What are the Christmas Gifts that will make the perfect statement for a sporting fan in your life?
Over the coming days, we will be adding gifts under the tree so that you can to…
Capturing the Moment
We are fortunate to have two great photographic agencies in Ireland. They capture the highs and lows and lock in the memories that frame the way we see the great moments and remember them.
This year Inpho.ie released a set of iconic prints telling chapters of Ireland’s sporting history over the past decades.
From Jack Charlton at the old Lansdowne Road to Shane Lowry at Royal Portrush and many more magic moments captured in a limited edition, produced with real attention to detail, mounted and framed to hang on your wall.
How to Buy: Take a look at the range of iconic prints and place your orders at Inpho.ie
Getting Lost in a Good Book
Dynasty
We love a good book at Sport for Business and generally have about three on the go at any one time. There will be a number to feature over the course of the coming days as they are the perfect gift, saying something about the perception that the gifter has of the giftee and what they enjoy.
Our favourite book about the business of sport this year has been The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict. It tells the story of the New England Patriots and how they rose from laughing stock to arguably the most dominant team in world sport, in a sport designed to take down winning teams through the draft system.
It runs to 500 pages but the chapters are short and it rattles along with insights from the three key players in the story Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Each can be a prickly character and none are perfect but when they came together they came close in a sporting context at least.
Bernard Brogan – The Hill
There isn’t a great tradition of GAA Autobiography in the way there is with other sports. Perhaps it is because the players are more grounded in the realities of day to day life and feel their story is what was played out on the field.
Brogan though has been one of the leaders on probably the greatest team to play the game and the insights he offers on the dressing room, the preparation, the focus on getting to the top and the pain of that coming to an end in a personal capacity are well worth the read.
It is the chapters about the later years that are the most personal and the most important. To anyone recovering from an injury, or looking to recover the glories of the past, this will resonate. Powerful stuff.
Champagne Football
Voted the Irish Sports Book of the Year this expose of the life and times of former FAI CEO John Delaney is a page-turner. It feels as though it is ripped from the news bulletins and the media of yesterday, such is its recent as one of the sports stories of the decade.
The writers are both working for the Sunday Times and the story of how the story first came to light, through an anonymous package delivered to the news desk as opposed to the sports desk is one of the most interesting and one of the elements not so easily found in the reams of coverage devoted to the tale.
There are the ice sculptures, the battles to retain control, the intention to do good but the inexorable desire to be the story as opposed to the administrator. All are stitched together in a story of football that goes way beyond the final whistle and is a must read.
How to buy:
Go to your local bookstore rather than online. We need to support local if we are to retain the ability to go and browse. If it’s not in stock, they will order it for you.
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A Different Kind of Horsepower
For the second day of our Christmas gift guide, we move to the horse racing fan in your life, and the opportunity for them to become a part-owner of a potential winner at the Punchestown or Cheltenham Festivals, or at Leopardstown, the Curragh or the Galway races.
What they say:
“Racing clubs can offer an affordable entry into racehorse ownership whilst offering the full experience and interacting with others that have a passion for horse racing.”
How to explore further:
The Horse racing Ireland website has links to a number of different syndicates including one for rugby fans, ones for Trinity Graduates, and one that is run by the multiple Champion Trainer Willie Mullins.
Click here for access to a number of them and see what each has to offer by way of festive appeal
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The Roar of the Engines
Mondello Park is offering the chance to get as close to a Formula 1 motor race experience that most of us will ever come close to.
Imagine stepping from watching Lewis Hamilton on the TV to sitting into a single-seater racing car and hurtling around the Mondello track for ten laps of pure adrenaline.
That’s what is on offer in the Motor Race Experience which can be yours from €199.
You get a classroom briefing followed by six laps with an instructor in a saloon car to show you the racing line and get you in the zone.
Then it is all yours in a Formula Sheane single-seater for ten nerve-tingling laps, after which you will be presented with your lap times.
What they say:
“Nothing our instructors say will prepare you for the rush of adrenaline experienced through sitting into a car similar to those of your Formula 1 heroes and getting to drive it around the famous Mondello Park track.”
How to book:
Go to the Mondello Park Website for this and other Christmas ideas
Sport for Business Partners
