AS HALF the country has by now seen Saipan (surely), it’s time to look at sports biographies that are more interesting than tales of scores and transfers, private schools and crashed Ferraris.

The nameless FAI lads in Saipan don’t need titles or even much dialogue to demonstrate how useless they were, but if you were intrigued as to how much of an omnishambles the FAI has been, look no further than Champagne Football.

There’s no requirement to be interested in soccer to grimly enjoy the tale of John Delaney’s excess, a man who was enabled by a large circle of nodding-head dogs at the top. 

At the absolute opposite end of the scale in terms of ego, there is Paul McGrath’s Back from the Brink.

What is astounding in McGrath’s memoir is not just his unflinching, unromantic, and clear-eyed view of his addictions, but the drinking: the sheer volume of drinking done by top-of-their-game players, all with tacit approval of management. 

The Irish player’s grim school days are remembered too, and when you read of what he achieved on the pitch even when literally seeing double, it will make you wonder at the man’s skills and abilities.

Great egos make for great subjects and so it is with Muhammad Ali, whose Rumble in the  Jungle against George Foreman is tackled masterfully by Norman Mailer in The Fight.

Not just a fan’s biography of a man, Mailer is starkly honest and says what he sees, not what the hero wants him to see. For an experience of the necessarily dull, brown world of the pugilist, look no further than this masterpiece study of an ego in the ring.

Finally, if you ever thought climbing Everest was for millionaires and fools, indulge in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and prove yourself right.

The book, covering the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, goes into the commercialisation of such adventurous routes, the lunatic danger that everyone involved is part of, and the part that personal responsibility does, or should, play when cruel decisions need to be made in the face of death or survival.