Sports Books: An angry white poet floors all his rivals

ROBERT TWIGGER, the winner of the 1998 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, was unable to step up at Sportspages bookshop in London yesterday to receive his prize, writes Chris Maume. Robert Twigger had a good excuse, though - he was in the Indonesian jungle hunting 30ft constrictor snakes with a Channel 4 film crew.

Twigger's book, Angry White Pyjamas: An Oxford Poet Trains With The Tokyo Riot Police (Indigo Cassell, pounds 6.99 paperback), which tells the story of his year in hell learning aikido, beat off high-profile opposition. But according to one of the judges, Frances Edmonds, it was, in the end, a unanimous winner. Perhaps they were afraid of what Twigger might do if they did not let him win.