Still An Ordinary Spectator: Five More Years of Watching Sport

In this follow-up to his award-winning book An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport, John Rigg presents a collection of his wide-ranging sports writing over the last five years.

Still An Ordinary Spectator: Five More Years of Watching Sport captures the thrill of watching some of the best sportsmen of the modern era – Rory McIlroy, Robert Lewandowski, Cameron Smith et al – at the top of their game. But it’s not all star athletes; John also introduces the reader to the casual acquaintances he has encountered and the local sporting events he has watched during this most recent stage of his long sports-spectating journey.

From high-school American football in San Antonio to club cricket in Saltaire, the book reflects on sport’s inherent capacity to act as a barometer of the society around it with a rich combination of contemporary detail and historical digression.

John Rigg was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in economics, later completing a PhD. He has worked as an economic consultant in London and in the Senior Civil Service in Scotland. His sporting career principally comprised playing rugby league at primary school, rugby union at secondary school and college and cricket to a reasonable club standard. John's first book on sport, 'An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport', was published in 2012. He has also written sport-related articles for Backspin, the 'Rugby League Journal' and (co-authored with Richard Lewney) the 'International Review of the Sociology of Sport'. John's non-sporting articles have included those on economics and statistics for the 'Scottish Economic Bulletin' and 'Scottish Economic Statistics' and family history for the 'Cleveland Family History Society Journal'. He is married with two children and lives in Scotland. Find out more about John and his writing at www.anordinaryspectator.com