Duncan Hamilton (journalist)

Hamilton was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and his family moved to Nottinghamshire when he was four.{{cite news |last1=Greenhalf |first1=Jim |title=Author spurred by sporting lives |url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/leisure/leisure_interview/4561220.Author_spurred_by_sporting_lives/ |accessdate=23 July 2018 |work=Telegraph & Argus |date=24 August 2009}}

Hamilton was the Nottingham Evening Post{{'}}s Nottingham Forest reporter during the club's glory years and covered both of Forest's victorious European Cup campaigns (1979 and 1980) for the newspaper. During his time covering Forest, Hamilton developed a close, if at times testy, relationship with the club's outspoken manager, Brian Clough. He won his first William Hill award with the 2007 memoir Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough,Duncan Hamilton, Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough, Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, London, 2007 an account of his time at the Nottingham Evening Post where he worked for more than 20 years.{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/provided-you-dont-kiss-me-by-duncan-hamilton-763980.html |title=Provided You Don't Kiss Me, by Duncan Hamilton |work=The Independent |author=Simon Redfern |date=9 December 2007 |accessdate=26 November 2012}}{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/29/literary-news |title=The week in books |work=The Guardian |author=John Dugdale |date=28 November 2007 |accessdate=26 November 2012}} The book also won the Best Football Book category of the 2008 British Sports Book Awards.{{cite web |url=https://sportsbookawards.com/previous-winners/|title=Previous winners |publisher=British Sports Book Awards |author= |date= |accessdate=29 March 2020}}

In Provided You Don't Kiss Me, Hamilton claims he bonded with Clough after the manager learned he, like Clough, was from the north-east of England. He provides an eyewitness account of the relationship between Clough and his assistant, Peter Taylor, and charts Clough's demise and descent into alcoholism. FHM called the book a "superb portrait of the conflicted, contradictory man [that] doesn't duck his uglier aspects."{{cite web |title=Duncan Hamilton In Conversation With Colin Slater |url=https://www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/whats-on/duncan-hamilton-in-conversation-with-colin-slater-p694741 |website=Visit Nottinghamshire |access-date=24 April 2022}} It quickly became a bestseller and won the William Hill award against strong competition.{{Cite web |url=http://www.williamhillmedia.com/sportsbook_index.asp |title=William Hill Sports Book of the Year website |access-date=17 March 2008 |archive-date=25 February 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080225114238/http://www.williamhillmedia.com/sportsbook_index.asp |url-status=dead }} After winning the £18,000 first prize, Hamilton wrote a column for the Yorkshire Post, where he was a deputy editor, expressing his surprise and delight at the book's success.

In 2009, Hamilton won a second William Hill award for Harold Larwood,{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/books/6663275/Duncan-Hamilton-wins-William-Hill-Book-of-the-Year-Award-for-Harold-Larwood-biography.html |title=Duncan Hamilton wins William Hill Book of the Year Award for Harold Larwood biography |work=The Telegraph|last=Baker|first=Andrew|date=26 November 2009 |accessdate=26 November 2012}}{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/nov/27/harold-larwood-biography-william-hill-prize |title=Harold Larwood biography wins William Hill prize for Hamilton |work=The Guardian |author=Staff writer |author-link=Staff writer |date=26 November 2009 |accessdate=26 November 2012}} a biography of the fast bowler Harold Larwood, who was a protagonist in the controversial "Bodyline" series between Australia and England in 1932-33. The book also won the Best Biography category of the 2010 British Sports Book Awards{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/7430412/Harold-Larwood-wins-Best-Biography-at-British-Sports-Book-Awards.html |title='Harold Larwood' wins Best Biography at British Sports Book Awards |work=The Telegraph|last=Briggs|first=Simon|date=12 March 2010 |accessdate=26 November 2012}} and was named the Wisden Book of the Year. In 2019 he won his third William Hill award for The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus.{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2019/12/06/neville-carduss-spirit-oversees-duncan-hamiltons-third-william/|title=Neville Cardus's spirit oversees Duncan Hamilton's third William Hill Sports Book of the Year|work=The Telegraph|first=Simon|last=Briggs|date=6 December 2019 |accessdate=8 December 2019}}

After 32 years as a newspaper journalist in Nottingham and Leeds, Hamilton now works as a freelance, mostly concentrating on writing his books. He and his wife Mandy live in the village of Menston in West Yorkshire.

• Nottingham Forest FC: Thirty Great Years in Photographs, 1988 {{ISBN|9780948946363}}
• Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough, 2007 {{ISBN|9780007247103}}
• Sweet Summers: The Classic Cricket Writing of JM Kilburn, 2008 {{ISBN|9781905080465}} (edited)
• Fire and Ashes, 2009 {{ISBN|1848416520}}
• Harold Larwood, 2009 {{ISBN|9781847249494}}
• Old Big 'ead: The Wit and Wisdom of Brian Clough, 2009 {{ISBN|9781845134761}} (edited)
• A Last English Summer, 2010 {{ISBN|9781849160933}}
• The Unreliable Life of Harry the Valet: The Great Victorian Jewel Thief, 2011 {{ISBN|9781407475578}}
• Wisden on Yorkshire: An Anthology, 2011 {{ISBN|9781408170397}} (edited)
• The Footballer Who Could Fly: Living in My Father's Black and White World, 2012 {{ISBN|9781846059803}}
• Immortal: The Biography of George Best, 2013 {{ISBN|9781846059810}}
• For the Glory: The Life of Eric Liddell, 2016 {{ISBN|9781473508897}}
• A Clear Blue Sky, 2017 {{ISBN|9780008232672}} (with Jonny Bairstow)
• The Kings of Summer: How Cricket's 2016 County Championship Came down to the Very Last Match of the Season, 2017 {{ISBN|9780993291128}}
• Going to the Match: The Passion for Football, 2019 {{ISBN|9781473661783}}
• The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus, 2019 {{ISBN|9781473661837}}
• One Long and Beautiful Summer: A Short Elegy for Red-Ball Cricket, 2020 {{ISBN|9781529408379}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080513193734/http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/id/1860 The author of the Sports Book of the Year talks about Brian Clough, working on the Post, and Jimmy Sirrel's toiletry requirements]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110223041647/http://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/blog/interview-duncan-hamilton/ Interview with Duncan Hamilton (14 December 2010)]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Duncan}}

Category:1958 births

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from Newcastle upon Tyne

Category:British male journalists

Category:Cricket writers

Category:English journalists

Category:English sportswriters

Category:English biographers

Category:British male biographers