About us:

Sport and Leisure Books Ltd was established in 1997 as a specialist packaging, editorial and writing resource for the book publishing industry. We concentrate on sports and popular culture publishing and have worked with such major publishing houses as Hamlyn Octopus, Icon, Aurum Press, Hodder/Headline, Mainstream, Omnibus Press, Pluto and Anness.

We have packaged and written a number of titles, including Great Footballing Moments of the Twentieth Century, Inside The Game (four books on boxing, cricket, golf and football), Aston Villa – The Official Illustrated History, The History of the European Cup, Who’s Who in World Golf, Rangers – An Illustrated History (shortlisted for the WH Smith Illustrated Book of the Year Award) and The Essential History of Arsenal. We also updated both the Arsenal Official Illustrated History and the Arsenal Official Player by Player, designed and edited Going Ballistic! Ten Years of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, and compiled Peter Allis's 19th Hole for Omnibus Press. Recently, we have updated and revised a number of books - including Encyclopedia of World Football and Encyclopedia of Formula One for Lorenz Press and have worked on updates of various books and prepared reports for such publishers as Hamlyn and Pluto Press. A fuller description of our books can be found in Publications (top left).

In 2008 we updated two books for Lorenz Publishing - Formula One and The Encylopedia of International Football - while in 2009 we edited, fact-checked and proofread The Arsenal Book of Lists, published by Hamlyn. We have several other projects in the pipeline and we will be revealing details of these very shortly.

Sport and Leisure Books Ltd is owned and run by Rab MacWilliam, who has over thirty year’s experience in editorial, publishing and management in the book and magazine publishing industries. When he was Publisher at Hamlyn Books (1991-96), he published or re-issued, among other titles, the official illustrated histories of Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Celtic, Leeds, and Liverpool, and several books on golf, horse racing, cricket and rugby. He also oversaw the publication of graphic novels (including Judge Dredd and Akira), music books and other titles on popular culture generally. Prior to Hamlyn, Rab published Whose Game Is It Anyway?, the first-ever compilation of football fanzines, selected and introduced by the Independent football writer Phil Shaw. As well as managing director of Sport and Leisure Books Ltd, Rab is currently editor and publisher of N16: the magazine at the heart of Stoke Newington (www.n16mag.com) and runs and promotes a free music weekend in August in Stoke Newington, the N16 Fringe Festival (www.n16fringe.co.uk).