An Ordinary Spectator Returns: Watching Sport Again presents a collection of John Rigg’s wide-ranging sports writing over the last six years.

The book captures the thrill of watching some of the elite participants of the modern era – Kevin De Bruyne, Alastair Cook, Sonny Bill Williams et al. But it’s not all about the star performers. By describing sporting events within their specific communities – baseball in Toronto, shinty in the Scottish Highlands, amateur rugby league in Leeds – the author illustrates sport’s inherent capacity to act as a barometer of the society around it.

An Ordinary Spectator Returns: Watching Sport Again also includes reflective pieces on sports history as well as significant current sport-related issues. This rich combination of contemporary detail and nostalgic digression – the follow-up to An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport (2012) and Still An Ordinary Spectator: Five More Years of Watching Sport (2017) – will be of interest to all those who enjoy watching live sport.

John Rigg was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a First Class degree in Economics, later completing a Ph.D. He has worked as an economic consultant in London and in the Senior Civil Service in Scotland.

His sporting career principally comprised playing rugby league at primary school, rugby union at secondary school and college and cricket to a reasonable club standard.

John’s first book on sport – An Ordinary Spectator: 50 Years of Watching Sport – was published by SilverWood Books in 2012. This was followed by Still An Ordinary Spectator: Five More Years of Watching Sport in 2017. He has also written sport-related articles for Backpass, Backspin, The Nightwatchman: Wisden Cricket Quarterly, The Rugby League Journal, Forty-20 and (co-authored with Richard Lewney) The International Review of the Sociology of Sport.

John’s non-sporting articles have included those on economics/statistics for the Scottish Economic Bulletin and Scottish Economic Statistics. He has also written articles on family history for the Cleveland Family History Journal and his book – The Line of 16: Searching for my children’s great, great grandparents – will be published in 2023.

John’s fiction is written under the name of JR Alexander. The novels – Shouting at the Window (2020) and On the Carousel (2021) – are published by High Ridge Publishing and available on Kindle and other online platforms. Long Forgotten Events will be published in 2024.

He is married with two children and lives in Scotland.

Find out more about John and his writing at: www.anordinaryspectator.com and www.jralexanderauthor.com.