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books on football

books on football
Titles reviewed include:
"The Miracle of Castel di Sangro" by Joe McGinnis"When Beckham Went To Spain" by Jimmy Burns"Pyramid Football Guide To Non-League 2004-5" by Joe Bush (Ed.)"Woody & Nord: A Football Friendship" by Gareth Southgate and Andy Woodman"Among The Thugs" by Bill Buford"Flick-to-kick: An Illustrated History of Subbuteo" by Daniel Tatarsky"Ultra Nippon: How Japan Reinvented Football" by Jonathon Birchall "Badfellas: FIFA Family at War" by John Sugden & Alan Tomlinson "The Best of Enemies: England v. Germany, a Century of Football Rivalry" by David Downing"Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cup" by John Horne & Wolfram Manzenreiter"Fever Pitch" by Nick Hornby"Tor! The Story Of German Football" by Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger"The Fashion Of Football: Soccer From Best To Beckham, From Mod To Label Slave" Paolo
Hewitt & Mark Baxter "Those Feet - A Sensual History of English Football" by David Winner"Ajax, the Dutch, the War - Football in Europe During The Second World War" by Simon Kuper "The Fan" by Hunter Davies"National Pastime" by Hunter Davies"Calcio" by John Foot"Forza Italia" by Paddy Agnew"Farewell but not Goodbye" by Bobby Robson "Provided You Don't Kiss Me - 20 years with Brian Clough" by Duncan Hamilton"My Father and Other Working-Class Heroes by Gary Imlach" by Gary Imlach
Forza Italia: A Journey in Search of Italy and Its Football Paddy Agnew
Ebury Press
ISBN: 0091905613Paperback, 320pp
There could not be a timelier book as the Italian national team prepares to travel to the
World Cup in the midst of a scandal engulfing its entire football culture.Paddy Agnew is the perfect person to write this part memoir, part analysis of what makes
Italian football so unique: The Irish journalist has lived in Italy for twenty years and
during this time has encountered the likes of Diego Maradona, Sven-Goran Eriksson and
Silvio Berlusconi, whose political party - named after a football chant - gave the book
its name. He also has his eye on the ball and is eerily prescient about the current
scandal, which he saw coming over the horizon.Front line reports of the big names and events in Italian football are interspersed with
tales of Roman life seen through a foreigner's eyes. These interludes are fascinating and
sometimes jaw-dropping but serve to illuminate why Italian football is the way it is, an
enormous sub-culture that springs organically from its parent country.Brimming with colourful anecdotes and adroit analysis, Forza Italia is the must-read for
those with an interest in the pressure-cooker of calcio who want to know what it really
feels like on the ground. With the current mega-scandal exploding on the eve of another World Cup, tournaments which
tend to be cataclysmic affairs for the azzurri, there could be no better accompaniment.
Sean O'Conor

Calcio John Foot
Fourth Estate
ISBN: 0007175744Paperback, 592pp
Tackling the Mount Everest that is Italian football has been a peak too high for English
authors in the past. If there is one country where football is more than life and death it
is surely Italy. This is the country where the best-selling newspapers are football ones,
where Abramovich-style industrialists were buying up clubs as far back as the 1920s and
where the Prime Minister not only owns the nation's top team but named his political party
after a football chant.But with "Calcio –- A History of Italian Football", John Foot has finally scaled the
mountain and 592 pages later planted a flag of academic authority at the summit.Highly readable, the book is part chronicle of the game in Italy and part probe into the
issues that make Italian football so particular. The early years of football have been
meticulously researched and throw up alternatively charming or eye-opening anecdotes, such
as Reading trouncing Milan 5-0 or a game between Lucca and Viareggio that ended with an
armed uprising the Italian army took two days to put down.Further chapters explore the famous teams, players and managers as well as the media,
political and commercial interference and the myriad scandals that have given calcio a
shady reputation overseas. The running theme is that football in Italy resembles a
gigantic bonfire, fuelled by an addicted population, bewitching everyone while growing
ever more grotesque and dangerous by the day. While our word fan is the shortened form of
fanatic, the Italian one, tifo, is short for typhoid-sufferer.If Foot has any axe to grind it is rightly with the ultras and their unacceptable grip on
Italian clubs, who are still running scared of them in 2006. One can only hope books like
this will help open Italian eyes to the outrageous way these semi-hooligans carry on with
impunity, and free tickets, while attendances across the board in Serie A are falling.At the end, Foot admirably confesses he has almost fallen out of love with his subject
matter, but like Italy itself, calcio goes on, ugly and beautiful in equal measure.There are several memorable photos throughout the book and an accompanying glossary of
Italian football terminology. "Calcio" is not just the first English-language survey of
Italian football but has set an impressive benchmark for football histories in general.
Sean O'Conor

My Father and Other Working Class Football HeroesGary Imlach
Yellow Jersey Press
ISBN: 0224072684Paperback, 256pp
One of only four football books to win the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, My
Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes is a touching tale of a son's quest to know
his father, in the process painting a valuable canvas of the lost world of English
football.Imlach's father Stewart played for Scotland at the 1958 World Cup and won the FA Cup with
Nottingham Forest a year later, but the young Gary knew little of his life until he went
looking after his death, discovering amid yellowed newspaper files and recollections of
elderly colleagues an era of low-wage, grafting, bread & butter footballers, utterly
unrecognizable to today's 'baby Bentley' prima donnas.The final two chapters, recording how the stars of yesteryear have fallen as fast as they
had risen, and the author's melancholy admission that he was falling out of love with
football as his father was dying are particularly poignant.Like Tony Cascarino's extraordinary autobiography Full Time, this comes from an unexpected
source. But, like the former Irish international, sports presenter Gary Imlach has
produced a studied work of pathos and a considered reflection on the game's social
importance to those involved.Eschewing the conventional approaches to sports histories, Imlach's vested interest in
unearthing the past endows a football story with nostalgia-free emotion and creates an
instant classic of the genre.
Sean O'Conor


The Fan Hunter Davies
Pomona Press
ISBN: 1904590020 Paperback, 352pp
As a season-ticket holder for both Tottenham Hotspur and their North London rivals
Arsenal, Hunter Davies has a stronger claim than most to the title of "The Fan". His loyalties lie with Spurs (he shares his Highbury seat with another semi-regular), but
as he explains with his trademark good humour, his true passion is the game of football
itself. That love, though, is not unconditional. In his collection of observations of the game
between 1996 and 2003 - first published in his fortnightly column in The New Statesman -
the prolific and celebrated author is clearly unhappy with the direction the British game
has taken in an era when Sky dictates kick-off times and players earn tens of thousands of
pounds a week before the bum-fluff has been blown from their chins. Like many supporters with middle-class sensibilities, Hunter had a satellite dish
installed only when it dawned on him that any attempt to face down the Murdoch media
juggernaut would be self-defeating, depriving him, as it would, of his raison d'etre -
long afternoons and evenings in front of the box, soaking up anything from the Champions
League to the French lower divisions. The original format for his musings mean the chapters can seem unconnected - a diary this
is not. But all of the important occasions are there: Euro 2000, the departure of "our
Kev" and the arrival of Sven, the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, and the stirrings of
Rooney-mania. In between we are treated to entertaining digressions - set out in short, pithy chapters -
on everything from following Carlisle United, Davies's topsy-turvy diet, his neighbours in
the stands, the FA, Sky (again), Julie Burchill's excruciating attempt to explain David
Beckham's sex appeal, Prince William's support for Aston Villa and, in a more serious
vein, Spurs' latter-day neglect of their elderly former legend, Bill Nicholson. There are also vignettes from the Davies household, usually involving genteel digs at his
wife, who, despite her preference for evenings alone at the theatre or cinema, probably
knows more about football than her hubby lets on. Who, after all, could have lived with a man of Davies's obsessive nature for so long and
not be influenced by it? The reader's time in his company is limited to a few hours over 300-plus pages, but his
seductive techniques, buttressed by amiability and humour, are no less sharp for that. For
most of us a season spent watching football at White Hart Lane is a terrifying prospect,
but one imagines being able to sit next to Davies at his wryest every other Saturday would
make it more than bearable. Compared with the (surely worn-out) fandom genre whose writers delight in recalling pints
sunk and noses split, or miles clocked and funny foreigners encountered, Davies occupies
another football universe. As a highly recommended close-season read through "The Fan"
should prove, "Hunt" is no mere "supporter with a pen," but, happily for us, a first-rate
writer who happens to be barking about "footer".
Justin McCurry

Farewell but not GoodbyeSir Bobby Robson
Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 034082347XPaperback, 352pp
Sir Bobby takes us on a stroll down memory lane here in his 2005 autobiography, a
leisurely trip through a life steeped in football. From his days down North-Eastern mines
right through to his less than ceremonious exit from Newcastle United, the club he grew up
supporting, Robson's is an endearing story of a life far-travelled and come full circle.This is well-written, engaging and packed full of anecdotes and quips from the dressing
room and training ground involving younger versions of household names – certain misters
Gascoigne, Moore, Figo, Ronaldo and Mourinho are just a few – and reminders of those
half-forgotten in football history. Starting out at Fulham, by his own admission he had
less than an illustrious career playing club football (no medals and his best was a fourth
place finish with West Brom) before time with England as player then coach ("It wasn't the
hand of God, it was the hand of a rascal") and then off on his globetrotting international
career, battling cancer a couple of times on the way, the faithful Elsie, wife of fifty
odd years always by his side, propping him up when needed.You can't help but hear Sir Bobby's distinctive voice taking delight in recalling his
eventful life with relish, probably with a finger wagging and a glassy look in his eyes.
His age obviously comes in here, the book reading like a story that only an old man could
tell, but the beauty of this is you've got a get out card - it's a book. You don't have to
sit there awkwardly for that little bit too long stifling yawns, you can shut him up at
any time by just putting it down. But make sure you come back to it again later, because
it's good stuff.
Paul Robinson

National PastimeStefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist
Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0-8157-8258-6263pp
“National cultures are built around national pastimes.” How we play games helps to define
how we perceive ourselves. This book analyzes the story of two great sports—America's
game, and the world's game.
Baseball is the national sport in America, a national obsession that remains limited to
North America, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and several islands in the Caribbean. Soccer is
truly the world's game, a sport that no one nation can claim as its own (though some in
England might try). Unlike the World Series, the World Cup is truly international and
often a measure of national self-esteem. National Pastime is the first cross-cultural
comparison of these sporting passions and the mega-businesses they have spawned and
become.
Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist examine how organizational structures have made
Major League Baseball a hugely profitable business—thanks in large part to its
monopolistic protection under US law—while soccer leagues around the world struggle to
break even. The authors go back to the beginning of baseball and British football—and how
these games became businesses.
In their final chapter, the authors discuss how baseball and soccer can learn from each
other. This is an engaging and fun read. Whether you are a baseball or soccer/football
fan, you will enjoy National Pastime.
C. Ogawa

The Miracle of Castel di SangroA Real Life Footballing Fairy TaleJoe McGinniss
ISBN: 0767905997Paperback, 416pp, 16pp b&w illustrations.
American journalist, Joe McGinnis spends the 1996-97 season in the Italian boondocks with
impoverished small town club Castel di Sangro, who by a 'miracle' have risen to the heady
heights of Serie B.More than a fly-on-the-wall account of proceedings on the pitch, McGinnis, like him or
loathe him, paints a tragi-comic picture of provincial life that tourists never see.
Tension mounts as the team face the drop back to obscurity while McGinnis draws the reader
deeper into the unfolding events, which climax in a sudden, unexpected and disturbing
finale. A classic footballing story with a human touch.

Provided You Don't Kiss Me 20 Years With Brian Clough Provided You Don't Kiss Me - 20 years with Brian CloughDuncan Hamilton
ISBN: 0007247109Fourth Estate; Paperback, 256pp
The legend of the green sweatshirt grows by the day but 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me - 20
years with Brian Clough' is the first book written by one of King Clough's inner circle.Throughout Clough's Nottingham Forest years, Duncan Hamilton was within spitting distance,
at first as a sheepish teenage reporter at the City Ground and before long traveling with
the players on the team bus and sitting across the desk from the boss every day. This is a riveting tale of how greatness rises and falls, a chronicle of how nagging
insecurities and internal weaknesses eventually conquering a publicly swaggering genius.
Touching and eloquently written, 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me' is Clough in close-up - a
painfully honest, word-for-word, as-it-happened history of an amazing man at his best and
worst.Anyone who remembers Clough should read this book, and anyone who doesn't too - for he was
one of the true characters of the English game.Every chapter reveals extraordinary incidents - vignettes of Clough's coaching genius, his
myriad eccentricities, moments of human pathos, drink-fuelled rages, bitter rants and
quarrels, or acts of family love and random kindness.While accepting the enigma of Clough will endure, Hamilton has probably come closer than
anyone ever will to distilling a remarkable football coach and unforgettable man.
Sean O'Conor

Garrincha: The Triumph and Tragedy of Brazil's Forgotten Footballing HeroRuy Castro; Translated by Andrew Downie
ISBN: 0224064320Yellow Jersey Press; Paperback, 436pp
The 'little bird' won the World Cup in 1958, was the star of the 1962 Finals, scored 232
league goals and is considered by many Brazilians to be greater than Pelé. Yet his name
and fame were largely forgotten once television arrived and Ruy Castro has written an
important book to revive his reputation.Garrincha was a fine player indeed but that was nothing compared to what he did off-field.
To call his life a rollercoaster would be an understatement. Having grown up in rural
poverty he moved to the big city of Rio to become a footballer but never grew up. His life
involved a legion of lovers and numerous children, grinding poverty and fabulous riches,
astounding fame, success, addiction and finally tragedy. In comparison George Best has led
a quiet life.That Garrincha's sublime skill and remarkable story have been forgotten is wrong and this
meticulously researched book, charming and astounding throughout in equal measure, has
pleasingly set the record straight. A great tale about an exceptional human being.
Sean O'Conor
* USA currently only stocks the Portuguese language edition

Fever PitchNick Hornby
ISBN: 0140293442Penguin; Paperback, 256pp
You must've seen the movie, you must've read the book, he's a mellow yellow feline,well,
two of these lines apply to Hornby's Fever Pitch, still more than very probably the
world's most famous football book over ten years after its publication. Seen the film?
Haven't read the book? If not, why not and if yes, well it's about time you read it again.
Don't like football? Doesn't matter, read the thing anyway. A book not just about football
for football fans, but about obsession, about a burning, inexplicable (I mean I could
understand it with the Mighty Boro, but Arsenal,) passion and where it drags the author
over the years from his childhood in the sixties and seventies through to his continuing
childhood in the early nineties. Often hilarious, always engaging and well written, Fever
Pitch is Hornby's attempt at making sense of his obsession, to put it into perspective in
the grand scheme of things and maybe help people on the outside of this phenomenon to
understand somehow. But of course there is no sense to be made of it, it just happens, it
just is, and that's what makes it so interesting, so funny and a bloody good read.
Paul Robinson

When Beckham Went to Spain: Power, Stardom and Real Madrid Jimmy Burns
ISBN: 0718147472Paperback, 272ppMichael Joseph
The prospect of another hagiography of Goldenballs would sink the hearts of all but the
starry-eyed teenager, but this one is different. What makes this worth reading is the fact
that Becks' celebrity circus has touched down in Spain, a country a world away from
England, and specifically at Real Madrid, a galaxy away from Manchester United. In fact,
those of us jaded by the prospect of more Beckhamology will be pleasantly surprised by the
fact Jimmy Burns largely ignores him.Few are better qualified to write this tale than Burns. The author is half Spanish, grew
up in Madrid and has published a guide to Spanish literature as well as working for the
FT, BBC & The Economist amongst others. His two football works, 'Barça – A People's
Passion' and 'Hand of God - The Life of Diego Maradona' were top-drawer football texts and
not Harry Harris-style sycophantic potboilers. The book weaves between Beckham's celebrity
and Spain's story of Franco, Catalonia, corridas, cojones and futebol. Beckham comes across as a tool for Real, a man of little intrinsic substance who will
ultimately not amount to much. We learn little here we do not already know about
Goldenballs and there is more evidence that the end of his Real days will come to pass
thanks to the increasingly destructive provincial mindset and xenophobic tantrums of his
far from 'posh' wife Victoria.
Sean O'Conor

Pyramid Football Guide To Non-League 2004-5Joe Bush (Editor)
ISBN: 0954346653Paperback, 190ppIBS Publishing
If you have yet to savour the delights of English lower league football, then what sublime
pleasures and delights await you: For here beats the true heart of English football with
its die-hard fans who wouldn't swap it for the Premiership any day. For the uninitiated,
there is no better starting-point than the Pyramid Football Guide to Non-League 2004-05, a
superb 200-page glossy guide to the teams and competitions below England's four full-time
professional divisions. Here you will find the Blyth Spartans, Hickley Towns and Leigh
RMIs of this world; as the cover says, “local clubs for local people”. There are six
divisions covered, plus resumes of all the major competitions, useful local information
and excellent directions for finding the stadia, never an easy task at this level! In the
introduction, editor Joe Bush rightly mentions the “value, history and unique nature” of
this level of football, “a culture”, he continues, “that you would struggle to find
anywhere else in the world and whose praises we should all be keen to sing.”
Sean O'Conor

Morbo: The Story of Spanish FootballPhil Ball
ISBN: 0954013468 Paperback, 256ppWSC Books
Having emerged from Serie A's shadow in the late 1990s, La Liga is Europe's No.1
destination right now with Real Madrid's Galacticos, Beckham and all, and a
Ronaldinho-inspired Barcelona at the helm of a new golden age of Spanish football.In this superb guide, Phil Ball really gets under the skin of el fútbol, tracking it from
its origins in the dusty town of Huelva in the 1880s to the Bernabeu and Nou Camp of today
via the fierce local pride of teams such as Athletic Bilbao, Valencia and Deportivo La
Coruña and the sorry saga of a national team that never delivers. As much a cultural history of modern Spain as a guide to its football, Ball proves that
the two in this case are one and the same.
Sean O'Conor

Flick-to-kick: An Illustrated History of SubbuteoDaniel Tatarsky
ISBN: 0752860836112 pp
Ah, Subbuteo – the flicking of little figures around a crumpling sheet of green baize that
boys young and old recall so fondly. In the now forgotten age before computers, Subbuteo
was the closest approximation to soccer to be found in a game format and could also be
played alone, allowing the fan to indulge his own fantasies based on the beautiful game.
Everyone who was into football at school, it seemed, owned a Subbuteo set.This charming book, great value in hardback at £7.99 and wonderfully illustrated, retells
the history of this curious game. For so long a cottage industry of hand-painted
figurines, Subbuteo (Latin for 'hobby') was started in 1947 by a Kent man more interested
in ornithology than football who deliberately sited new factories in areas good for
bird-watching. As well as historical nuggets such as the police investigating the company over the theft
of the World Cup in 1966, there is plenty on those eccentric accessories plus its
lesser-known editions, which included speedway, angling and snooker! When its makers
announced in 2000 it was to be withdrawn there was an outpouring of piqued nostalgia, and
they were forced to retract. As the author triumphantly concludes, “As long as the game of
football is played I believe so will the game of Subbuteo”.
Sean O'Conor

The Fashion Of Football: Soccer From Best To Beckham, From Mod To Label SlavePaolo Hewitt & Mark Baxter
ISBN: 1840188073224 pp
Music and style journalist Paolo Hewitt and friend Mark Baxter decided to chart a
neglected theme running through modern football history: The clothes. From the wildly
dressed George Best in the swinging sixties to the Armani-ed Premiership boys of today,
sartorial style has accompanied footballers in England. And running parallel to the
players' styles is the story of the fans' attire. The Fred Perry and Tacchini tops of the
1970s through the 'casual' looks of the eighties to today's Stone Island-clad lads is an
equally important part of England's football culture that completes the picture of
football culture. But this is as much a book about style and youth culture itself than its
football-related history, written in a free and unchained style, where Soho's Bar Italia
rubs shoulders with 1960s London boutiques, '70s mods, Rodney Marsh and David Beckham.
Sean O'Conor

Those Feet - A Sensual History of English FootballDavid Winner
ISBN: 0747547386288 pp
In a follow up to the magnificent “Brilliant Orange - The Neurotic Genius of Dutch
Football”, David Winner tackles the kaleidoscopic character of the English game, a far
from easy task.His excellent opening chapter on the Victorian origins of football is enough to shock
readers expecting a conventional narrative as it postulates the thesis that the aggressive
English style is a direct consequence of a long-held national angst about masturbation.Winner bravely tries to cover all bases in his psycho-analytical overview of the national
game. Other chapters address nostalgia, xenophobia, the weather, pessimism and the loose
concept of 'Englishness' forged in our imperial heyday. Whilst it is easy to pick holes in
many of Winner's ideas, at the same time books of this type have elevated football
literature to levels that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.
Sean O'Conor

Ajax, the Dutch, the War - Football in Europe During The Second World WarSimon Kuper
ISBN: 0752842749256 pp
Simon Kuper's second book after "Football Against the Enemy", a collection of intelligent
football essays that won the William Hill Sports Book of The Year Award is a heartfelt
study of football amidst society in World War Two. Kuper himself is a Jew who grew up in
Holland loving football and imbibing the national myth of the Netherlands as a beacon of
tolerance. In this book he shines an uncomfortable light on the truth of Dutch's less than
stellar war record - more Jews were deported per capita than in any nation outside Germany
whilst millions stood by and did nothing, all set alongside the parallel world of Ajax,
the 'Jewish club' of Amsterdam, who lost one of their players, Eddie Hamel, to the gas
chambers. A well-written and engrossing read that crosses the boundaries of sport, history
and politics.
Sean O'Conor

Woody & Nord: A Football FriendshipGareth Southgate & Andy Woodman
ISBN: 0141012145Paperback, 304ppPenguin
Woody & Nord tells the story of 2 very close friends - Gareth Southgate & Andy Woodman -
who met and became the best of friends as young, wide eyed apprentices dreaming of the
future at Crystal Palace, their contrasting career paths at different ends of the
professional football spectrum and the lasting bond of friendship between them. The book is a refreshing take on the footballer autobiography/ghost writer format,
providing an interesting look into the workings of the mysterious world of professional
football at the highest and lowest levels. Gareth with Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and
England while Andy struggles to earn a living in the lower leagues and stay in
professional football as long as possible - Southgate's search for professional fulfilment
versus Andy's fight for mere financial survival.The book does, especially towards the beginning, seem like it might become a tad too
sentimental any time soon, though they manage to veer away from that path in the nick of
time to make a very interesting and entertaining read, one of best football biographies,
and certainly the best autobiography (if you forget about the ever present lovely
assistant) out there at the moment.The one thing that appears to have remained constant throughout both players' turbulent
careers is their friendship, but this aspect isn't excessively pushed on the reader, it is
simply an onrunning thread that is worked quite subtly into the text, providing a link
between what are, on the surface, two very different footballing characters and careers
and giving an extra perspective on events. Don't worry, it doesn't become a full on
heartwarming Nick Hornby affair that it has the potential to do, but instead makes a much
more interesting propositon of each player's individual biography. Gareth himself admits
that his and Woody's own separate autobiographies would hardly have anyone but their most
diehard (Are there any of you out there?) fans waiting with baited breath. Both players manage very well to give a thoughtful, informed analysis of football's
disappointments, disillusionment and triumphs and the similarities and differences of very
different levels of the game through their own experiences, being two players who are very
much at critical points in their lives. They both have lot of serious thinking to do about
their futures making it the ideal time to look back.
Paul Robinson

The Best of Enemies: England v. Germany, a Century of Football Rivalry David Downing
ISBN: 0747549788Hardcover, 251pp
Downing's book is a fascinating and thoughtful look at one of football's most exciting/
passionate/ dull/ controversial/ over-rated (delete as you see fit) clashes - the England
vs Germany match. Downing examines England-Germany games at both international and club
level - the triumphs, the failures and the (gulp, swallow the pride and whisperingly admit
it) far too regular mediocrity of arguably the most eagerly awaited event in any English
football calendar - from their very first meeting in the death throes of the nineteenth
century up until the Euro 2000 group stage meeting in Charleroi. As an historian and football fan, he brings the best of both worlds together in writing
this book, giving us history without sterility and managing to conveying the excitement
and passion of the beautiful game without coming across as just another overzealous fan.
England & Germany meetings over the years are recounted in a refreshingly objective way;
accounts are presented from numerous sources from both sides of the divide and subtly
peppered with his own comment. The best way to put it might be that it's like the story's
told by a very knowledgeable bloke in the pub but without the droning on, repetition,
off-track ramblings or spit flying into your pint. And you can easily get away from it if you want. Downing writes about the actual football
in tandem with the games' social and political background, painting a vivid picture of the
times in which they were played and their importance (or lack of it). We go from the first
ever meeting with "youngish, fit-looking men" reading about the developments in the Boer
war as they travel to Berlin by a combination of train, horse-drawn cabs and foot, through
the "shameful salute", the world wars and the English-German sentiments left in their wake
and, of course, 1966 to the tabloid frenzies and penalty shootout disappointments of
recent years. It all adds up to give a fuller understanding of these games' effect on each
nation's psyche as well as being an utterly entertaining, revealing and often piss-funny
read. Stereotypes and the perceived differences of the two nations are presented and
deconstructed and, maybe surprisingly for some, a hell of a lot of similarities are
revealed (possibly the source of a lot of England-German animosity, but that's by the
bye). The Best of Enemies is a great book that manages to provide everything that a lot of books
try and fail to - it's got heroes, villains, highs, lows, cry-babies, bad losers,
blinkered idiots, inspirational mavericks, unsung heroes - and all with the added bonus of
being true! And about football! Woohoo!
Paul Robinson

Referee: A Year in the Life of David EllerayDavid Elleray
ISBN: 0747536929Hardcover, 256pp
Take a little trip down memory lane to the 1997-98 season and peek into the diary of one
of football's most respected and thus, on more than the odd occasion, hated professional
men in black (green/blue/yellow - delete as applicable). In "Referee: A year in the life»"
posh nob David Elleray gives a day to day account of refereeing at the highest level,
juggling the life of a Premiership match official with that of a Harrow Housemaster with
all the stress and reward that entails. Due to the diary format it occasionally gets
bogged down in the minutiae of daily affairs but the account gains momentum as the season
progresses and we follow Mr. Elleray to such far flung locations as Saudi Arabia, Brazil
and Keele University as well as all the usual Premier League haunts, ending with his
appraisal of the 1998 World Cup as viewed from the eyes of a referee who was unfortunately
unable to participate. It's an eye opener to see what a referee has to cope with when not
being screamed at and abused by all and sundry on a Saturday afternoon and may even,
horror of horrors, evoke a little sympathy in some football fans. Of course, not only the
pressures and the pitfalls of refereeing are covered here, but also the praise and reward
that comes from being one of the most respected figures in football, not just from the
powers that be but from fans too. Mr Elleray comes across as a serious professional whose
heart belongs to the game, though it causes no end of conflict with other aspects of his
life while at the same time providing him with life-affirming experiences that would be so
difficult to give up. Mr Elleray said in one TV interview, "The challenge was to say
something interesting without being too controversial", and that is what he has managed to
do here - there is a little bit of bitching and a good dose of personal opinion thrown in,
but nothing that could cause him grief in future seasons. An essential read for anyone who
has realised that they may never score for England and is thinking of refereeing seriously
and a good holiday read for fans of the game generally - no matter what your opinion of
the blokes with the cards. Even Mackems can find solace in Elleray's words and convince
themselves that the Stadium of Light is indeed one of the games "great footballing
cathedrals".
Paul Robinson

Among The ThugsBill Buford
ISBN: 0099416344Paperback, 316pp
Classic and often comic must-read account of American journalist meets British football
hooligans in the 1980s and 1990s. Ex-Granta editor Bill Buford begins his epic journey to
the ugly heart of fan violence with Manchester United in Turin in 1984 and the book
reaches a personal, painful climax with England in Sardinia at Italia 90. In a series of
thrilling narratives describing his dark odyssey of discovery into football mob violence,
Buford takes us along to comprehend the attraction and ultimate repulsion of that
oft-repeated euphemism 'crowd trouble'.If you only ever read one book about football this should be it.

England's Quest for the World Cup: A Complete Record 1950-2002, Third EditionClive Leatherdale
ISBN: 1874287619Paperback, 334pp
The FA's aloofness and wariness of 'Johnny-foreigner' kept England out of the first three
FIFA World Cups. Leatherdale's absorbing book kicks off in 1950 when the Home
Internationals were first used as World Cup qualifiers and Scotland declined to go to
Brazil in 1950 as 'runners-up'. Every subsequent England qualifying game and World Cup
match comes complete with a detailed and compelling match report and full statistics,
scorers and attendance. The strengths of the book lie in Leatherdale's precise and fluent
prose, which never lapses into any glorification of England's checkered history in the
competition and the intriguing subplot of England's continuing failure to adapt their
football for success on foreign fields.The appendix has a complete list of England's World Cup goal scorers, goalkeepers,
captains and records against other teams. The statistics reveal England have never beaten
Brazil in a World Cup game and the book as a whole reveals many of the reasons why.

World Cup Panini Collections 1970-1998Hardback, 290x230, 472 pages, full colour throughout.
The best-selling book on Soccerphile in 2002 and deservedly so!A superb and nostalgic collection of Panini stickers and cards of all the teams and
players from the 1970 World Cup in Mexico up to France 1998.Includes the official World Cup logos and posters. A true collector's item.The Italian company may have temporarily suspended sale of their stickers as a protest
against Italy's elimination in Korea, but don't miss out on this.
This book is available on Bol 's Italian site - search for "World Cup Panini".
Ultra Nippon: How Japan Reinvented FootballJonathan Birchall
Paperback - 249 pages including 8 pages of b/w images.This edition 1 March, 2001ISBN: 0747264090
A forerunner of English language writing on Japanese football, BBC correspondent Jonathan
Birchall spends the 1999-2000 season following Shimizu S-Pulse as they pursue J.League
glory under English manager Steve Perryman. Birchall gets to grips with all the
now-familiar idiosyncrasies of Japan's football experience: fans who don't fight but sing
in unison and clean up after the game, passive players who lack initiative and the
strident foreigners struggling to get their message across at any given time, in this case
Perryman, Dragan Stojkovic and the 'evil' Dunga.While Birchall's narrative about Shimizu's ultimately frustrating season in particular and
the early years of the J.League in general is interesting enough, the author can't resist
telling us into the bargain what an odd place Japan appears to bemused Western
journalists. So be prepared for a few chortles at the expense of the usual targets -
salaryman suicides, fuzzed out pornography and space age vending machines selling sex
aids. Still Ultra-Nippon is a good place to start on Japanese football as the genre grows
after the World Cup.

Japanese Rules: Japan & The Beautiful Gameby Sebastian Moffett
Paperback - 232 pages (2 May, 2002)Yellow Jersey Press;ISBN: 0224062050
It is a somewhat brave move to release a book on Japanese football without covering World
Cup 2002, but for Moffett, the interest lies in the working week that made the big party
possible. Before Japan was ready to host the world's largest sporting event, football had
to be procured, promoted and popularised in a country that was, in many ways, unsuited to
the world's favourite sport. Japanese Rules tells us how the explosive but short-lived
boom for football came about and how the J-League stuttered along until the big event with
both the objective viewpoint of an anthropologist and the close focus of a documentary
maker. The stories of Japanese organisers, players and fans looking abroad for inspiration
and of foreigners coming to Japan and overcoming cultural obstacles tell the story of
Japan's love-hate relationship with the outside world in microcosm. So Japanese Rules is
not thin on historical, economic and cultural context, all essential for understanding any
phenomenon of modern Japan. Moffett, a long-term resident of Japan, was clearly following
events closely at the time which also gives his tightly-written prose vivid colour. His
match reports are filled with tension and there are moments in this book that are truly
moving, such as the account of Gary Lineker's last game for Grampus 8 - a must read for
any fans still smarting over that Graham Taylor substitution. But the real strength of
this book is just how much it allows its cast to speak for themselves. Moffett has
digested volumes of Japanese football books, news reports and has conducted many of his
own interviews of major figures in the football scene. The result is a text littered with
well-chosen quotes and revealing facts giving strength to insightful conclusions. This is
the definitive article in explaining how soccer secured its foothold in a most unlikely
corner of the world.
Will Yong

Tor! The Story Of German FootballUli Hesse-Lichtenberger
ISBN: 095401345XWSC Bookspp 304
“Tor! The Story of German Football”- is a fascinating account of the game in Germany: its
roots in the athletic clubs of the eighteenth century; World War 1; the rise of the Nazis
and World War II; the first international successes, especially the surprising win against
Hungary in 1954; the subsequent formation of the DFB in West Germany; the game in East
Germany; the lows of the 80s; and up to the present state of the game. Written by Dortmund
fan Hesse-Lichtenberger, who doesn't shirk passing judgment on those with whom he
disagrees or mentioning his own wardrobe of torn jeans, the book also goes into the
geo-political reasons for the health or otherwise of German football. Together with the
lesser-known figures he mentions, there are all the famous players of the game in Germany:
Günther Netzer, Overath, Paul Breitner, Berti Vogts, Uli & Dieter Hoeness, Rudi Völler,
Kevin Keegan, Effenberg, Jürgen Klinsmann, Fritz Walter, et al, as well as the five German
European Footballers of the Year – Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge,
Lothar Matthäus and Matthias Sammer. And the teams: amongst others, Borussia
Moenchengladbach, Borussia Dortmund, Werder Bremen, Hamburg, Nuremburg, Fürst,
Kaiserslautern, Schalke 04, Köln, Stuttgart, 1860, and, of course, the most powerful,
successful and hated team in the land: Bayern Munich.The book successfully manages to put many ill-conceived notions of the nature of German
football to bed, such as the aura of invincibility that surrounds it due to consummate
professionalism. In fact, the German leagues teams' players were still amateurs when the
national team won the World Cup in 1954, and corruption has surfaced periodically in the
game.At club level, German teams have not fared as well in European competition as English,
Spanish or Italian teams – a point overlooked by Hesse-Lichtenberger. However, it is in the international sphere where Germany has achieved real success, with
three World Cup victories to its name, equal to Italy and surpassed only by Brazil. Uli
Hesse-Lichtenberger recounts not only the excitement of the wins, but also details such as
the tentative national feelings aroused in the post-World War II period. It's a must-read
for anyone curious to know the game as it is played in Germany, and would be particularly
interesting for those fans planning to watch the upcoming 2006 World Cup in Germany.
That's four billion of us, then.
Peter Rodd

Dynamo: Defending The Honour Of KievAndy Dougan
Paperback - 254 pages (4 March, 2002)Fourth Estate; ISBN: 1841153192
This is a book for those interested in the space between football and morality. It's the
tale of everyday folk caught by surprise by Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union in June
1941. These shocked citizens included footballers, and these in turn included the talented
members of the Dynamo Kiev team. How did they react to the Nazi occupation of their
homeland? Under what conditions did they live and die? Dynamo starts brightly yet gently
with a sentence designed to catch the eye of a publisher: "Valentina and Alexei were very
much in love, a blind man on a galloping horse could see that."From this description of a wedding party the story wends its way to a darker, uglier
place. Author Andy Dougan seems to be playing the role of a counter-attacking sweeper in
his attempt to inform the reader of last thousand years of Ukrainian history whilst
blending in the personal tales of the footballers involved, the fear of Stalin's
legitimised thugs (the NKVD) and the death and terror brought by the brutal Germans. For
those acquainted with John Houston's 1981 film "Victory", in which a group of WWII
prisoners of war - including Pele and Mike Summerbee - play a match against the Germans
for propaganda purposes, this book will strike a chord.The film is pure invention, but Dynamo describes real matches between subjugated people
and the occupying 'master race'. Should the more highly skilled Kiev players let the
Germans win the game for fear of the consequences to themselves and the general
population; or should they soundly beat them to show they were not cowed? It's an exciting
read whether or not you are interested in history or football. Moreover it's a true story.
Dougan also has done his homework in refuting the official Stalinist line concerning the
events.There are, however, a few annoying features of the book. The Dynamo Kiev goalkeeper, we
are told, is not "unbeatable", as though there once existed a player possessing such a
quality, which I doubt. And there is a small but unnecessary amount of hyperbole: the same
keeper's "..eyes burned with a passion and intensity which spoke of his total love of
football" and "..they won the USSR Cup for the first time in 1954 trouncing Ararat
Yerevan.." A one-nil "trouncing"?! There is also, and strangely for a history book, no
index; and this despite the range of personalities mentioned: from the composer Mussorgsky
to the Mongolian Golden Horde, from Nazi film-maker Leni Riefenstahl to AC Milan star
striker Andrij Schevchenko. Editing quirks aside, this is a very interesting work that
reminds us that these evil happenings occurred only sixty years ago. It begs bigger
questions, too. Could the world slip back into the dehumanised chaos of state-sponsored
violence? Is the war-peace cycle inevitable? Verdict: one-nil to Andy Dougan.
Peter Rodd

Going Oriental: Football After World Cup 2002Edited by Mark Perryman
Paperback - 192 pages (30 September, 2002)Mainstream Sport; ISBN: 1840186771
From the man behind the "Philosophy Football" range of sporting attire comes a mixed
kitbag of writings analysing the multi-faceted fallout from Asia's first World Cup. A
major theme is the rehabilitation of Englishness as a result of an unexpectedly
trouble-free tournament. The book's title belies the fact that it is less about Japan and
Korea than it is about the foreign fans who either visited or stayed at home. Those
wishing to gain an insight into Japanese football would do well to pick up copies of
either Jonathan Birchall's "Ultra Nippon" or Sebastian Moffett's "Japanese Rules".FIFA corruption also looms large over many of the essays and one good reason to read this
book is David Conn's account of how Sepp Blatter got his sticky paws on World Cup 2002 and
how his fingerprints have been subsequently removed. What works less well is some
unnecessary intellectualising.David Winner's look at the tournament through the prism of Chaos theory is as
unenlightening as Wendy Wheeler's utopian argument that football is "a very significant
part of, how humans are to manage the complex world in which we now live". Luckily though,
most of the articles are immensely readable and all contain thought-provoking angles on
the World Cup experience: from home, away, Japan, Korea, heartfelt fandom and cynical
commercialism. As long as you don't mind Beckham on one wing and Baudrillard on the other,
this is a timely requiem for World Cup 2002 before the ball rolls on to Portugal and
Germany.
Will Yong

Kicking: Following the Fans into the OrientDavid Willem
Paperback - 208 pages (October 2002)Mainstream Sport; ISBN: 1840186232
A thick-leafed, deceptively short account of the World Cup through the eyes of an
ex-English teacher in Japan. Willem tells of how the World Cup brought foreigners
(especially the English) together with the Japanese on something of a cross-cultural first
date. One side of this story is the way in which Japan won over its foreign guests with
faultless organisation and countless random acts of "kamikaze kindness". In exchange,
foreign fans provided entertainment. For the Japanese, the (mostly) good-natured
irreverence of their guests constituted part of the World Cup circus. Willem describes
many instances of these kinds of cultural exchange with a sharp eye and a keen wit
although his photographs of the same are worthless.Willem does not, however, limit himself to "World Cup world" as he calls it. Like many
people who have lived in Japan for a couple of years, he has much to say about Japanese
culture too. Many digressions are distinctly non-World Cup related but this adds depth to
the overall World Cup experience by proxy that reading this book provides. But the
sinister turning point is when Willem attends the court hearing of an Ireland fan who runs
into trouble with the Japanese police for selling a single ticket. The Kafkaesque
machinations of the Japanese legal system shows something of what lay beneath the surface
glitter of the World Cup.
Will Yong
My Big LilyKeith Norris
Paperback - 284 pages (2002)Big Lily Productions; ISBN: 095437620X
Husband, father, company man, dog and cat owner, and above all devoted Manchester United
fan, Keith Norris is the owner and creator of the eponymous flag Big Lily. Personified
throughout the book, Lily has gone on walkabout to Brazil, Spain, Thailand, Japan, Italy
and of course, much of England. Norris contends that Lily is 'the biggest Manchester
United supporter ever known;' at 100 feet long by 60 feet wide, in one sense he is surely
right. Norris has spirited this monster flag literally around the world to Man United
matches. In the process, he has been 'befriended' by such luminaries as Roberto Carlos,
Raul, and Fernando Hierro not to mention his Japanese wife. Although amusing in places -
and very well-meaning - this is a book primarily for FOK (Friends of Keith), diehard Man
United fans, or people on a beach with a lot of time on their hands. The book suffers
mainly from repetition and an obvious lack of an editor. Had there been fewer pub scenes
'having a laugh with' (fill in blank with FOK or footballer) and more on Northern Ireland
and the history of Man United (the stronger parts of the book), it would have been a far
better read.

Badfellas: FIFA Family at WarJohn Sugden & Alan Tomlinson
Paperback - 256 pages (2003)Mainstream Sport; ISBN: 1840186844
John Sugden and Alan Tomlison's account of FIFA's misrule of world football is the latest
addition to the sizeable collection of books that address sleaze and corruption in the
game. As such, it should appeal to anyone who enjoyed, say, David Yallop's 'How They Stole
The Game' or, more recently, Tom Bower's 'Broken Dreams'. As an independent, authoritative
history of FIFA and insight into the governing body's more illustrious characters,
Badfellas cannot be faulted. Tomlinson and Sugden, both professors at the University of
Brighton, write clean, measured journalese, while sparing us discussion of the minutiae of
FIFA's day-to-day administration. But their central charge, that FIFA's name has been
tarnished by a succession of megalomaniacs and creeping commercialism, though articulately
made, has been leveled so many times the shock factor has all but disappeared.There are several reasons for this, one of which is that Badfellas is not a new book, but
an updated, amended version of the 1999 work 'Great Balls of Fire: How Big Money is
Hijacking World Football'. Nevertheless, the new material is at times riveting; Sepp
Blatter's controversial reelection as FIFA president at the 2002 Congress in Seoul, the
collapse, on his watch, of FIFA's marketing partner ISL, the bidding campaign for the 2002
World Cup, and the successes and failures of the tournament itself. Interviews with
various FIFA luminaries (not all of them are smug mercenaries, it was pleasing to
discover) and first-hand accounts of the unsightly FIFA-corporate love-in that accompanies
all major tournament are a joy to read and will raise the hackles of any fan who cares one
iota about the game. Elsewhere, all of the familiar episodes in FIFA's Hall of Shame are covered: Sir Stanley
Rous's courting of white footballing authorities in apartheid South Africa, the rise and
rise of Joao Havelange and the shambolic, though at times brilliantly spun, rise to the
top of the Brazilian's prodigy Blatter. Some minor quibbles. The authors' failure to
recognize the vast array of sources they must have drawn on to supplement their own
interviews and research is poor form given their academic background, and the absence of
an index is an irritant in a book of almost 300 pages. The book could also have benefited from a more thorough edit to ensure that the inclusion
of recent developments did not sit awkwardly with material written in the late 1990s.
Parts of the chapter on the bidding war for last summer's World Cup were written as if the
tournament had yet to take place, even though Badfellas was published this year and
includes a chapter on Korea/Japan 2002. Early passages give the impression that Havelange
is still FIFA president and-god forbid-that Graham Kelly still occupies an office at the
English FA. The greed and corruption genus, like that of the hooligan memoir, is in danger
of reaching saturation point. For the current penchant for attacking those at the very top
of the game's administration to really invigorate football literature, the debate needs to
be moved along. Thanks to Sugden, Tomlinson, Bower et al, we now know the nature of the
problem and the identities of the chief culprits. So what, as fans, viewers and consumers,
are we going to do about them? Merely thinking about that question will prompt inward
groans of exasperation. But it needs answering.

She Stood There Laughing: A Man, His Son and Their Football ClubStephen Foster
Paperback - 208 pages (2004)Scribner UK; ISBN: 0743256832
From their glory days in the 1970s Stoke City fell into the lower leagues of English
football in the subsequent two decades, offering little joy to their loyal fans. In the
2003-4 season however,with an influx of Icelandic(!) money and backing the team found
itself in the First Division. She Stood There Laughing relates the tale of one man's
support for his beloved team over the season and his relationship with his son through the
medium of football. Unlike many football dads the writer doesn't force his affiliation on
his offspring. "It's lifelong pain pain, misery and despair you're looking at here, you
know that don't you?" he warns, further complicated by the fact that they live in Norwich
some 200 miles away from Stoke. Nevertheless his son agrees to go along for the ride which
includes trips to some of the less glamorous venues in England. The book is a reminder
that for millions of people the football fan experience is not about following the high
flying Man Uniteds and Real Madrids of this world but about devotion to underachieving
teams that, at best, offer the possibility of a reasonable cup run or the joyous relief of
avoiding relegation. In a kind of low-fi Fever Pitch the writer makes intellectual asides
without being pretentious and is often quite funny. A little more background about the
local Stoke-Port Vale rivalry might have been helpful for most readers but otherwise She
Stands There Laughing is one of the better additions to the 'fanlit' canon.
Michael Marshall

No More Buddha, Only FootballChris England
Hardback - 352 pages (2003)Hodder & Stoughton; ISBN: 0340825472
A late addition to the list of writers and journalists who are paying for their World Cup
jaunts by writing a book. Forget the guff on the dust jacket about “reliving the World
Cup”, Chris England's enjoyable diary gives us not so much the drama of the tournament as
the story of a likeable Englishman re-igniting his passion for the game on very foreign
ground. Managing to follow his team all the way to the quarter-final against Brazil, England
doesn't make it to Korea, referring to the events over there as “the other World Cup” and
like any other fan, his World Cup experience is viewed as much from the sports bar as the
stadium. Luckily for England and writers like him, the streets, hotels and watering holes
of Japan provide more than enough opportunities for anecdotes and observations. If you were an England fan at the World Cup, England's book reads like the diary you might
have written if you had a pen as sharp. You'll find all the encounters with inedible food,
hi-tech toilets and excessive politeness that you would expect from a first visit to Japan
with enough references to Benny Hill, Carry On and TV snooker to make an Englishman feel
at home. For those that didn't make it, it's an enjoyable chronicle of a discerning
football fan's first encounter with unfamiliar territory.The title comes from the mispronunciation of “no more borders” by an internationally
minded young Japanese and many cultures do appear in England's book -- though always seen
through the eyes of the quintessential Englishman. Noisy Americans, Ireland fans and
Mexican Wave-ers all find themselves on the receiving end. However, the humour is as
consistently warm as England himself is affable and readable. Icy satire is reserved for
Sepp Blatter, the Premier League moguls and Rivaldo - just where it's required.
Will Yong

Japan, Korea and the 2002 World Cupby John Horne, Wolfram Manzenreiter (Editors).
Paperback - 240 pages (2002)London: Routledge; ISBN: 0415275636
How did the border-crossing ambitions of Hideyoshi (Toyotomi) in the late-sixteenth
century influence whether or not Hidetoshi (Nakata) would be defending the national
colours on home turf? Why did it take until 1998 before Japan made an appearance at a
World Cup if the game of kickball (kemari) had been around since the sixth century? What's
the social movement behind the omnipresent and ever-smiling volunteers active at the
diverse venues? What drove the host cities to spend US$2,881 million of taxpayers' money
in order to build ten "White Elephants" without even bothering to look at their future
beyond the World Cup? John Horne and Wolfram Manzenreiter's "Japan, Korea and the 2002
World Cup", which appeared just before last year's finals, provides answers to these and
other questions. Thirteen chapters written mainly by academics offer an insightful and
detailed analysis of the greater implications of the four-yearly tournament. The volume is
organised thematically in four parts. The first part focuses on "the competition behind
the competition" and looks at the power struggles surrounding the organisation of the
tournament. The four chapters of the second section should appeal most to readers who are
interested in the historical development of football and its globalisation process in the
host nations. The third part deals with influences of the World Cup on national political
economy and civil society, such as its role in the growth of voluntary groups as a new
social movement in Japan. The final section looks at the tournament as a mega-event which
transforms urban spaces and as a media event with global sociological and commercial
implications. One theme the book fails to address thoroughly, however, is fan culture.
Shimizu Satoshi's chapter on the Urawa Reds fans provides a glimpse into the different
values, meanings and identities attached to football fandom in Japan, but only briefly
refers to national fan culture surrounding the national team. The behaviour and appearance
of both Japanese and Korean supporters was, from a comparative point of view, one of the
most striking features of the past World Cup and deserves further attention. "Japan, Korea
and the 2002 World Cup" is in the first place a scholarly publication on sports studies.
It is certainly no light poolside reading, but for those willing to make the effort it
does provide a deeper understanding into the larger social, economic, political and
cultural ramifications of "the people's game" in the two host nations.
Bart Gaens

Sexy Footballby Peter Gilmour
Paperback - 275 pages (1999)Naked; ISBN: 0953605108
Not only do we have to thank Ruud Gullit for coining such a marvelous phrase, but for
triggering the thought inside Peter Gilmour's head to write this wonderful book. Sexy
Football epitomizes everything a good novel of this genre should be, as too often football
novels have failed to deliver. This however is undoubtedly the best since Fever Pitch.
From a brilliant first chapter through to the last it is funny, witty, intelligent, and
takes you to many unexpected places that will make you laugh, cry and gasp in disbelief. A
story that is set around football and the role it plays in the protagonist's life, we also
follow him through his sexual rites of passage. Reading with the increased intrigue of a
voyeur who thinks they have just witnessed a murder across the street, we see him draw
parallels between the two and also how they manage to intertwine themselves to affect his
life.Sexy Football is a brilliant read. A must in fact! Regardless of whether you are a fan of
the world's greatest game or not, you will love it.
Paul Harvey
Publisher Comments
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