I have written 4 non-fiction books – 3 on sports spectating and one on family history – all published by Silverwood Books.
Family History
The most recent book represents the culmination of almost 40 years of family history research.
As its title suggests, the structure of The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents (2025) is based around the cohort of direct ancestors who were 4 steps back in the generational lines that have led directly to the two children (who are now adults) in our family. Their years of birth cover the period from 1836 to 1869 with their places of origin ranging across England, Scotland and Ireland as well as Malta and Germany.
However, the book’s presentation of some of the lines within the family story goes back much further in time. In other words, I have not restricted my research to the period from the middle years of the 19th Century onwards – for example, I report on the named ancestors who have been identified in 16th Century Yorkshire and Hannover and 17th Century Suffolk.
But the exercise has not simply been one of finding as many pieces as possible of the (never-ending) jigsaw puzzle. I have also been keen to reflect on the circumstances of the lives being led by the various members of the cast-list.
There are no Prime Ministers in this narrative – no Admirals of the Fleet or Poets Laureate or Knights of the Realm (though a son-in-law of my own great, great grandfather did play rugby for England in the 1890s !). But there are a host of “ordinary” people whose resilience, courage and determination – on both my side and my wife’s – have taken the family story through to the present day. Ordinary and heroic. They were the ones who raised their families and worked hard and migrated in order to better their prospects. They were the ones who experienced the Great Famine in the Ireland of the 1840s and the horrors of the First World War trenches and the perils of service in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War – and whose personal stories deserve to be told.
Of course, any family history of this type risks having a limited interest for those not in the family itself. However, by also discussing the detailed research methodology that has underpinned The Line of Sixteen: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents, the book provides valuable insights on the sources to be explored and the pitfalls to be avoided when compiling any family history.
The Line of Sixteen is available on Amazon and Silverwood Books.
Watching Sport
The family history book maintains a theme which is prevalent in the 3 sports books: namely, an interest in the way in which an individual or event is placed within the overall context of the place or time. This breadth of perspective is also to be found in my experience as an “ordinary spectator” watching a range of sports – at various levels – for over 60 years.
An Ordinary Spectator Returns: Watching Sport Again (2023) presents a selection of various pieces of my sports writing – blogs, essays and magazine articles – over the last six years. It captures the thrill of watching some of the elite sportsmen of the modern era at the top of their game. In addition, by describing sporting events within their specific communities – Major League Baseball in Toronto, shinty in the Scottish Highlands, amateur rugby league in Leeds – it offers some views on sport’s inherent capacity to act as a barometer of the society around it.
The book also includes reflective pieces on sports history – ranging from American sports journalism in the 1930s to the “Double” British Lions (in both the union and league codes) – as well as on contemporary issues such as the presentation of sport on television and the threat to contact sports posed by the greater awareness of the long-term impact of concussive injuries.
The book is a follow-up to Still An Ordinary Spectator: Five More Years of Watching Sport (2017), which gathers together some of my published articles and essays over the previous period. There is the same rich combination of contemporary detail and historical digression: high school American Football in San Antonio, Gaelic Football in County Mayo, club cricket in Saltaire…
The first publication was the award-winning An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport (2012). This memoir of five decades of sports spectating – from Yorkshire to London to Scotland via New York and Sydney (and Minsk!) – describes my experiences as a spectator at various sports events and examines what it is that has drawn me back to watch time and time again. The result is a unique perspective on why live sport is compulsive viewing.
The three books aim to be far more than simple “I was there” catalogues of sporting events – major and minor – over a period which now extends to over 60 years. Rather, they look to offer some insights into what we derive from sports spectating and – from an individual’s perspective – what watching sport tells us about ourselves.
Contact
Extracts from all four books can be seen elsewhere on this website. I hope you enjoy the items provided.
The website also gives details on how I can be contacted. I look forward to hearing from you.
All four books can be purchased from SilverWood Books as well as from Amazon and good bookshops.
JOHN RIGG
Glasgow, UK
An Ordinary Spectator 