England at the FIFA World Cup over the years – it’s certainly been a journey! From crushing defeat to glorious victory…to who knows what the 2026 tournament will bring. We’ve still got the fun and great hope of not knowing at this point. The first World Cup took place in Uruguay in 1930. FIFA chose […]
Was Jim Thorpe the greatest athlete in the world? King Gustav V of Sweden certainly thought so. He described Thorpe thus as he handed him two gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Jim Thorpe was a legendary Native American sportsman, who lived from 1888 – 1953. He was a Sac and Fox Native American, […]
Our most recent New Stock catalogue has a huge range of sports as usual. It also has quite a fine line in rare and classic fitness and wellbeing books too. Any of them should help you get ready for the summer! One of the most direct of the fitness and wellbeing books is ‘Be Fit […]
Sportspages and John Gaustad
We were very sad to learn belatedly of the death of John Gaustad in June this year. John Gaustad was the visionary bookseller, who set up a treasure trove of sports books in Caxton Walk, off Charing Cross Road in London. It became a legendary book shop for sports fans, especially football fans. Gastaud called it Sportspages.
John Gaustad, Sportspages
When New Zealand born Gaustad founded Sportspages in 1985, he developed the world of sports books writing and collecting hugely. So many sports books collectors we deal with today still have fond memories of spending hours at the Caxton Walk Sportspages. Our very own Magnus Bowles spent many a happy hour there, browsing, reading… and then finally buying!
Matthew Engel’sobituary for John Gaustad in the Guardiangives a great sense of the man and the impact of his passion for sports books: . We sadly never met him and inherited the legendary name when the Sportspages shop closed down in 2005. We still receive calls from its original customers, checking to see if we might be one and the same. Our Sportspages is slightly different of course with much more emphasis on sports books and memorabilia from days gone by and a much broader focus on all sports. We hope, however, John Gaustad would be pleased with Sportspages’ reincarnation: we can only aspire to many of his achievements, such as Muhammad Ali coming to do a signing at the Caxton Walk bookshop, but we certainly share the same passion for the breadth and depth of sports books and memorabilia. We hope too that we do some justice to supporting his fantastic legacy in the sports book industry.
