Welcome to Sportspages
A one-to-one interview series that digs into the stories behind some of the greatest sports books ever written, each week Sportspages speaks to the authors of those books to find out about the proposal, the process, and what it felt like to hold that first copy in their hands.
We kick it all off with Ronald Reng, winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year for his book, A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke.
Enke was the former Benfica, Barcelona, Hannover and Germany goalkeeper who had hid his depression for many years from almost everybody, before stepping in front of a passenger train in a small suburb of Hannover in 2009.
Ironically, Reng and Enke, who had become close friends, had talked about writing an autobiography of Enke’s playing career when he retired, not knowing the terrible personal turmoil he was going through off the pitch.
The book is based around the copious diaries that Enke had kept throughout his struggles, and the interview goes in-depth into their relationship, Enke’s death and life, the responsibility of writing a book based on someone’s private thoughts and the burden Reng felt of immersing into Enke’s life, or “living with a dead friend” as he refers to it.
He talks about how Enke had tried to tell him of his depression but stopped short, the phone call they had shared a few hours before he took his life, and what he describes as “the relief” that Robert had died because it finally made him understand some of the gaps in their relationship that the illness had caused.
Subscribe to Sportspages here: playpodca.st/sportspages
Our new podcast Sportspages is an intimate interview series looking at the greatest sports books ever written.
It starts with Ronald Reng & his story about the tragic death of Robert Enke, and the remarkable tale of how it came to print.
Available here https://t.co/fHQpgq4QHd pic.twitter.com/YyVolK7ZZO
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) April 21, 2020
