Longy By Sean Long Release date: 07th October, 2009 Publisher: John Blake Publishing List Price: £18.99 Our Price: £8.99 You Save: £10 (52%) Buy Now

'Longy' By Sean Long with Nick Appleyard John Blake Publishing Sportsbookofthemonth.com price: £ 8.99, saving 50% on rrp It's probably fair to say that this book will ever appear on best-seller lists, but if you're starting an early, pre-Christmas, search for an insight into Britain's toughest sport - rugby league - then this warrants inclusion on your shopping list. It's unusual for a rugby star to reveal all in an often hilarious 'booze, brawls, sex and scandal' account. Sean Long's book has already attracted the attention of rugby league's authorities after he referred to an occasion where he gambled £70 on a match between St Helens and Leeds in 1998 in which he stood to win £3,000. To win, Long was reliant upon the first scoring play being a drop-goal, but he lost when Leeds scored a try which left this hard man "almost in tears." Given what's gone before (including a 2004 ban from the game for betting on St Helens to lose a match at Bradford), that's difficult to believe. The book's entertaining, head-shaking, litany of discarded clothes, women and drinks suggests that Long wouldn't be too fussed about losing seventy quid. Nor is 'Longy' a tome solely for RL aficionados. His drunken tale of busting down a stranger's front door (he genuinely thought he was at the house of St Helens' team-mate Mark Edmondson) and falling asleep in someone else's bed will strike a chord with any sports enthusiast who has ever been away on tour. Whether what happened to Long in the Irish Sea as he took what he thought would be a short break from the girl he was chatting up to clean his trousers can be printed here is, however, doubtful. That doesn't make it any less funny. If you're after a good laugh, buy this book.