Backpage Sports Stories

Marcus Christenson: The Guardian’s 100 Best Footballers in the World

Welcome to a new episode of Between the Lines. In this one, the Guardian’s football editor, Marcus Christenson, breaks down the herculean annual task of compiling the newspaper’s list of ‘100 best footballers in the world’. The latest list, 2019, also saw the introduction of a women’s top 100. Read More →

Podcast

Andy Murray: Resurfacing – New Episode of Between the Lines

New year. New episode. Here is the brilliant David Law, host of The Tennis Podcast and BBC5Live commentator, breaking down the Andy Murray documentary, Resurfacing. Read More →

Podcast

The Making of… The Miracle of Castel di Sangro

This final episode of this season of Between the Lines is a documentary about one of the most beloved of all sports books, Joe McGinniss’s 1999 hall-of-famer, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro. Read More →

Podcast

Pol Ballus: Pep’s City, The Making of a Superteam

In the ninth episode in this new season of Between the Lines, Martin talks to 26-year-old Catalan journalist Pol Ballus, who reflects on his four-year journey from waiting tables in a Liverpool tapas restaurant to co-authoring Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam. Pol also tells us what its like to report from inside the Man City machine and have direct access to Pep Guardiola, as well as his relationship with co-author Lu Martin. Read More →

Podcast

Pep’s City: Behind the Scenes with BackPage

In the eighth episode in this new season of Between the Lines, we take you behind the scenes of their latest bestseller, Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam. We talk about the huge editorial challenges we faced and our productive relationship with both authors, Lu Martin and Pol Ballus. Read More →

Podcast

New Season of Between the Lines!

Welcome to the second full season of Between the Lines: The Stories Behind Great Sports Writing. This series has been a long time in the planning and recording – we wanted to get the right combination of guests and a good balance between books, long-form journalism and news stories. We hope you enjoy. And if you do, please leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Read More →

Blog

Throwing a Curveball: How to Land a Baseball Book for the ages in the UK

I know nothing about baseball. Correction: I knew nothing about baseball. Until I read Astroball, that is. So began my immersion in a sport that I had never understood or held much interest to me. Read More →

Blog

Our favourite US sports books of the century

Last month, we published our second US sports book. Astroball: The New Way to Win it All is the best sports books we’ve read in recent years, and one of the best we’ve ever read. We are very excited to bring the UK edition of Ben Reiter’s book to a British audience. Read More →

Blog

NEW BOOK: Astroball – The New Way to Win it All

One of the reasons we founded BackPage was to introduce more of the US sports writing we loved to the UK market. We often had long conversations about writers such as Budd Schulberg, David Halberstam, George Plimpton, John Feinstein, Michael Lewis and Ring Lardner. The Best American Sports Writing of the 20th Century became our bible. However, when our second book, Barca, took off, we found ourselves focusing mainly on European sports writing. Read More →

Blog

‘Going Anderlecht’ with Vincent Kompany

In an exclusive extract from Football 2.0 by Grant Wahl, the Manchester City defender explains how his attacking instincts were honed at his first club, Anderlecht. Read More →