Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson - Rilegato

Paul Kimmage is a respected sports journalist. Currently chief interviewer for the Sunday Times's sports section, he is also the author of the highly acclaimed Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino as well as Rough Ride: Behind the Wheel with a Pro Cyclist.

On a cold, grey, overcast Tuesday morning in March 2005, the cream of young English rugby gathered at Franklin's Gardens in Northampton to prepare to play Scotland in the Six Nations Championships. Matt Hampson was one of them. He had dreamt of playing rugby for England ever since he had picked up a rugby ball and had learnt his trade at the hardest school of all - Leicester Tigers - under the tutelage of Martin Johnson, Richard Cockerill and Dusty Hare. He was eight months shy of his 21st birthday, dating a beautiful girl, and playing in an England Under 21 team that included James Haskell, Tom Rees and Toby Flood.
But during the training session that morning, as the forwards engaged for a scrum it collapsed and Matt - the tight-head prop - took the full force of the blow and lost consciousness as it came crashing to the ground. In that moment his life changed forever. He woke-up in an intensive care unit at Stoke Mandeville hospital, paralysed from the neck down and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. His parents were devastated, his girlfriend was distraught, his team-mates were in shock: It was the worst injury ever incurred by an England international. And as Matt struggled to come to terms with his new condition he had a choice to make: 'Is this a beginning or the end? Do I get busy living or get busy dying?'
Paul Kimmage was the first journalist to interview Matt in hospital and wrote a piece for the Sunday Times which won him his third successive SJA sports interviewer of the year award. They struck up a friendship and began working on Engage, the book that would tell Matt's story, in all its intimate detail, for the first time: from the boy who dreamed of playing for England, to the man who dreams of coaching them one day; from the boy who loved the fast lane and craved every pleasure, to the man whose greatest pleasure is the kiss of the sun on his face; from the boy who became a subject of pity, to the man who has become a source of inspiration.
Riveting reading, ENGAGE is ultimately an uplifting true story about one man's strength and determination to overcome the odds.
£16.99
Author photo)
Paul Kimmage was a professional cyclist before he turned to journalism, twice competing in the Tour de France. His book Rough Ride is widely acknowledged to be the most honest account of life in the professional ranks. He has been named Sports Interviewer of the Year at the past five Sports Journalists' Association awards. He is the co-author of the critically acclaimed Full Time, the autobiography of Tony Cascarino.