Rugby League authors to feature in literary festival

Rugby league authors Ray French, Tony Hannan, Dave Hadfield, Tony Collins and Phil Caplan will all talk at the Leigh and Wigan Words Together Literary Festival, it has been confirmed.

All five authors will be present as Scratching Shed Publications host their first ‘In League With Literature’ event of 2011 on Wednesday, 4 May.

The quintet will be appearing at Ashton Library on Wigan Road for an evening of chat about rugby league.

French, who was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Years Honours List, has most recently penned Ray French… and rugby.

Hannan, a former Rugby League World editor and a co-director of Scratching Shed, wrote the widely-acclaimed Being Eddie Waring while Caplan, another co-director of Scratching Shed, was Jamie Peacock’s ghost-writer on the England captain’s autobiography No White Flag.

Dave Hadfield’s books Up and Over and Down and Under are two of the most humourous works on rugby league culture and the places it is played in, while Professor Tony Collins is one of the sport’s leading historians. His titles 1895 and All That and Rugby’s Great Split would be worth a place on any league fan’s bookcase.

Tickets priced £5 can be booked by calling 01942 727119. Click here for more information about the Leigh and Wigan Words Together Literary Festival.