focus is genuinely on this autumn and getting some victories.”

After last year’s return of four defeats from four, this autumn is not one they will take lightly.

You lost all the autumn games in 2012, then went on to win the Six Nations. Does that make it hard to convince the team these games really matter?

“Not at all, because you want to just set yourself a challenge anyway. We’ve done quite well in the northern hemisphere in the past few years, but now it’s time to do it against the southern teams.

That’s what the England team of 2003 did, and that’s what we’ve got to do now. We’ve got to the stage where we have to start achieving in these autumn series and put more emphasis on that.”

Did England’s win over New Zealand last year make you think it was more possible to beat the All Blacks, or annoy you that they got there first?

“I’m not anti-English like a lot of Welsh fans are, so when I heard about it, I genuinely thought it was great for northern-hemisphere rugby. And the more that happens, the better. Even Scotland have got the odd scalp, so the only one who doesn’t seem to have that is Wales. We’re the ones who have to put that right this November.”

The World Cup is fast approaching. Does that make these games all the bigger?

“Obviously they’re important, especially with our World Cup pool. Every Wales v Australia, Wales v England and Australia v England game is going to be under the microscope now. I guess that’s what pundits will look towards, but the World Cup isn’t for two years – and that’s a heck of a long time.”

Warren Gatland talked about learning from England on the Lions tour. Is there anything that you picked up that will help this team?

“What we learned about other countries, they learned from us as well, so everyone’s on the same page, really. I think people could recognise that the

style of play we played on the Lions was quite Welsh in the fact that it was very physical. It’s the sort of game plan that you could figure out, but if you can’t match a team physically, there’s nothing you can do about it. If we apply it properly, like the third Test on that Lions tour demonstrated, then there’s very little teams can do about it.”

How is your body holding up after the Lions tour?

“Alright, yeah. I got back earlier from injury than I thought I would, and I’ve done a shift with Cardiff now. It’s a bit of a blessing, in a way, getting injured, because having three months off has allowed me to focus on rehab on my knees, shoulders and stuff.

So I feel like I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since the Poland camps before the World Cup, really. >

“I’m not antI-EnglIsh lIkE a lot of WElsh fans. I thought England bEatIng nEW zEaland Was grEat for northErnhEmIsphErE rugby” | November 8 2013 | 25

Sam Warburton

I probably would have ended up breaking down around Christmas if I’d gone right the way through.”

Are you just getting used to the injuries now?

“Every season I’m going to pick up niggles and knocks – that’s just the way it is. I just hope I won’t need an operation for any injuries for a while. I’ve kind of accepted that, so if I can play maybe 25 games a year, that’s a good year for me.“

Mark Kolbe/Getty Images, Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

It’s all the jackling…

[Laughs] “Jackling kills. I get loads of players that tell me they’ve tried jackling and they can’t move their neck for days. I guess I get used to it – I can’t really look over my shoulder any more, but that’s okay!”

How hard was the final week, knowing you were ruled out but were still captain of a team with a chance of winning the series?

“It was really tough. In a way, a little bit of pressure was taken off myself, so it was a relief. Then, as the week went on, you’re desperate to do anything to be back in that environment and playing again. It was really hard to watch that game – probably one of the hardest I’ve had to watch, because you can’t influence it. It was great to be part of the celebrations after, but it’s always better when you’re playing, so I’m still disappointed with that. At the time, I found it really difficult to take any praise.

Are you finally accepting that you’re a good captain?

“I felt like that before the Lions tour, to be honest.

There was all this speculation, like bookies stopped taking bets and so on. I’d been reluctant to take the captaincy a couple of times before, but for the Lions tour I thought: ‘Give it to me, I’m the guy who should have it and I can do a good job.’ I do feel like that now.”

Are you getting fed up of missing decisive games?

“I do think that. There’s been three of them – the World Cup [semi final, in which he was sent off], the Grand Slam decider, where I only played a half, and then the finale in the Lions [after limping off in the second Test, pictured right]. It seems unfair, so it does kind of feel like unfinished business. I was fortunate enough to play in some big ones – England v Wales, the two Tests. You can’t have it all, I guess.”

Injury aside, how special was the summer?

“Ah, it was immense. Going on that tour gives you a taste for something you want to do again and again.

If somebody told me I would have had four Lions starts at number seven, all as captain and two in Tests, I would have bitten their hand off. The relief I had coming back and ticking the box as a series winner – no one else has that now, apart from those boys on that tour. All those years of sacrifice and dedication has paid off, and it’s a great feeling.”

26 | November 8 2013 |

Paul was one guy I really wanted to pick out in my book, actually. You get a lot of guys who preserve themselves when they get over 30, but he’s brilliant.

And I wanted to make a point of that in the book, because I thought he was outstanding as a player and leader. It was great to be able to play alongside him. To have Brian and Paul taking the pressure off me throughout the tour was brilliant, even if it was just closing off the session with something to say.

They’ve been through things that I haven’t been through, so you’ve got to draw on that. As a captain, I couldn’t ask for a better tour to be involved with.”

That’s quite a big change in your mentality.

“It is, yeah. In three months from that England game – it’s strange really, but you can change your perspective at the drop of a hat, I guess. I do feel a lot more confident after the summer, and definitely feel ready to lead Wales again.”

And, although I still captained for seven of the eight weeks, it was really hard not to play that last game.”

It must have helped having Paul O’Connell and Brian O’Driscoll sitting next to you…

“Yeah, that was a weird one, because you’d be expecting those guys to be in the team – I guess it just shows the strength in depth that we had.

What was the best piece of advice you were given as captain of the Lions?

“There was quite a lot, but [Lions tour manager] Andy Irvine said the one thing that really stuck with me.

He was telling me that if I didn’t take the captaincy when Warren rang, he would have come down to my house and strangled me until I took it. It was nice to know that they were that keen for me to be captain, > Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Sam Warburton

“ThaT’s The besT advice you geT: To sTill be selfish wiTh your performance. as capTain, ThaT’s The number-one prioriTy” and it gave me a lot of confidence. He and Warren were great at not giving me too much responsibility, which meant I could still be selfish. That’s the best advice you get, really: to still be selfish with your performance. As captain, that’s the number-one priority – I respect a captain who plays well week in, week out, as opposed to somebody who talks the talk but plays like rubbish. You’ve got to prioritise performance. And, sometimes, despite the fact you’re captain of a team, you have to be selfish to do that. That’s the best advice I could give to anybody, and the best that I received.”

You’ve said before you see your future in Cardiff.

Is that still true?

“Yup, I still feel exactly the same. The best thing for me would be to stay here. I’m still awaiting contract offers, there’s a lot of stuff to figure out – but I’m still in the same frame of mind. I would absolutely love to stay here at Cardiff. We’ve got success at national level, and hopefully that will outweigh the temptation of going to France for a lot of players. It was great when Toby [Faletau] signed a new contract, and hopefully over the next few months more players will do the same.”

Mark Coughlan @coffers83

Lions Triumphant: A Captain’s Story by Sam Warburton is out now. Follow @schustersport on Twitter for updates on the book-signing tour 28 | November 8 2013 |

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Action Images/Reuters/Jason O’Brien

What is the main thing the Lions tour has changed about you?

“I feel the same. I’m a bit more tanned! My hunger to achieve things is still the same, but I guess you naturally have more confidence in yourself. It’s more about having experiences to draw on. I feel a lot more calm and measured on the pitch when it comes to figuring things out, making decisions and dictating play. I feel a lot more confident in my ability, and hopefully that rubs off on the guys.

I see Leigh [Halfpenny] or Alex [Cuthbert] in the changing room and it does make me feel more confident, because I know they’re top-quality players who performed on a Lions tour – hopefully people see me and think the same now.”

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Emily Scarratt and Katy McLean

Taking on Th e world

next year is a big one for english rugby’s women, with the Six nations in February and the world Cup in august. we speak to centre emily Scarratt and captain and fly half katy Mclean before they face France this weekend Saturday England v FrancE | TwickEnham | Sky SporTS 2 5pm

France beat you in the Six Nations earlier this year [McLean, right, was a half-time substitute]. Are you looking for revenge at the Twickenham Stoop this weekend?

Katy McLean: “It’s not really about revenge, it’s about building now, looking forward.

It’s all about performance and making sure we’re building on things that we’ve learned.”

Is it important to lay down a marker, with the World Cup in France in 2014?

Emily Scarratt: “It’s important to show where we’re at, at the moment, coming out of the back of not one of the best seasons England has ever had. We know what it was like to have a home World Cup from three years ago. It’s a very special thing, and it certainly raises your game. We’re not going to underestimate them, but certainly they’re going to be as big a task as ever.”

You have Samoa, Spain and Canada in your World Cup group. Which teams do you think will be in the mix to win it?

KM: “I don’t think you can write anybody off, really. It’s going to be massive for France – they’re such a big side anyway. And, with their home fans behind them, that will make a massive difference. You’ve obviously got to look at the Kiwis – you don’t win that many World Cups [the past four in a row] all over the globe unless you have something special.

The Canadians and Americans [will be a threat] as well – their sevens teams are full-time. If those girls transfer to their 15s programme, that will be a massive boost.”

There’s also the Six Nations, in which you’ll presumably be looking to improve after a difficult year, when England finished third.

KM: “Definitely. There were a lot of factors linked into the Six Nations this year, but it’s such a major tournament for us. It’s probably one of the best tournaments in the world.

A lot of teams will be using it as a marker to see where they are ahead of the World Cup.” Flanker Maggie Alphonsi returns after 18 months out injured. How big a boost is that?

ES: “Massive – you can’t underestimate her.”

KM: “You’d rather have her on your team, wouldn’t you?”

ES: “She has a fear factor about her – you wouldn’t want to play against her. And, yeah, she’ll be great to have back in the squad.”

Who else should we look out for on Saturday?

KM: “I’d have said Emily Scarratt, if she wasn’t injured! She has skills, height, she is fantastic on the ball and a balanced runner.”

ES: “At 10, we’ve got... well, it’s probably a bit of a struggle [laughing]. I mean, a lot of players are really looking to step up – we’re vying for World Cup places, so hopefully we’ll see a lot of good performances.”

Amit Katwala @amitkatwala The England v France women’s international will be exclusively live on Sky Sports & Sky 3D as part of an unrivalled commitment to women’s sport | November 8 2013 | 31

Sports Writing

“The best sports books are not about sport. They are about life, about people.

And, if you're not interested in that, then why bother } reading at all?�{ As the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary, we look back at the modern explosion of sports writing and ask what makes for a good sporting read

32 | November 8 2013 |

Robin Jones/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

L

ater this month, at a glitzy evening reception at the Hospital Club in central London, the winner of the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award will be announced. It will be the 25th such announcement of the award, and represents its maturing into a well-established adulthood that few would have thought likely upon its foundation back in 1989, when Dan Topolski and Patrick Robinson received low-key acclaim and a modest prize for True Blue: The Oxford Boat Race Mutiny.

“The first winner only got a cheque for £1,000,” recalls John Gaustad, the New Zealander who co-founded the award – and the man responsible for the quote you see to your left.

“There were cynical people about – and, if I’m being totally honest, I may well have been one of them – who thought William Hill would play it for about three or four years, try and get some good publicity out of it, and then bugger off.

But there has never been a flicker of doubt on their part, and the growth and impact of the award has just got bigger and bigger.”

The growth of which Gaustad speaks has gone hand in hand with the development of sports writing as its own separate genre – a relatively recent phenomenon that belies some of the iconic works that went before it. Boxing fans speak in hushed and reverent tones of The Fight (1975), Norman Mailer’s feted recollection of the 1974 bout between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire, more commonly known as the Rumble in the Jungle. Any fan of American sports will have read Paper Lion (1966), George Plimpton’s renowned tale of his experiment serving as the third-string quarterback at a Detroit Lions training camp.

Closer to home, few would dispute that Hunter Davies’ behind-the-scenes depiction of Tottenham Hotspur, The Glory Game (1972), is one of the great football reads.

Crucially, however, all three of the aforementioned titles came from the pen of already established and respected literary figures; they were standalone works that fell not into the genre of sports writing, but into the individual canons of the culturally appreciated authors who produced them.

“It’s hard to remember just how bad things were then,” says Gaustad, who first came to England in 1974, and noticed how little prominence was given to sports titles while working in Heffers, the university bookshop in Cambridge, some time later. “At the front of the store, in not such a gracious area, they had what they called the ‘general’ department – it included subjects such as cookery, sport and art, which they didn’t handle at all in an academic way. I had been trying to get hold of a couple of books that had come out about the All Blacks in New Zealand, but Heffers had obviously never heard of them and never even considered trying to get hold of them. That was when I really began thinking quite seriously about

Blazing a trail: The Fight author Norman Mailer (above), and Hunter Davies (left), who wrote The Glory Game, penned the blueprints for sports writing as a separate genre

starting my own business – one that sold only sports books.”

A dark alley Such was the acorn that grew into the oak tree of Sportspages, the cult bookstore that Gaustad opened on London’s Charing Cross Road in 1985.

“I did a huge amount of research before opening the store, looking at how other book shops handled sport,” he recalls now. “Typically, there would be a few rather uncared for and unkempt books in a tiny section right down the back, in a kind of dark alley. If you stood around for long enough, you would see the staff had zero interest in the books, and zero interest in the customers who came to ask about them.

“It was that kind of thing that really fired me up. If I could set up a shop to act as a haven for people who wanted to know about sports books, then maybe they would love it. I have always said that you don’t have to be thick to like sport, which I believe a lot of English people felt at the time – and, importantly, sports books can be as good as any books. I wanted to give them the kind of position I believed they should have.” k

“Typically, there would be a few rather uncared for and unkempt books in a tiny section right down the back, in a kind of dark alley” | 33

Denis Jones/Evening Standard/Rex Features, Press Association Images, Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Sports Writing

The bookie prize: 1992 William Hill Sports Book of the Year winner Nick Hornby (top); the rise of fanzines such as Burnley’s When the Ball Moves (above) and Liverpool’s Red All Over The Land (left) were symptomatic of a sociological change in football

34 | November 8 2013 |

Thus did sports writing move from the dark alley of obscurity into a modern enlightenment – but Gaustad is quick to point out the sociological changes, specifically within football, that helped it on its way.

“There had been a gradual change in football, from the days of the hooligan – which were certainly still going when we opened the shop in 1985 – to the rise of the fanzine, which began with the launch of When Saturday Comes in 1986,” he says. “Suddenly, the football fans who didn’t want to fight, who didn’t want to be racist, had a forum in which they could say what they thought – and we discovered how many of them there really were. In that specific context, fanzines only lasted somewhere between five and 10 years – but their impact was gigantic.”

Breaking new ground If the 1980s gave sports writing an environment in which it could be appreciated – and an award to grant it greater publicity – then the 1990s created a milieu in which it could truly flourish.

The gentrification of football continued apace with the advent of the Premier League (and Sky’s hugely influential coverage of it), and the release of a book Gaustad believes to be the most groundbreaking winner in the history of the William Hill award.

“Fever Pitch was just a groundbreaking book in every possible way,” he says of Nick Hornby’s seminal work, which won the award in 1992.

“Now, we look back on it and think what a wonderful book it was – at the time, though, I can tell you that the publishers had real doubts

about publishing it. They saw it as an ‘intelligent’ football book, and weren’t sure there was a market there. Because I had the bookshop, they sent me the manuscript and asked my advice as to whether I thought it would sell. I read it, was absolutely bowled over, and told them to just get the book out there.

“The special thing about that book was that there was a universality to it, about how fans felt about the game and their team. It spoke to everyone, changed our outlook and, of course, sold hugely straight away.”

Writer and journalist Alyson Rudd currently sits on the judging panel for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, and she echoes Gaustad’s sentiments.

“It altered the way people thought,” she says.

“They came to realise that you didn’t have to be a winner or even a participant to be able to write – you could just be someone who was emotionally involved in sport. That opened up what was allowed in sports writing.”

Honest and beautiful A glance at the shortlist for this year’s William Hill award underlines the great variety of approaches that modern sports writing can take, from the traditional autobiography (Zlatan Ibrahimovic) to the revelatory investigation of David Walsh’s pursuit of Lance Armstrong or the historical tale of Daniel James Brown’s The Boys in the Boat: An Epic True-Life Journey to the Heart of Hitler’s Berlin. The range of style and subject matter is huge – and matched, says Rudd, by the breadth of our expectations as readers. k

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Florian Seefried/Getty Images, Reuters/SCANPIX/Janerik Henriksson

Sports Writing

“If we only want to read beautiful writing, then we end up excluding sportspeople who want to speak in their own voice” “My initial reaction as a judge was just to throw over my shoulder any book that was poorly written, but then I learned you shouldn’t make snap judgments about what comprises good writing,” she says. “For example, if you just dip into Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s book [held by the author, above right], you might think it’s not well written: it’s very colloquial, with exclamation marks everywhere and odd phrasing. You certainly wouldn’t call it beautiful writing. But, if you stop and think about the way the book has been constructed, then you see it is both honest and clever. If we only want to read beautiful writing, then we end up excluding sportspeople who want to speak in their own voice.

“But then you move on to why The Boys in the Boat is on the shortlist, and it’s because that is beautifully written. There can be no compromise there, because the people involved are dead, so you need the ability to bring it to life. The vast majority of people are not going to rush out and seek information on who won in what boat at Hitler’s Olympics [Berlin, 1936], but they might read a great story beautifully told. For that, though, you need a very good writer.”

Rudd identifies another type of sports book to have risen to prominence in the modern era – one that means as much to the sports involved as it does to the readers.

36 | November 8 2013 |

“I don’t think the Marcus Trescothick book that won the award in 2008 was particularly well written, but it made people read about a sportsperson being honest about their mental health,” she says. “As a direct result of that, you got Brian Moore’s book [Beware of the Dog, which won the award in 2010] and the book about Robert Enke [the German goalkeeper who took his own life after suffering with depression]. I’m not saying we were directly responsible for that, but it does reflect the way people in sport are now more open about their weaknesses. It helped a lot of sportspeople realise that (a) you can still achieve while you’re suffering, and (b) you’re not alone in suffering.

That’s why you have to draw back from saying that every sports book has to be well written.”

Finding a way While that may be true, there is a concern that the recent proliferation of sports titles may compromise the overall quality of the wider genre. For every Marcus Trescothick or Andre Agassi (above, left), producing raw and honest reads that compel and intrigue in equal measure, there is an Ashley Cole wasting paper with reams of self-indulgent tedium. Gaustad disagrees.

“I think you’re being slightly negative there,” he says. “I’d actually say that one of the most

dramatic changes to have taken place during the history of our award is that the overall calibre of what gets published has improved immensely.

There was much more crap in the early years.

We had 150 entries this year, and we find it harder to throw books out in the initial sort.

That’s why we ended up with the bizarre number of 17 on the longlist this year – we couldn’t make up our minds about which ones to leave out.

“The intriguing thing now is, with changes in publishing technology, it’s now possible to do short runs both easily and cheaply, so there is a profusion of tiny new companies or imprints willing to do all sorts of adventurous, extraordinary and imaginative things. That prompts the bigger boys to stay on their toes.”

His beloved Sportspages finally closed its doors in 2006, a victim of increased rent prices and the cheap convenience of the internet, but Gaustad remains convincingly upbeat on the future of the genre he helped establish.

“What makes me still feel optimistic is that there are still people who want to read this stuff, and people who want to write it,” he says.

“It may be through the internet or through self-publishing – but the impetus is too strong to be stopped. One way or another, these people will find a way to get together.”

Tony Hodson @tonyhodson1

Credit

Running for his life

| May 3 2013 | 31

Scott Jurek

Ultramarathon runner Scott Jurek talks to Sport about ‘the toughest footrace on earth’ and what it’s like to spend 24 hours running around in circles

how many miles are on your clock? For a man who has been going beyond the standard 26.2-miler for almost 20 years, it’s not an easy calculation.

“I tried to figure that out once before,” he says.

“It’s tricky. But if I were to say an average, on the basis that for ‘x’ number of weeks I run 100 miles per week and I’ve been racing ultras for almost two decades, it would probably be somewhere in the range of 40-50,000 miles.”

If he was a car, you’d be thinking about trading him in right about now – but Jurek isn’t ready for the scrapheap yet. The 40-year-old has been a dominant force in ultra-running (any distance beyond the 26.2 miles of a marathon) since completing his first 50-mile race in 1994. Despite having run his first marathon just a month earlier, Jurek crossed the finish line in second place. His immediate reaction to achieving such a feat? “I said: ‘Never again.’” Four years later, however, Minnesota-born Jurek was standing on > | November 8 2013 | 39

Ian Corless/iancorless.com

S

cott Jurek’s brow is furrowed. He’s searching for the answer to one of the toughest questions an ultramarathoner can face:

Scott Jurek the start line of his first 100-mile race in southern California. Once again, he finished second. And the fuse had been well and truly lit.

When Sport meets him in a London hotel ahead of a talk he’s due to give at a gathering of ultra-running enthusiasts, Jurek extends a large hand of welcome our way. At 6ft 2ins, he’s a long, languid figure.

He’s lean, as one would expect from a man used to racking up hundreds of miles a month. But he is without the haggard, frail look you might assume would belong to a man who goes such distances on a regular basis.

In fact, Jurek is still beaming with the glow of having achieved his long-held dream of running in the Lake District – the place he calls “the birthplace of modern trail running”. He is still a little travel-weary three days after landing in the UK, but explains: “I flew in on Friday morning and then jumped straight on a train to the Lake District to sneak in a run, before coming back to London at about 1am the next morning. I only ran 16 miles, but after an eight-hour flight and then a four-hour train ride, that was plenty.”

With Jurek’s engine up and running, we steer him on to the topics that have fuelled him for thousands of miles so far.

On the Baddest race of all…

“At the Badwater Ultramarathon in 2005 [a 135-mile race through Death Valley, known as ‘the world’s toughest footrace’], there was a point I had to pull myself up off the pavement. It was after 70 miles.

It was an hour before midnight, 105 degrees and I was puking by the roadside with 65 more miles to go.

Those stories you hear about eggs frying in the heat?

They’re true. You can put a skillet [pan] on the pavement and it will fry an egg. It’s crazy hot, like walking into a sauna. You just feel yourself breathing in that air. Most people wear pants [trousers] to shield themselves from the heat, but when you take them off it’s like blowing a hairdryer on to your legs.”

On stepping up…

“You don’t have to train that much harder for an ultra than for a marathon – it’s really just about flipping the switch in your brain to say: ‘I can do this; I really want to finish.’ If you have that desire, you can do it” 40 | November 8 2013 |

“I ran sub-three hours for my first marathon in 1994, which is a good time for a first one. I have complete respect for the distance – it was tough but I felt good the last 15 miles, so it gave me confidence. I assumed that if I could stay mentally strong, I could do a 50-miler. But there are a lot of unknowns in stepping up, for sure. You’re going twice the distance, you don’t know what’s going to happen, and mentally it is hard to get over that barrier. I always tell people that you don’t have to train that much harder for an ultra than for a marathon – it’s really just about flipping the switch in your brain to say: ‘I can do this; I really want to finish.’ If you have that conviction and that desire, you can do it.”

On running round in circles…

“The 24-hour race [Jurek ran 165.7 miles in 24 hours to set a US record in 2010] is incredibly tough because you’re running around the same one-mile loop over and over again. Mentally and physically, you’re at the edge of what you think you can do.

The worst part for me was around hour 18, with six hours still to go. To get through it I would reward myself with music at certain points. I’d also focus on my breath and on technique – anything that kept me focused for a while, and kept my mind off the

monotony and the discomfort. It’s all about filtering out the noise. Then, as soon as the sun starts coming up, you get this sense of rejuvenation.”

On the first 50…

“My first 50-mile race hurt like hell. I was dehydrated, I was cramping and every time I went up a hill in the last 15 to 20 miles, first my calf would seize up, then my hamstring, then my quad. The cramping kept moving around. I didn’t have my nutrition down back then, either. Energy gels hadn’t come out yet, so the first year I was just using PowerBars, energy drinks and having some watermelon or bananas at aid stations. I didn’t know what I was doing out there really, but I never let it get in my head that I wasn’t going to finish – even though at times I was like: ‘I can’t do this. It’s too hard.’”

On eating green…

“I wasn’t thinking about performance when I went plant-based [vegan] in 1999. It was more of a long-term health decision, but nutrition has played a huge role in the consistency and longevity of my results. There are a lot of athletes who compete for a number of years and don’t pay as much attention to nutrition – they stay at a high level for a while, but eventually it hits them. Does being plant-based make me faster than someone who ate meat on the day we hit the starting line? Probably not, but in terms of recovery times and being able to bounce back, I think it’s a huge factor.”

On the weekly grind…

“When I’m in peak training for a 100-miler, I’ll run around 100 to 120 miles per week. I do a lot of tempo runs and lactate threshold workouts. If I’m preparing for a mountainous race, then I’ll do those uphill – 45 minutes at lactate threshold pace, come down, then go back up. It’s about trying to train yourself to get used to the muscular fatigue. My long runs will be anywhere from 20 miles up to as high as 40 miles sometimes. And some of those will be back to back, so I’ll do a 25 or 30-mile run one day, then do the same distance again the next day. That way, you’re feeling in your legs what it’s like to run on consecutive days. Most people never do a 60 to 80-mile training run in one go. If you do that, it’ll take a couple of weeks to recover.”

On winning…

“The competition and the winning is what pushes me to explore my boundaries. If I didn’t have the other racers or the time goals to break records, I wouldn’t push myself as hard. The goal of winning and bringing my body to that edge is an important part of racing for me, but it’s like that quote: ‘It’s not the destination, it’s really the journey.’ In an ultra, you have a lifetime’s worth of experiences over 100 miles.

The competition is just one element to push me a little further. That’s why some races are held at high altitude, in extreme heat or in environments where you have to run in a circle. It’s to test you physically and mentally to the extreme; to force you to break down, then build yourself back up. To survive.”

Sarah Shephard @sarahsportmag Eat & Run by Scott Jurek is published by Bloomsbury. Available in paperback now, priced £8.99

iPad edition on Newsstand now

7 Days OUR PICK OF THE ACTION FROM THE SPORTING WEEK AHEAD

NOV 8-NOV 14 HIGHLIGHTS » Football: Premier League » p44 » Rugby League World Cup: Fiji v England »p46 » Rugby Union: England v Argentina » p46 » Darts: Grand Slam of Darts » p48 » Golf: DP World Tour Championship » p50

Spanish showdown

It has been seven years since the MotoGP title race

finishes fourth or higher, he'll be world champion

went right to the wire – current championship leader

regardless of what Lorenzo can do. The omens are

Marc Marquez would have been just 13 as Nicky

good for young Marquez – he won the Moto2 event at

Hayden overhauled Valentino Rossi in 2006. Now 20,

last year's season-ending weekend around Valencia's

the Spanish rider is on the verge of becoming the

Ricardo Tormo circuit, while Lorenzo crashed out of

sport's youngest world champion in his debut season.

the MotoGP race in tricky conditions.

He lost both ground and momentum, however,

swashbuckling style of Marquez – a style that has its

October, when his team failed to call him into the pits

downside. Marquez has crashed 15 times this season

in time for a mandatory bike change. That allowed

(although only once in a race) and he is just one more

defending champion Jorge Lorenzo (leading, above)

penalty away from being demoted to the back of the

to close the gap to 13 points going into the final race.

grid. He will have to approach this race weekend with

The task for Marquez (pictured behind Lorenzo) now is to keep a cool head. He knows that if he 42 | November 8 2013 |

For the older Spaniard, hope endures in the

after being disqualified in the Australian Grand Prix in

more caution than normal. If he slips up again, Lorenzo will be primed to take advantage.

Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images

SUNDAY MOTOGP | ROUND 18: VALENCIA GRAND PRIX | CIRCUITO DE LA COMUNITAT VALENCIANA | BBC TWO 1.05PM

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7 Days

Premier League

Saturday aston villa v cardiff | villa park | 3pm

The league leaders go up against the champions at Old Trafford, while the chasing trio look to make up ground with victories on their home patches Saturday manchester united v arsenal | old trafford | sky sports 1 4.10pm

We don’t want to pile the pressure on Christian Benteke (pictured), but Villa have gone 375 minutes without a goal, and the Belgian appears to be the only man capable of changing that. Not that the visitors are faring much better. Last week’s win over Swansea will put a spring in Cardiff’s step, but the fact that Steven Caulker’s second goal of the season makes him the Bluebirds’ joint-top scorer – with Fraizer Campbell – is a worrying stat in itself.

Saturday norwich v west ham carrow road | sky sports 1 5.30pm

Ten games in, and Arsenal aren’t showing any sign of

continues to impress out wide, but it’s the form of Wayne

Norwich are in the bottom three,

slowing down, with an unbeaten run stretching back to

Rooney that is really helping the Red Devils turn their

having now conceded 14 in their

that opening-day defeat to Aston Villa. Last week saw

season around. Wazza has seven goals and three assists

past four league games (half of

their toughest fixture of the season so far, at home to

in United’s past 10 games in all competitions, and is the

those keeper John Ruddy, pictured,

Liverpool. The Gunners passed with flying colours,

man Arsenal need to keep quiet. The Londoners, after all,

shipped to Manchester City last

with Aaron Ramsey (pictured) still flying (and letting fly).

were strongly linked with the hair-plugged striker over

week). A clean sheet against West

Their mettle will be tested further this week with a trip to

the summer, so football law 18.2b dictates that he’s now

Ham is the priority, then, and the

Old Trafford, where they haven’t won since 2006 – and

more likely to pop in a screamer against them.

good news is the Hammers started

where they endured that 8-2 thumping just two years ago.

Manchester United, for all the doom and gloom that

Arsenal, though, are creating chances for fun. Olivier

their previous game without a

Giroud alone has created 17 goalscoring opportunities in

striker. At home. To Aston Villa.

follows David Moyes, have won three of their last four, and

10 league games – and he, Ramsey and Mesut Ozil have

‘Respect the point’ is a favoured

looked a team in sumptuous form as they took Fulham

four assists apiece. The likely return of Mathieu Flamini

motto of Sam Allardyce – Norwich

apart in just over 20 minutes last week. Adnan Januzaj

adds solidity, making the Gunners a warm order here.

would take one on Saturday.

44 | November 8 2013 |

Saturday crystal palace v everton selhurst park | 3pm

Saturday liverpool v fulham | anfield | 3pm

Saturday southampton v hull | st mary’s | 3pm

Jose Mourinho said he made “11

The new man at Palace is in for one

Here’s a stat to cheer up Reds fans

‘Not conceding to the opposition’s

mistakes” on the teamsheet after

hell of a job. Three points from 10

after losing to Arsenal last week:

goalkeeper in the first 20 seconds’

last week’s 2-0 defeat to Newcastle.

games tells its own story – heck,

Fulham have won only once in their

will likely be top of Southampton

Harsh, yes, but Chelsea looked tired

even 11-point Derby (their season’s

history at Anfield – although that

stopper Artur Boruc’s wishlist this

and devoid of ideas at the Toon, with

total in 2007-08) had six points by

was as recently as 2012. Glen

week, but – that moment aside – his

the attacking midfielders repeatedly

now. Don’t expect Everton to show

Johnson is back after visiting

side have looked formidable this

failing to link up with lone striker

too much mercy after last week’s

hospital thanks to a localised

season. Mauricio Pochettino has

Fernando Torres (who had just 17

blank against Tottenham, with

infection, while Philippe Coutinho

the Saints playing a style that is

touches). West Brom’s defence is

Romelu Lukaku again the danger

should start his first game since

at times easy on the eye, and

better than Newcastle’s, and

man. Palace have conceded four

September – his link-up with Luis

Jay Rodriguez and Rickie Lambert

Chelsea need someone to get

from set-pieces in their past three

Suarez (pictured) and Daniel

(pictured) have three apiece. Hull

among the goals. Step forward,

games, so expect Leighton Baines

Sturridge is likely to be more than

have one victory and two goals from

perhaps, Sport’s latest cover star…

(pictured) to be at his most effective.

enough to overwhelm the Cottagers.

their past four. Home win, anyone?

Sunday tottenham v newcastle white hart lane | sky sports 1 12pm

Sunday sunderland v man city | stadium of light sky sports 1 2.05pm

Sunday swansea v stoke | liberty stadium | 4.10pm

Premier League tabLe P

Pts

W D

L

F

A

1

Arsenal

10

8

1

1

22

9

25

2

Chelsea

10

6

2

2

16

8

20

3

Liverpool

10

6

2

2

17

10

20

4

Tottenham

10

6

2

2

9

5

20

5

Man City

10

6

1

3

28

11

19

6

Southampton 10

5

4

1

11

4

19

7

Everton

10

5

4

1

14

10

19

8

Man Utd

10

5

2

3

17

13

17

9

Newcastle

10

4

2

4

14

16

14

10 Hull City

10

4

2

4

8

10

14

11 West Brom

10

3

4

3

10

10

13

12 Cardiff

10

3

3

4

9

13

12

13 Swansea

10

3

2

5

12

12

11

14 Aston Villa

10

3

2

5

9

12

11

10

2

4

4

8

8

10

If Hugo Lloris’ head is still sore

Seven goals don’t make a season,

The tale of two out-of-form Cities.

15 West Ham

after last week, the hushed fans at

but Manchester City will be buzzing

The Swans have just three victories

16 Fulham

10

3

1

6

10

15

10

10

2

3

5

7

11

9

White Hart Lane will be the perfect

after mauling Norwich last weekend.

to their name this season, and two of

17 Stoke

tonic. We jest, but then they’ve not

Seven different scorers in that game

those were against the bottom two

18 Norwich

10

2

2

6

6

20

8

had that much to shout about,

mean Sunderland have their work

sides. Stoke, meanwhile, have not

19 Sunderland

10

1

1

8

7

22

4

having scored just once at home in

cut out to stop the Citizens, with

won a game since August and saw

20 Crystal Palace 10

1

0

9

6

21

3

the league since September (and

Sergio Aguero (pictured) the pick

goalkeeper Asmir Begovic (above,

that courtesy of another penalty

after claiming three assists and a

with Southampton’s Artur Boruc)

from Roberto Soldado, pictured).

goal. There is hope, though: the

become their joint-top scorer last

Tottenham have conceded just five

Black Cats haven’t lost at home to

week. Michel Vorm’s red card against

this season, but Newcastle – fresh

City since August 2008, winning the

Cardiff means he misses a game that

from a 2-0 win over Chelsea –

three meetings on Wearside since

could see Stoke leapfrog the Swans –

haven’t drawn a blank since August.

– and all of them have finished 1-0.

if Begovic brings his shooting boots.

3

A quarter of the red cards in the Premier League this season have been shown to Sunderland players: John O’Shea, Andrea Dossena and Lee Cattermole

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand | 45

All pictures Getty Images

Saturday chelsea v west brom stamford bridge | 3pm

7 Days Saturday Rugby lEaguE woRld cup | gRoup a: England v Fiji | kc Stadium, hull | bbc onE 2.30pm

Fijian wall blocks England path

England face Fiji in their final World Cup group game,

Blockbusting wing Akuila Uate, who claimed a

for what should be a much sterner test than their

hat-trick in the victory over Ireland, will be a threat – but

previous outing against Ireland. It promises to be a

England have their own powerful force on the flank in

physical contest, with the Fijians famed for their big hits.

Ryan Hall (pictured), who has four tries in two games.

While England were easing past the Irish last

Coach Steve McNamara is likely to recall Sam Burgess

weekend, the South Sea Islanders faced Australia

after his one-match suspension, meaning that England

in monsoon-like conditions at St Helens – and didn’t

should be at full strength for what could prove a

really get into the game, losing 34-2. They’ll be keen

bruising encounter. Victory would secure second place

to bounce back, and in Petero Civoniceva they have

in the group behind Australia, however, and a quarter

an inspirational leader.

final against the third-placed team from Group B at

The 37-year-old prop had a stellar career in the NRL, and put in many memorable performances in the green

Wigan’s DW Stadium next Saturday.

On Saturday evening, Ireland take on Australia at

and gold of Australia over the years. Now playing for the

Thomond Park in Limerick. The Irish have lost two out of

country of his birth for the first time before retiring, he’ll

two, but their only one on home soil will be an emotional

be anxious to go out on a high note.

affair in what is likely their tournament farewell.

Saturday Rugby union | England v aRgEntina | twickEnham Stadium | Sky SpoRtS 2 2.30pm

Try time at Twickers One win down, two to go. Okay, last week’s victory over the Aussies was a disjointed and less than glorious performance, but it’s onwards and upwards for Stuart Lancaster’s men. Argentina provide the perfect platform before the All Blacks arrive next week – the Pumas finished bottom of the recent Rugby For Chris Robshaw and co, the major focus will be on more invention in the backs. Last week saw a good performance at the breakdown and set-piece dominance – a few lineout blips aside – that will only be helped by Geoff Parling’s return from injury. So it’s the men outside Owen Farrell, and the one directly inside him, that have to up their game. Marland Yarde and Mike Brown were impressive last week, but the centres need to create more and get the side across the gainline. Start well, and England should win this one comfortably. Then it’s just the Kiwis to worry about.

46 | November 8 2013 |

Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Michael Steele/Getty Images, Tom Shaw/Getty Images

Championship with a points difference of minus 136.

Š 2013 Activision Publishing, Inc. ACTIVISION, CALL OF DUTY and CALL OF DUTY GHOSTS are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

7 Days ThursDAY BOxINg | BRITAIN v USA: PRIzEFIghTER INTERNATIONAL hEAvYWEIghTS | YORK hALL, BEThNAL gREEN | SKY SPORTS 1 8PM

Heavy hitters The rotund remnants of the once-brilliant

of Anthony Joshua (pictured) makes his

James ‘Lights Out’ Toney are the big sell in

third appearance, less than six weeks on

this Prizefighter tournament that pits Yank

from his professional debut.

The plan is to keep the Olympic

knockout tournament action. Blighty is

gold-medallist active and get him as much

represented by, among others, the

time in the ring as possible. Unfortunately,

controversial Larry Olubamiwo (who

the devastating sledgehammer Joshua calls

returns from a drugs ban) and Sam Sexton

a right hand is working against this scheme.

– a Prizefighter winner back in 2008.

Neither of his first two opponents saw the

However, even Toney and Olubamiwo’s

end of the second round – and York Hall’s

ample frames are likely to be overshadowed

punters are likely to be treated to another

by the man in the co-main event. All 6ft 6ins

pulverising performance next week.

MONDAY TENNIS | ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS: FINAL | O2 ARENA, LONDON | SKY SPORTS 3 5.30PM

sATurDAY > DARTS | gRAND SLAM OF DARTS | WOLvERhAMPTON CIvIC hALL | SKY SPORTS 4 1PM

The worlds end

In theory, the Grand Slam of Darts is a tournament trickier to win than either the BDO or PDC World Championships. Drawing mainly on players from the latter organisation, it also includes all four semi-finalists from the last BDO World Championship.

The favourite is a name darting experts among you might just have heard of: Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor. The most dominant dartist in history has won four of the six Grand Slam events, although his old rival Raymond van Barneveld is reigning champ, with Michael van Gerwen a likely challenger.

From the BDO side of the fence, Scotty ‘2 Hotty’ Waites (pictured) is a threat. The Yorkshireman won this tournament

Monday finals will always feel a bit odd.

in 2010 and finally gained an overdue BDO world title this past

This one will feel even more so if Rafael

January. But Waites hasn’t been in the best of form since, so

Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer

perhaps the man most likely to cause an upset is Belgian Kim

do not feature. Since the tournament

Huybrechts, winner of two minor PDC tournaments in October.

moved to London in 2009, at least one (and often two) of those three men has reached the final, except for its debut year in the captial – when Nikolay Davydenko and Juan Martin del Potro crashed the party.

The doubles final takes place on the same day, but with the London bid of Jamie Murray and his partner John Peers ending with a first-round loss in Paris this week – and brother Andy missing out through injury – there will be no British representation at the O2 at all this year. The Union Jack flags will still be there, though.

They always are.

48 | November 8 2013 |

Best of the best Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand

Scott Heavey/Getty Images, Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images, Ben Hoskins/Getty Images

heavyweights against Brits in three-round,

7 Days Thursday fooTball | euroPean u21 ChamPionshiP QualifyinG GrouP 1: enGlanD v finlanD | sTaDium:mk, milTon keynes | bT sPorT 1 7.45Pm

Road to Prague With two games in hand over Wales at the top of a forgiving group, England’s young prospects are looking good in their bid to qualify for the 2015 Under-21 European Championships in the Czech Republic.

They have an opportunity to take even greater control of their own destiny with a home double-header over the next week and a half, with next Thursday’s visit of Finland to Milton Keynes followed by the usual San Marino rout (we hope) the following Tuesday.

The former will provide a sterner test, with Finland holding England to a 1-1 draw in Tampere in September. West Brom’s Saido Berahino (pictured) netted the equaliser that night, and the Burundi-born striker has since swelled his international tally to four.

The Finns’ main threat is likely to be Tim Vayrynen; the 20-year-old scored a hat-trick against Wales earlier in the competition, and finished the 2013 season as his league’s top scorer for club side FC Honka. That’s right: Honka.

Thursday > Golf | DP WorlD Tour ChamPionshiP | Jumeirah Golf esTaTes, Dubai | sky sPorTs 4 8am

Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images, Andrew Redington/Getty Images

Last men standing Another season on the European Tour

cold (witness last week’s WGC rounds of

comes to a close, then, with the

74-76-67-65), so his pursuers will enter

grandiosely named DP World Tour

the week with some hope – especially

Championship in Dubai, where the top

when they take into consideration a

60 players of the year will compete.

winner’s cheque of $1.33m. Justin Rose,

The tournament rounds off the

Ian Poulter and Gonzalo Fernandez-

season-long Race to Dubai, and Swede Henrik Stenson is in pole position to land

50 | November 8 2013 |

Castano are among those in the hunt.

The tournament takes place amid the

the overall prize. He’s won ¤2,203,260

opulence of the Jumeirah Golf Estates,

this season, with closest rival Graeme

with the total prize fund standing

McDowell (pictured) almost ¤150,000

at $8m. The global financial crisis

behind. Still, Stenson can blow hot and

would appear to be over, then.

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Extra timE

P54 Sandra Bullock ignores Clooney’s handsomeness and sticks to the job at hand in Gravity

Making the most of your time and money

Kit

Goggle glass

Play that funky music

Use your phone’s library, or access streaming services such as Spotify or Pandora, to soundtrack your ski session

Oakley airwave 1.5 Goggles

Skiing is ace, and the gear that goes with it is just one reason why. Just check out these goggles, with “technology that delivers the goods straight to your brain”. They include a heads-up display, perceived to be the size of a 14-inch screen viewed from a distance of five feet, which boasts connectivity and stats on the go. Here’s what it can do… £520 | uk.oakley.com

Don’t want to miss a thing

View calls, messages and social media updates, and even reply on the go with preset messages

Go your own way

Pinpoint your location and your nearest runs, as well as tracking the whereabouts of your pals

52 | November 8 2013 |

Check yo’self

Keep track of (and show the girls) your speed, vertical feet and even your jumps and airtime

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OAKLEY.COM/GOGGLES

YPO YPOAN CANOPY C ANOPY 1 9 7 5

5 FIVE-TIME WORLD CHAMPION DOWNHILL, GIANT SLALOM, SUPER COMBINED

EST.

REDUCES BRIGHTNESS WHILE BOOSTING TERRAIN DETAILS

FIRE IRIDIUM BRIGHT SUN

F O R

E V E R Y

C O N D I T I O N

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SUN & CLOUDS

3 R D B I R T H D AY

PUT TO THE TEST AND APPROVED BY

C AL B EM TM T ATTE BLACK

SNOW & OVERCAST

FIRST SKIS FOR HIS

®

AKSEL

SVI NDA L

ET

Entertainment

STArS, WArS

Director Alfonso Cuaron delivers a visually astonishing space drama, while Call of Duty: Ghosts lets you be the underdog

Film

Game

Call of Duty: Ghosts

Gravity is a sci-fi thriller in which the enemy isn’t aliens, murderous robots or stormtroopers, but vast, cold, unforgiving space itself. It’s a chillingly effective nemesis, as we learn in a stunning opening sequence: Dr Stone (Sandra Bullock) and veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (a garrulous George Clooney) are hit by debris during a spacewalk, sending the former spinning off into the ether. This leads to both a battle for survival and a dropping of audience

Music

On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2 The Beatles

Auntie Beeb has raided her archives to shine a light on 37 previously unreleased performances as well as in-studio bantz between the Fab Four and their BBC radio hosts. Early Beatles hits, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles covers, plus jocular interviews with the boys, make up this fine new collection.

Out Monday 54 | November 8 2013 |

jaws in the cinema. Dazzling, dizzying visuals married to a pared-back plot make Gravity an epic 3D experience.

Not that it’s a perfect film. Bullock and Clooney perform well, but their dialogue occasionally veers into cliche and the characters are too quickly overwhelmed by disaster for us to really get to know them. Yet these are minor quibbles.

Gravity is a masterpiece of old-school suspense matched with unique, modern special effects. Just let it pull you in.

Out today

Book

Creation Stories Alan McGee

Creation Records founder McGee is best known for discovering Oasis at a gig with 12 attendees at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. However, as the man behind the rise of Primal Scream before that – and his own, druginduced near-downfall – he has more wild tales to share in this new autobiography than you get from most rock and roll stars.

Out now

Blu-ray

Exhibition

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Extended Edition

If you exited the first Hobbit film thinking that, at 169 minutes, it’s just too damn short, this is the Blu-ray for you. The extended edition stretches the fantasy to more than three hours with added scenes of dwarves hitting on elves, more Christopher Lee as Sauron, plus new extras including a Peter Jackson commentary.

Out Monday

World Press Photo 2013 Southbank Centre

War, wildlife and wonderful photography are all on show in this new exhibition showing off the best recent photojournalism at London’s Southbank Centre.

From a Free Syrian Army fighter (above) to snaps of London 2012, there’s rich variety among the 350 images on display. And, importantly, entry is totally free.

Opens today

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2013 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc, 2012 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. ©Fabio Bucciarelli

Gravity

The US is in ruins, and it’s up to the the nation’s special ops ‘Ghosts’ to fight to save the country in Call Of Duty’s latest campaign mode. Everyone knows the single player is a mere sideshow, though, as pre-teens across the globe are waiting to kick your ass and shout “NOOB!” in your ear. Yup, multiplayer CoD is back, with new game modes and arenas awaiting, not to mention the introduction of dynamic environments that alter as you blow the bejesus out of everything. Our favourite addition? Get enough kills and you can bring Riley the guard dog in from the campaign to help fight your corner. Sic ’em, boy!

Out now

“A SHOCKING, POWERFUL AND TRANSCENDENT THRILLER” EMPIRE

CONTAINS STRONG 818 18 CONTAINS BLOODY VIOLENCE

IN CINEMAS NOVEMBER 15

ET

Grooming

PoP inTo A PoP-uP

Keep yourself trim and proper: make your moustache magnificent this Movember, and crop your curls in time for Christmas

A mo-mentous Movember

Gillette’s The Best A Mo Can Get Barbers

All manner of gentlemanly distractions are available at Gillette’s pop-up barbers in Covent Garden, but the main and indeed most important attraction is that it’s offering free lip trims and hot towel shaves for all ‘Mo Bros’ – and all in support of Movember. Open until the end of the month, it will host comedy nights, motivational evenings, acoustic performances and PlayStation games tournaments on the new PS4. The pop-up will also be the official clubhouse for Mo Gents United, Gillette’s ‘nationwide team of mo-growing gentlemen’.

Head to www.mogentsunited.co.uk to join up, and for the chance to win exclusive prizes that appeal to the discerning gent.

7 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London

A cut above before Christmas Aveda Men Pop-up Barbershop

Offering grooming services to have you ‘Christmas ready’, Aveda promises “a haven of gentlemanly calm amid the bustle of Christmas shopping mayhem”. On the menu: a facial exfoliation session to hydrate and recharge your skin (£20), a traditional cut-throat shave (£25), or a head-and-shoulder massage with a botanical scalp detox, cleanse, condition, cut and style (£35). Just be sure to book ahead.

174-177 High Holborn | 020 7759 7355

56 | November 8 2013 |

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n the fiery tyrants the envy, spit the pestiferous bile; their bloody standard they rise, provoking the most cruel combat. Not our words, but part of the full version of the Argentine national anthem, a song we’ll get a blast of on Saturday, before the England v Argentina rugby union international at Twickenham.

We’re not sure what it all means – especially “pestiferous” (unless he’s the Pumas’ new scrum half) – but it sounds damned inspiring. Particularly as the singer providing the vocals is the talented Josefina Achaval. She’s the girlfriend of injured Puma winger Gonzalo Camacho, plus a former finalist on the Argentine version of The X Factor. Does this mean Rik Waller will be banging out God Save the Queen? We can only hope not.

Argie ardor I

Extra time Josefina Achaval

58 | November 8 2013 |

| 59

eT

Gadgets

every liTTle HelPS

Tesco’s new thoroughbred tablet, plus some pocket-sized gadgets that will protect your bags, your laptop and your health

Tesco Hudl

Well positioned to bring tablet computing to the masses, the low-priced Hudl from Tesco comes in a range of colours and runs the Android operating system. According to the supermarket giant, the 7-inch Hudl tablet contains a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, a 16GB hard drive and enough battery to let you watch nine hours of video.

Parental controls and free TV and film streams for Clubcard customers make this an ideal first tablet for families. £119 | tesco.com

Trakdot luggage

This palm-sized device slips into your luggage and keeps you updated on where it is, so if it gets lost while you’re travelling you’ll have the piece of mind/ small consolation of at least knowing which city it’s in. It can also send an alert to your phone when your bag is approaching at baggage reclaim. £38 | trakdot.com 60 | November 8 2013 |

Misfit Shine Activity Monitor As small and light as a £2 coin, the Misfit Shine brings a touch of class to fitness tracking.

It syncs with your phone app when you place it on the screen (awesome) and can be worn round your wrist or clipped to your clothes. And, best of all, it runs on a watch battery – so it never needs charging. £100 | store.apple.com/uk

Atama Sesame

If you’re one of the 1 per cent of people whose password is ‘123456’, then this is for you.

Keep it in your pocket and it will automatically lock your computer when you wander away from it, and unlock it when you return – thus providing the ultimate peace of mind, no matter what websites you’re on. £35 | atama.io/sesame

Huawei Ascend P6

The thinnest smartphone in the land, the P6 measures slightly more than 6mm from front to back – almost 2mm thinner than the iPhone 5S. As well as slightly more pocket room, it gives you dual cameras and ‘Magic Touch’ technology, so the screen is still responsive if you’re wearing gloves. Handy for the winter. £25/month | phones4u.co.uk

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Š 2013 Activision Publishing, Inc. ACTIVISION, CALL OF DUTY and CALL OF DUTY GHOSTS are trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. All rights reserved.