The captain class

'The Captain Class' draws on a lifetime of sports spectatorship and two decades of sports reporting to tell the surprising story of what makes teams exceptional.

Sam Walker had been searching for the sporting holy grail, a unifying theory of what makes teams win when he discovered certain similarities in cases of sustained greatness in teams across a number of sports.

They were all lead by a certain type of captain, but not one with the characteristics you might expect.

They were unorthodox outliers - disagreeable, marginally skilled, hot-headed, occasionally unhinged, athletically sub-par, poor verbal communicators, while off the field they were private loners who avoided the limelight.