In 1985 Joe Simpson and his climbing partner and friend Simon Yates became the first people to successfully climb Peru’s Siula Grande mountain via the west face. On the descent everything went very badly wrong. Simpson broke his leg, they ran out of fuel as terrible weather rolled in, and then they both slipped and Simpson was left hanging by a rope. Yates had to cut the rope, sending Simpson to what seemed to be certain death. It wasn’t, and somehow Simpson, with no food or water, hopped and dragged himself back to base camp over three horrific days. Painful but brilliant stuff.

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To be commended for being simply one of the most honest football autobiography’s ever written. Cascarino reveals a troubled childhood, fragile relationships, gambling problems and doubts about his own ability. He tells us all about his infidelities and occasional appalling behaviour. Then there are gems like this: during his time at Marseille, he and many other of the club's players were injected by club president Bernard Tapie's personal physician with an unknown substance. The physiotherapist at the time insisted the substance was legal and would provide an "adrenaline boost". Cascarino claimed that most players accepted the injections and that "it definitely made a difference: I felt sharper, more energetic, hungrier for the ball".

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Later made into a very good film starring Richard Harris, This Sporting Life is set in the blood and guts of a grim industrial northern rugby town. It opens memorably with the narrator Arthur Machin getting his teeth kicked out in game, then flashes back to the roots of his life in rugby. His sporting life is mirrored by his working life – Arthur continues to work at the factory and lives in fairly grim lodgings where he has a volatile relationship with the landlady. It’s good kitchen sink stuff, and you get an overwhelming sense of an England that has practically disappeared.

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There are sporting events that transcend the world of sports, and the 1974 heavyweight title fight in which Muhammad Ali regained his crown by improbably knocking out George Foreman in the middle of the African night was certainly one of them. Metaphorically, it was a writer's dream: two imposing black fighters, one all grace, the other brute force, one the iconoclast, the other the blind patriot, battling each other. Norman Mailer's masterful account goes far beyond the ropes to capture the primal ethos of the sport, the larger social canvas this particular fight was drawn on, and the remarkable cast of personalities - not the least of which is Mailer himself.

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Sparky Lyle won the coveted Cy Young Award for being the outstanding pitcher while playing for the New York Yankees in the 1977 season. In the off-season the Yankees bought another outstanding pitcher – Goose Gossage – and Lyle was unceremoniously dumped on the bench. This turned out to be good news for sports fans, as Lyle kept a diary for the 1978 season, and what a hoot it is. Over-inflated egos and juvenile behaviour, back-stabbing and schoolboy pranks, boozing and fighting and arguing. The book is a brilliant inside line on baseball, but more than that it is a straight-up no frills look at the way grown men behave when they are, basically, spoiled rotten.

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The diaries of David McVay, written during his formative years as a teenager with Notts County during the 1970s, invite readers on an undulating and nostalgic football journey that will never be repeated in the context of the modern game. From February 1974 to October 1975, the scenery varies from The Shay at Halifax to Old Trafford while the cast of characters includes such luminaries as Don Revie and Brian Clough. The Ford Capri and Cortina provide the car chases with background music courtesy of assorted artists such as Slade, Yes and Nick Drake. On the pitch, Manchester United visit Meadow Lane and their fans almost destroy it. Off it, Paul Smith opens his first boutique in the backstreets of Nottingham while the The Exorcist and Abba arrive in equally garish manner. Fascinating and very, very funny.

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Long, long before ‘participatory journalism’ became a yawn, there was George Plimpton. Writer and editor Plimpton had previously (in Out Of My League) pitched in a demonstration baseball match. He had also boxed three rounds against Archie Moore. Properly boxed. In Paper Lion he set himself the target of playing as quarterback for the Detroit Lions American Football team. The book covers his time with the Lions from arrival at their preseason training camp in 1963 to the end of his active involvement with them. This is participatory journalism at its best. We feel every sack Plimpton is the victim of; we share his joy every time he learns a new play and carries it off in training; we share his despair when a demonstration game turns out to be an utter, utter disaster.

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. . . and other Working Class Heroes. Stewart Imlach was an ordinary neighbourhood football star of his time – the 1950s. A brilliant winger who thrilled the crowd on Saturdays for Nottingham Forest, then worked alongside them in the off-season; who represented Scotland in the 1958 World Cup and never received a cap for his efforts; who was Man of the Match for Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final, and was rewarded with the standard offer - £20 a week, take it or leave it. The book brilliantly recaptures a lost world and the way it changed, blending the personal and the historical into a unique, heart-breaking story. Gary’s dad worked as a joiner and double-glazer in the off-season. And he was a decent, honest bloke. Makes you wonder.

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In the state of Texas American football is a religion. And nowhere is more fanatical about its football than the small town of Odessa. There, every Friday night from September to November, a bunch of seventeen-year-old kids play their hearts out for the honour of their high school. In front of 20,000 people. In 1988 H.G. Bissinger spent a season in Odessa discovering just what makes a town pin its hopes on eleven boys on a football field. He lived with the students, coaches and townspeople who dedicate their lives to their team, sharing their joys and triumphs, their pains, injuries and bitter disappointments. Friday Night Lights is one of the best books about sport ever written.

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Julie Burchill memorably said of Fever Pitch when it came out in 1992, "A brilliant book by one of the best writers around - not just a book about football, but a book about love, death and the feather-cut." Hornby documents his affliction – unwavering love and support for Arsenal – in painful detail. At turns funny, sad, jubilant, wise, Hornby may have written the best ever account of what it is to be a fan. Many, many imitators sprang up post-Fever Pitch, but it has never been matched. If you read it back in the day, pick it up and start again. Guaranteed you’ll be hooked for a second time. His football addiction even forces him to support Cambridge United for a spell when exiled in the University town.

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With Brilliant Orange, David Winner has written a masterful analysis of the Dutch psyche, using football, (and specifically the 1970's team of Cruyff, Kieser, Rep et al) as a counterpoint to their particular and sometimes peculiar ways. Winner has really done his research - he brings in subjects as far and wide as "art and architects, cows and canals, anarchists, church painters, rabbis and airports", and deftly weaves them into the rich tapestry of footballing history. His real skill, however, is in bringing the matches to life and demonstrating the artistry of the game. Winner manages to explain the Dutch flair, their inventiveness, their spatial awareness, their internal wranglings and, tragically, their inevitable defeat at the hands of lesser opponents.

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This account of the early-'50s Brooklyn Dodgers is, by turns, a novelistic tale of conflict and change, a tribute, a civic history, a piece of nostalgia and, finally, a tragedy, as the franchise's 1958 move to Los Angeles takes the soul of Brooklyn with it. Kahn writes beautifully about the memorable games and the Dodgers' penchant for choking - "Wait Till Next Year" is their motto - but the most poignant passages revisit the Boys in autumn. An auto accident has rendered catcher Roy Campanella a quadriplegic. Dignified trailblazer Jackie Robinson is mourning the death of his son. Sure-handed third baseman Billy Cox is tending bar. Bittersweet and utterly compelling.

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