Rugby League books for Christmas

Fitting tribute to try-scoring legend Bevan and the fight to save the Rabbitohs

In rugby league, as in other sports, the term "great" has been sadly debased. One player entitled to have it permanently attached to his name is Brian Bevan, the subject of the year's major work, The Great Bev by Robert Gate (London League Publications, £14.95).

It took four years to research and write the book – a fitting memorial to a player whose status in the game is illustrated by the astonishing statistic that his record of 796 tries is more than 200 ahead of the next best.

His glory days at Warrington are painstakingly documented, but, because the beginning and end of his career are less well chronicled elsewhere, the sections dealing with his formative years in Australia and his swansong with Blackpool Borough are among the most fascinating.

Bevan was a complicated man, not the easiest to get to know. Among the anecdotes illustrating that is one concerning a young Australian player who was taken to meet him after his retirement; Bevan simply had no small-talk for him and his fellow-countryman never got past the doorstep. Not bad for a player never noted for his defence.

By coincidence, there have been two autobiographies this year from former Wigan coaches, both among the game's larger-than-life characters.

Frank Endacott, sacked a couple of years ago, is now back in New Zealand, reflecting on that and the other ups-and-downs in his career in Being Frank (Hodder Moa Beckett, £12.95).

Rugby league's most affable man is particularly good on the hardships that forced him to end his playing career prematurely and on his early steps up the coaching ladder. Anyone expecting him to plunge in the knife over his Wigan sacking will be disappointed; such rancour simply isn't in his nature.

Maurice Bamford coached Wigan in the early 80s and also on his unique CV are stints with Great Britain, Leeds and more clubs than Tiger Woods. Bamford – Memoirs of a Blood and Thunder Coach (Parrs Wood Press, £9.95) delivers what it says on the cover and is a vivid account of the game as it used to be, not so many years ago.

It is a while since George Piggins coached and even longer since he played, but he is responsible for one of the most hard-fought victories against the odds that the game has seen in recent years. Piggins was the man who refused to accept that his beloved South Sydney should be kicked out of the competition. Never Say Die – The Fight to Save the Rabbitohs (Pan McMillan, A$30) is a blow-by-blow account of how that war was won.

The bloody-minded determination that enabled Piggins to beat the big battalions and get South reinstated shines out of every page.

There have been some good fights fought in this country, not least by the MPs who have supported league in its various confrontations with hypocrisy and bigotry. A Westminster XIII (edited by David Hinchliffe, London League Publications, £9.95) has some echoes of that and some good, nostalgic stuff about the way in which parliamentarians ranging from Alice Mahon to Brian Mawhinney developed their love for the game.

The Petition by Ray Gent (Parrs Wood Press, £8.95) is an account of a campaign, taken to Parliament, against the media's treatment of the game.

Rugby League Bravehearts by Gavin Willacy (London League Publications, £9.95) is the comprehensive story of Scotland's involvement with the code. And yes, before anyone says it, there is more than enough to fill a book. Newcomers to the game will be surprised by how many Scots played professionally before the barriers came down.

Geoff Lee has followed up his novel with a rugby league background, One Winter, with One Spring (Parrs Wood Press, £8.95) which captures the same, authentic flavour of northern life in the 1970s.

As Lord Lofthouse, one of the Westminster XIII, points out, Featherstone sustains a professional team on a population of 15,000. That means a good percentage chance of being designated one of the club's 100 Greats in the latest of Tempus' handsome series (£12.99). Whether they are all as great as Brian Bevan is open to debate, but they and their club.