Robert Colls was professor of English History at the University of Leicester before joining the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, also in Leicester. He has written widely on modern British history, and for The New Statesman and the Literary Review, as well as for other newspapers and journals, and on television and radio including, most recently, The Rest is History podcast. His This Sporting Life (OUP 2020) won the Aberdare Prize for sport history writing.