Winning!: The path to Rugby World Cup glory
£13.10£14.20 (-8%)
‘There is so much more to the man than single-minded determination.’ Sunday Telegraph
‘His first day in the job of England coach is superbly described, and thereafter he is forever going the extra yard to make his team great.’ Sunday Times
__________
Winning! tells a remarkable story – an unforgettable journey that began in September 1997 and took the English Rugby Team team from the lower ranks of international first-class rugby to the top as World Cup Champions.
Sir Clive Woodward and his team mounted a campaign of vast change, great learning, team building and clear vision to achieve their aim. ‘We would question everything, change anything and leave no stone unturned,’ he writes.
WINNING! will talk about the team’s journey of innovation and discovery and will reveal exactly how it happened, the fundamentals of their success and how these principles can be applied to any human endeavour. ‘We changed the way we coached, the way we played and, of equal importance, how we operated off the field.’ Bringing his business management skills to the game, Woodward simplified the entire approach to the structure of the team and created new management systems both on and off the pitch.
In an anecdotal style, Clive Woodward entertains and informs while he describes the thrilling build-up to England’s World Cup triumph in 2003.
Read more
Additional information
| Publisher | Hodder Paperbacks, Reprint edition (6 Jun. 2005) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 496 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 034083630X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0340836309 |
| Dimensions | 12.7 x 3.81 x 19.69 cm |
by Andy
Loved every bit of it. Gave a true insight into what they all went through to bring glory to england!!!!
by Scotty H
I was encouraged to read this by a friend. Good insight into the workings of the UK Rugby scene but by the end I was bored with the use of the ‘winning’ phrase and I saw almost no explanation of how Woodward achieved success other than pampering the players. Indeed as the team fell apart after the world cup I could suggest he got out just in time.
by Mr. D. Clark
The irony of it ! I read this book at the same time that Sir Clive’s British Lions team were getting mangled by the All Blacks of New Zealand. It would certainly make an interesting postscript to the book to read Sir Clive’s take on what went wrong for him and the Lions team. Having said that, I don’t think that he would shirk from giving us a warts and all appraisal of what he himself did , for this is a frank and honest account of Sir Clive’s life and career, the ups, and just as frequently the downs. However, he probably wouldn’t point the finger at any of the players. Which for me is a little bit of a weakness of his book.
There is more to this book than rugby, but since its rugby that has brought Sir Clive his greatest success in the public eye, then a large proportion of the book is dedicated to his careers as first player then manager in the oval ball sport. You might not have known that Sir Clive made his debut as a player for England in the 1980 5 Nations championship, a year in which England achieved the Grand Slam, our one lonely success between the Triple Crown of 1963, and the Carling-led Grand Slam of 1991. If you’re not at least interested in sport – in fact, if you’re not interested in rugby – then I should warn you that there is a lot of it in this book.
However, even if you’re not, Sir Clive has some very interesting things to say about the whole idea of achievement , and what makes the difference between success and failure – and not just on the rugby field either. For me, the most interesting sections dealt with Sir Clive’s often very frustrating dealings with the RFU in the early part of his tenure as manager, trying to change a leadership and management culture which owed far more to the nineteenth century than the twenty first.
One thing I should probably warn you about is that Sir Clive is very loyal to his players. If you are expecting any juicy titbits of who did what to whom, or said what, or who had a punch up with whom in the dressing room, then forget it. There is no dressing room gossip of this sort, and no huge criticism of any player. This is totally admirable from one point of view, as it avoids the kind of reaction that Glen Hoddle’s World Cup Diary got from his players, but from another point of view it does make for rather a frustrating read at times. When you think of the great players that Sir Clive has managed – Johnson , Dallaglio, Back, Guscott and Wilkinson to name but a few, they hardly spring off the page in this book, I’m afraid. Its a disappointment.
However, lets not forget that Sir Clive managed England to the World Cup, and for me as well as many other England fans, it was worth reading the book just to get his take on that momentous sporting achievement, and to relive it all. Its not , for me, the best autobiography from anyone involved in that World Cup triumph. That honour belongs to Martin Johnson’s autobiography , but its an interesting read. Probably for die hard England fans only, though.
by John Mclaughlan
Good read i am.not a rugby person was interesting his views on the role of a leader taken some things from it.
by Antoinne Kerr-Graham
I consider this man a genius…not only for his clear love of rugby but for his tactical thinking and ability to think outside the box…good read for any coach out there
by Louise Simons
I bought this for my husband who is not much of a reader however this book he never could put down and it helped him a lot during his rugby coaching!
by Fiona Cohn
A bit rugby technical places but a fascinating insight into the way one of the UK’s most successful sports coaches thinks. And some interesting lessons for leaders in any walk of life
by Russell3162001
As a Englishman living in Wales I found this an interesting read. I believe the approach Clive Woodward used at the time was ground-breaking in international Rugby but he was also lucky enough to have a “Golden Generation” of players of which to build it with – if we look at Martin Johnson using similar methods the results are less successful.
Overall a good read and I would recommend it to any Coach/Manager who wishes to improve performance of a team in a sustainable manner over time!