Mud, Maul, Mascara

Longlisted for William Hill Sports Book of the Year: the former England rugby captain on the joys and struggles of leading her team to the World Cup final

Her struggle is that of womens rugby and it is told here with great honesty Sunday Times Books of the Year

Catherine Spencer was the captain of the England womens rugby team for three years.

She scored eighteen tries for England, won six of the eight Six Nations competitions she took part in, and captained her team to three championship titles, a European cup, two Nations Cup tournament victories and the World Cup final held on home soil in 2010, which thrust womens rugby into the limelight. All of this while holding down a full time job, because the womens team, unlike the mens, did not get paid for their sport.

Mud, Maul, Mascara is an effort to reconcile alleged opposites, to show the woman behind the international sporting success. Painfully honest about the mental struggles Catherine faced during, and after, her career as an elite athlete, it is also warm, funny and inspirational – a book for anyone who has ever had a dream, or self-doubt, or a yearning for a really good, mud-proof mascara.