The autobiography by former Chelsea player Paul Canoville is in contention for a celebrated literary award.

Black and Blue, the remarkable story of Canoville's struggle to make it as a professional footballer in the face of racism, and subsequent fight against illness and drugs following his early retirement, is on the 13-book long-list for the 20th annual William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, the world's most valuable and prestigious sports book prize.

Canoville, who wrote the book with the aid of Chelsea club historian and website contributor Rick Glanvill, will discover if his story makes it onto the short-list at the end of the month with the eventual winner announced on Monday 24 November.

Our former player has returned into the Chelsea fold in recent years, working closely with the club's education programmes, and in the past few weeks has been involved in a Reading Stars extension project in a local prison and a Show Racism the Red Card event with school children to coincide with Black History Month.

The full long-list for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2008 is:

Paul Canoville - Black and Blue (Headline)
John Carlin - Playing the Enemy (Atlantic)
Janie Hampton - The Austerity Olympics [London 1948] (Aurum)
Rebecca Jenkins - The First London Olympics 1908 (Piatkus)
Richard Moore - Heroes, Villains and Velodromes (Harper)
Haruki Murakami - What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Harvill Secker)
Musa Okwonga - A Cultured Left Foot (Duckworth)
Rowan Simons - Bamboo Goalposts (Macmillan)
Ed Smith - What Sport Tells Us About Life (Penguin)
Jackie Stewart - Winning Is Not Enough (Headline)
Marcus Trescothick - Coming Back To Me: The Autobiography (Harper)
Jeremy Whittle - Bad Blood (Yellow Jersey)
Jonathan Wilson - Inverting the Pyramid (Orion)

The judging panel is John Inverdale, Danny Kelly, Hugh McIlvanney and Alyson Rudd.

There are still places available on Canoville's Past Player Tour on 18 and 31 October at 12pm and 2pm.

Tickets for the tour cost £25 for adults and £17 for concessions, so come and hear his candid descriptions of Stamford Bridge, seen through a player's eyes. To book your place call 0871 984 1955.