Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2025
'One of boxing’s most honest and nuanced commentators' Times Literary Supplement
'A poignant farewell from a boxing obsessive to a sport he now barely recognises . . . characterised throughout by moral clarity” Literary Review
‘The Last Bell is one of the most engaging sports books I’ve read for a long time’ Mike Williams, ‘Today’, BBC Radio 4
Donald McRae has been immersed in boxing for fifty years. He has followed fighters around the world and won multiple awards for his writing. But, in recent years, McRae’s love has waned, as criminality and corruption consume the soul of boxing.
In 2018, grieving the death of his sister and with his parents terminally ill, he sought refuge in boxing again – just as Tyson Fury completed an incredible comeback, proving that the ring can still offer exhilaration and redemption.
From Fury’s resurrection to the first undisputed heavyweight champion this century, boxing can be epic and electrifying. It can also be disappointing, as McRae discovers when he documents doping’s insidious rise or travels to Saudi Arabia where boxing ignores state repression. In The Last Bell, McRae takes us ringside to thrilling bouts with great contemporary champions and fighters as different as Fury, Canelo Álvarez, Oleksandr Usyk, Katie Taylor, Regis Prograis and Isaac Chamberlain. Whether in London or Las Vegas, he shows us what it is like to see joy pour out of a boxer in the dressing room after a magnificent victory or to hold the hand of a fighter being wheeled away on a stretcher after a devastating defeat. As he tries to reconcile the contradictions which lie at boxing’s murky heart, McRae is unflinching and compelling.
McRae helps boxers open up about their doubts and fears and charts the courage of fighters facing ordeals from depression to war. And in telling the heartbreaking story of Patrick Day, he faces death in the ring. The Last Bell is his most powerful and personal book yet, a riveting account of life, death and boxing.
