Football Book Review Thread

[The Exploding Vole]

Football Book Review Thread

Gramsci or whoever, have you come across Chasing the Game: America and the Quest for the World Cup by Filip Bondy?

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

Come across it in the sense of reading it? No.

Come across it in the sense of seeing it on Amazon and thinking "christ, what some sports writers will do to cash in on a major sporting event" and decided it wasn't worth the money? Yes.

That may be totally unfair on my part, though.

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

I heard an interview with Phil Ball on a podcast and he said that he finished a new edition of Morbo for the Spanish market and it would also be re-released in English to included shifts in Spanish football given the national team's successes. Does anyone know anything more about the new edition in terms of a possible release date? I assume WSC will remain the publisher of the English edition.

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

I continue to see the book Valdano On Football listed on various sites but each site says that the book is out of stock and these are sites that also sell used books. Does anyone know if this book was ever published? Anyone actually own a copy?

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

I have Valdano's Il Sogno di Footbalandia (bought in one of my massive fits of optimism about reading Italian)...I'm not sure if it's the same book, though.

[ursus arctos]

Football Book Review Thread

Il Sogno is a 2004 collection of Italian translations of articles Valdano published in the Spanish (and maybe Argentine) press. I don't know if the same collection exists in Spanish, but am pretty sure that it doesn't exist in English.

What's strange is that Wiki lists "Valdano: Sueños de fútbol" as a 1996 book written by Carmelo Martin. The Italian version sounds more like one of the Cuentos de Futbol collections of Valdano pieces that have appeared in Spain.

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

ursus arctos wrote:

Il Sogno is a 2004 collection of Italian translations of articles Valdano published in the Spanish (and maybe Argentine) press. I don't know if the same collection exists in Spanish, but am pretty sure that it doesn't exist in English.

What's strange is that Wiki lists "Valdano: Sueños de fútbol" as a 1996 book written by Carmelo Martin. The Italian version sounds more like one of the Cuentos de Futbol collections of Valdano pieces that have appeared in Spain.

Valdano on Football seems to be the only collection that supposedly exists in English, but again, I haven't found anyone who actually lists this book in stock--new or used. The Amazon US and UK sites basically list the same books.

[Freestyling buck wilding Stijn Stijnen]

Football Book Review Thread

And there's me thinking that this had been bumped back to the top thanks to 'Grounds for divorce'

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

So, I've just picked up a copy of Match Fixer by Neil Humphreys. This is basically an attempt to fictionalise Declan Hill's The Fix, via the career of a young West Ham cast-off trying to make his way in the Singapore S-league.

If this is available anywhere outside Southeast Asia, I'll be very surprised.

Put it this way - Humphreys isn't going to be mistaken for Manuel Mantalban anytime soon. Some of the prose is absolutely hilarious (example: "She was Asian. She was beautiful. She was slender and petite and had an overall exoticness that white men simply did not encounter in the checkout queue at Tesco"). But I'm not quite giving up on this one because I think the author may know the Singapore football and gambling scene enough to make this vaguely interesting.

On another note, the local Kikokuniya book store has probably the best selections of football books I've ever seen outside the UK. Including some WSC publications, no less.

[EIM]

Football Book Review Thread

I feel like you're ignoring An Undividable Glow, here, Toto. Don't be ashamed to admit it's too highbrow for you...

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

It's on my pile for the summer.

Although I have to say from flipping through it that your description of it as being totally incomprehensible to anyone from outside a particular set of estates in Manchester does seem pretty accurate.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

Now that I think about it, it should be "An Indivisible Glow", though, shouldn't it?

Finished Match Fixer. Bits of it are all right. The arch observations about Singapore society and the role of expats are the best, but these aren't even really football-related. Mercifully - and wisely - he stays clear of any match descriptions. And he's reasonably good on the psychology of blackmail.

But basically, this is Declan Hill 101 written for the FourFourTwo crowd.

And, having written what is probably my most succinct review ever, I shall leave it at that.

[Caramac McCarthy]

Football Book Review Thread

Just finished A Cultured Left Foot and Philippe Auclair's Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King. Both are well worth a read - especially the latter. Presents an analysis that makes a valiant attempt to wade through a lot of the pretension and cliche that coloured the British media's treatment of Cantona.

Anyhow, the real reason I post is to beg for some recommendations on Scottish Football books. Not sure this is the right forum or thread to ask, but here goes... Not particularly fussed about periods, players or teams, just good books.

Thanks in advance, folks.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

Simon Kuper's The Football Men has arrived. Looks like my summer reading season is about to start.

[sw2borshch]

Football Book Review Thread

Anyone read Roger Hermiston's "Clough & Revie" book yet? I half-expected a review in the latest WSC - maybe next month.

[Sash08]

Football Book Review Thread

Just ordered Kuper's book off amazon. While I was there, came across "The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper" by Jonathan Wilson, out next May. That should be rather good, I reckon.

[Tony C]

Football Book Review Thread

I finally got round to buying - because the paperback version has finally been published - and reading Jonathan Wilson's 'Anatomy of England' in the last week.

I think it's outstandingly good; beautifully written, wonderfully well researched, thoroughly engaging and consisitently thought provoking.

That's three outstanding books in a row from him. I think Wilson is pretty much the best football writer out there.

Apologies if Wilson's work has been analysed earlier in this thread - I haven't been through the back pages.

[Borracho]

Football Book Review Thread

Caramac McCarthy wrote:

Anyhow, the real reason I post is to beg for some recommendations on Scottish Football books. Not sure this is the right forum or thread to ask, but here goes... Not particularly fussed about periods, players or teams, just good books.

Thanks in advance, folks.

Archie Macpherson -- Flower Of Scotland?

Archie Macpherson -- Jock Stein

[Sundeporino]

Football Book Review Thread

"How Scotland Lost The World Cup" is a good un.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Football Book Review Thread

Archie Macpherson -- Jock Stein, good call ABII, an excellent read.

[Caramac McCarthy]

Football Book Review Thread

Analogue Bubblebath II wrote:

Caramac McCarthy wrote:

Anyhow, the real reason I post is to beg for some recommendations on Scottish Football books. Not sure this is the right forum or thread to ask, but here goes... Not particularly fussed about periods, players or teams, just good books.

Thanks in advance, folks.

Archie Macpherson -- Flower Of Scotland?

Archie Macpherson -- Jock Stein

Cheers for the reccos ABII - I've ordered the Jock Stein...

[Belhaven]

Football Book Review Thread

I'd recommend "Stramash: Tackling Scotland’s towns and teams" by Daniel Gray if you want to read about Scottish football. I bought it last autumn and enjoyed it thoroughly.

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

David Bennie's Not Playing for Celtic was good. It's written in the same vein as Fever Pitch and We Don't Know What We're Doing but has more in common with the former because there's a longer personal history up front and woven through the book. I wouldn't rate it as high as those two, but the book is still good. I also have Bennie's A Season in Hell, which is, if I remember correctly, a season spent traveling to Scotland's non-league grounds. I think this book was mentioned positively in a WSC review of another book, perhaps that somewhat recent one about anoraks. Since I haven't read A Season in Hell yet, I can't say much more than it exists. I hope to get to it in the next few months and can report back then if nobody else has said more by then.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

I'm about two-thirds of the way through the new Kuper. It's basically a collection of portraits of individual footballers (and coaches), lightly adapted from his FT columns. Some are good, some are great. There is no attempt to try to flesh out any greater meaning from it all in an introductory or concluding chapter (which given how dodgy some of the sense-making was in his last book with Szymanski, may be to the good). So, it's enjoyable without being consequential. Seven or eight out of ten.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

Maybe bump that up to a solid eight or eight point five. The 20-page meta-review of the autobiographies of Cole, Rooney, Lampard, Gerrard and Carragher is pure gold.