Jonny: My Autobiography

Jonny Wilkinson's career has crossed three decades and four World Cups. He has accumulated phenomenal achievements, world points records, an impressive list of broken body parts, and a drop goal that will be remembered for ever. But the peculiar calmness with which he played the game masked a very different reality. In JONNY, he reveals the extraordinary psychology that he had to tame in order to be able to dominate his sport. For most of his life, he was driven by a quest for perfection and an obsession to be the best player in the world; here he shows how these two facets of his competitive mind took such a hold of him that they sent him to the top of the world, then swept him up and dragged him down into a spiral of despair. Jonny's career has spanned the far reaches: amazing highs and iconic moments, then a fight against injury that culminated in a battle with depression. Here he tells of the physical toll he knew his body was taking from rugby, even from his youth; he tells of how he never wanted to be a kicking fly-half but learned to adapt his natural game to play the style that Clive Woodward believed necessary to win a World Cup, and how he nearly walked out on Martin Johnson's England team 13 years later.

Praise for Jonny Wilkinson:

'I consider myself really lucky to have had him as a player'

Sir Clive Woodward

'I'm humbled to have played alongside him'

Lewis Moody

'Jonny has been the best player to play for England in any of the leading ball games this century. He has been brilliant, he has been the rock on which success was built, he has won the biggest prize of all and done so with style and grace and elegance'

Simon Barnes, The Times

'Exceptional has been a word commonly associated with Wilkinson throughout his career'

The Guardian

'Thanks for the memories, Jonny. English supporters will never forget how you made them feel'

Robert Kitson, The Guardian

'Jonny Wilkinson was English sport as it likes to imagine itself: intrepid, handsome, physically indomitable and blessed with grace under pressure'

Paul Hayward, Daily Telegraph

'There are not many like him: humble, self-effacing and utterly devoted to his cause. He may not have considered himself a superstar. But everyone else did'

Mike Cleary, Daily Telegraph

'No one came close to squeezing so much from his God-given talent, and for that alone, Wilkinson is worthy of undying regard'