At a boozy central London bash on Thursday afternoon, Duncan Hamilton's fine biography of Bodyline bowler Harold Larwood became the 21st winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.
Hamilton has form - his book on Brian Clough, Provided You Don't Kiss Me, won 'The Bookie' two years ago - but he was still shocked to become only the second two-time winner in the award's history.
"I said to my wife that I wasn't going to win," he told me afterwards. "I'm absolutely stunned. I thought the standard of the entries was too high, so I probably owe her an apology. Also, I worked on it every day of our honeymoon, including the wedding day itself..."
It's been a big year for sports books. Over 150 were entered for this year's award (a new record) which the judges - broadcasters Danny Kelly and John Inverdale, sportswriters Hugh McIlvanney and Alyson Rudd, and SportsPages bookshop founder John Gaustad - whittled down first to an official long-list of 13, and then a final shortlist of six.
Wise though these sporting sages undoubtedly are, it's clearly a game of opinions. Gaustad revealed that each of the judges had a different favourite from that shortlist, and that many hours of late-night argument were required for agreement to finally reached.
Which leads us to the public vote. What's been your favourite sports read of the year? We'll call it The Bloggie. If it lacks in history or prize money, it'll make up for it in audience interaction.
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This is the year everything changed for Jess Ennis: world champion and $60,000 (£36,000) richer, invited to Downing Street, the new golden girl of British athletics. Except there's a problem.
"I've still not had that prize money from Berlin," she says. "I actually forgot about it, to be honest - you have to fill out a form while you're out there, but I forgot. Yeah. I've got to chase that up..."
You can forgive the oversight. It's been a hectic few months for Ennis since her heptathlon gold on those sunny two days in last August. There's been the Mobos ("Surreal - I presented the award for best album to N-Dubz") a trip to No.10 after the Cosmopolitan Awards ("So many celebrities and random people everywhere, like Dannii Minogue") and a few extra honours for herself too, including female athlete of the year at the BAWAs.
"It's nice to step out of my world into another one sometimes," she says, fresh from a three-hour training session, "although going up on stage in front of all those people at the Mobos was definitely scary. One of the boys from JLS was saying - 'Oh, my mum was watching you, could you say hello to my mum for me?'"
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Lewis ' Mad Dog' Moody - scourge of nervous full-backs, fearless ruck rampager, king of the kamikaze charge-down - has an unexpected confession to make: he's scared of spiders.
"I honestly used to hate them," he says. "I'd dread seeing one. The lads used to love it - they'd find a spider in the changing-room and chase me round the room with it, put one in my boots. I had to go on an arachnophobia course, where they made me hold a tarantula. I had to sort something out or they'd have teased me forever."
It doesn't end there. While he's now OK with smaller spiders ("I can pick up the baby ones") there's also his terror of heights.
"Before the last World Cup we trained with the Marines down in Poole, and they did a high-wires course with us. Ooof! We had to climb up a telegraph pole and stand on this tiny piece of wood at the top. Four of you had to do it, all stand on this bit of wood, and I remember just clinging to Ben Kay. Clinging to him."
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I'm Tom Fordyce and I cover cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics and - well, most sports except monkey-tennis. You can also follow me on 
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