Another major award shortlist for course leader

Sport Journalism BA(Hons) co-course leader Rob Steen has been shortlisted for another major award – the prestigious Lord Aberdare Literary Prize, awarded annually by the British Society of Sports History.

Rob’s book, Floodlights and Touchlines: A History of Spectator Sport, was also shortlisted for the 2014 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and will be published in paperback in June.

“It’s a tremendous honour merely to be considered for such a prestigious prize,”said Rob, whose textbook, Sports Journalism: A Multimedia Primer, has just been updated and reprinted.

“Alan Tomlinson and John Sugden, my former colleagues in the former Sport and Leisure Cultures area, won this award for a book they wrote together a few years ago, so it would be an especial honour to follow in their footsteps.”

Next month Rob will be on screens nationwide in the first part of The Football Mavericks, an ITV documentary dealing with a number of the subjects of his 1994 book The Mavericks: English Football When Flair Wore Flares, voted No. 39 in FourFourTwo magazine’s ‘50 Football Books You Must Read’ chart.

The winner of the Lord Abedare prize will be announced at the annual BSSH conference at Swansea University in September.