Football Book Review Thread

[Sam]

Football Book Review Thread

It's not a review, but I had a fifteen-or-so minute chat with Jonathan Wilson about his latest book, Angels With Dirty Faces, a history of Argentine football. It's up as part of the latest episode of Hand Of Pod, which is here. If you really can't bear to sit through the stuff about Argentine football and just want to skip straight to the bit about the book about Argentine football, it's just over 45 minutes in if I remember rightly.

[imp]

Football Book Review Thread

Forgive me for not having the time to listen to the podcast - it looks like a beautifully bound book, but it's long, and there are only so many books left for me to read in my lifetime. Hand on heart, is it worth reading an Englishman's history of the Argentine game?

[Sam]

Football Book Review Thread

Having been party to a fair bit of the research he did for it, and read the first couple of chapters in draft form, I'd say so yes. If you'd rather read an Argentine's history of the Argentine game you'll be waiting a while, because no fucker seems to want to write a general overview like that.

There is, according to Wilson, a lot of social/political talk in the UK version which some readers might not feel is all that important. If you'd rather do without that then it might interest you to know that the US edition is around 35,000 words(!) shorter.

[Sam]

Football Book Review Thread

Argentine books on Argentine football history are all about one very specific bit of it, incidentally; the story of the Argentine national team at the 1958 World Cup; the history of players who played left back for the national team; the history of players who played centre back for the national team; the history of national team No. 5s; the history of national team No. 10s; a book detailing all San Lorenzo's results during the 1920s; a book detailing all San Lorenzo's results during the 1930s... and etc. and so on ad infinitum. That latter category is one that exists not just for the big Primera clubs for also for sides that not only have you lot never heard of, I've barely even heard of them, and yet publishers still seem to think they'll sell more than about five copies. It's absolutely astonishing. And yet Wilson's the first person in any language to write a book just aiming to tell the history of the Argentine game.

[imp]

Football Book Review Thread

Sam wrote: There is, according to Wilson, a lot of social/political talk in the UK version which some readers might not feel is all that important. If you'd rather do without that then it might interest you to know that the US edition is around 35,000 words(!) shorter.

Blimey no, that's the bit I'd rather read above all else. What a crappy decision by the US publisher.

Will put it on my Christmas list.

[Sam]

Football Book Review Thread

He also made an absolutely magnificent discovery about a protégé of Bela Guttman who's long (in Argentina and Uruguay) been hailed as an utter managerial genius and who it turns out might have just been a bit of a bullshitter who got lucky. There's some detail in that interview on the pod, during which Wilson describes the guy's life as 'basically the plot of The Producers but with football management.'

I went to dinner with him and a bunch of other football writers while he was in the process of unravelling it all (with some of our help, although my contribution was tiny), and I can't wait to read how it ended up in the book.

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

Well, I'm glad I stopped by this thread again because I had the US version sitting in my Amazon cart. I'll need to delete that and add the British version.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

2/3 of the way through the Wilson book and all I can say is you should stop reading whatever you're reading and read this instead. Best "national" history of football ever. Bar none.

A good national history of football does three things.

1) It makes you care about games that happened long ago - it puts you inside the action.

2) It tells the national story across multiple tracks: the teams, the players, the playing styles, the intrigues and chicanery and

3) It puts in a context of national history

John Foot's "Calcio" does that but it's a bit plodding. David Winner's "Brilliant Orange" does it all well, but he's really only talking about a 30-year period which was not very complicated. Wilson takes in over a century, and manages to do so through a lot of quite extraordinary interviews. It's an amazing piece of work. Only tiny complaint is it could use a couple of maps - especially one of Buenos Aires, to show where all the clubs are.

Wish I could read those other 35,000 words, too (I assume my knidle version is the US version).

[Anton Gramscescu]

Football Book Review Thread

Years late to this, but David Conn's Richer than God is great. It's Fever pitch written by an investigative journalist. I know that may not sound so good but trust me, it works.

I;m having a good run of football books lately. Even if I did have the misfortune of reading "American Huckster: The Chuck Blazer story" a couple of months back (actually not a bad book, just..."meh")

[Magik]

Football Book Review Thread

Anton Gramscescu wrote: Only tiny complaint is it could use a couple of maps - especially one of Buenos Aires, to show where all the clubs are.

Yes, every decent book should have map(s) inside. That's the first thing I check.

[imp]

Football Book Review Thread

I asked for a map in the UK edition of Rock n Roll Soccer, but the publisher forgot. Speaking of which, Magik, did it ever show up?

[delicatemoth]

Football Book Review Thread

Read Angels With Dirty Faces by Jonathan Wilson. Having been disappointed by his books on Eastern European football (skimpy) and football tactics (awkward writing) I was a little wary, especially as the opening chapter rather portentously sets out his intention to illustrate Argentine history with football.

No worries. It's a terrific read, the book achieves his stated aim and more. Loads and loads of information, which is always what I crave from books like this and which is so often missing. The entwining of social/political/sporting history is fascinating and very well done. Unless an Argentine comes along and tells me he's got it all wrong I think I have to agree with Anton's comment:-

Best "national" history of football ever

(that I've read, anyway).

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

The Howler magazine has started a book club. I don't really know what that means other than two features that were very clear: (1) they will do some features on the podcast about the book chosen each month and (2) they will ask the author to do an interview if s/he is still alive. But they framed this new feature of the magazine/website with a story about football literature. I haven't read it yet but here is the link:
https://whatahowler.com/reading-the-game-tracing-the-evolution-of-soccer-literature-d994e61da6dd#.nyrdanjea

[rick derris]

Football Book Review Thread

does howler have any link with blizzard?

[danielmak]

Football Book Review Thread

rick derris wrote: does howler have any link with blizzard?

No. Different publication. Howler is a US-based magazine but they have done what a lot of magazines do these days: weekly email blast, podcasts (I think they are up to 4 or 5 podcasts now), and some web/blog presence. Howler seems to fit more with the wave of football magazines that have come out in the past few years that are heavily design focused, whereas Blizzard is more focused on long-form journalism (more or less). But no connection between the two.

[ursus arctos]

Football Book Review Thread

I'm tangentially involved with Howler, and danielmak is right. They are much more focused on graphic design than The Blizzard, though the kind of pieces one will see in the two publications are not that different (once one accounts for Howler's understandably greater focus on North America). Howler is also much more into "digital" than The Blizzard.

There is also some overlap in the people whose work will appear in the two publications, reflecting the current reality of all kinds of journalism, in which one needs to write for multiple outlets in order to make a living.

[imp]

Football Book Review Thread

I've just read Jonathon Wilson's very thorough Brian Clough biography, and really enjoyed it from first page to last. Haven't read any of the other Clough books (all of which are cited in various parts of the Wilson book), so I don't know what this one adds that the others didn't have. Maybe this was more of a retrospective overview.

[tee rex]

Football Book Review Thread

imp wrote: WSC's Doug Cheeseman and occasional contributor Ian Preece's 'Heyday of the Football Annual' (as advertised in the current edition of the magazine) is a beautifully designed and absorbingly written tome. Interview here at The Inside Left with Preece, in which (I think) I'm proud to be described as a "WSC old-timer".

I have picked this up from the library (with apologies to impoverished authors) and it is very enjoyable. The kind of book that you don't just read, but caress and fondle.

[gloveguy]

Football Book Review Thread

I had a piece in one of the early issue of Howler (which Sam very kindly and expertly edited for me), and was also a guest on one of the podcasts. That's the kind of thing I was supposed to promote at the time, in places like this, but I hate doing that, so I didn't. Very good magazine though, even if it is *so* over-designed at times that it's difficult to actually read.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Football Book Review Thread

Sam wrote: Wilson's the first person in any language to write a book just aiming to tell the history of the Argentine game.

As promotional claims go this one seems slightly exaggerated:

[MiserableOldGit]

Football Book Review Thread

It's an old book now but I remember buying Bill Buford's Among The Thugs after reading a review of it in The Guardian. An American jounalist in Britain in the 1980s is baffled by the difference in crowd behaviour between England and the US, where supporters of both teams sit together without any physical animosity.

Buford gatecrashes a group of Manchester United supporters, some of whose alcohol consumption reaches almost biologically impossible levels. Of course, there are the cobvious examinations of hooliganism but also a fair spattering of humour. Mainly though, it is a fascinating insight into a prevailing attitude which we can only hope will never return. Buford also travels with the England supporters to the notorious 1990 World Cup matches.

The book will be of great interest to Morrissey fans because it will become obvious that he lifted one chapter as the inspiration for his song, National Front Disco.

[imp]

Football Book Review Thread

I hear Len Shackleton's got a book out...

[Sam]

Football Book Review Thread

Vulgarian Visigoth wrote:

Wilson's the first person in any language to write a book just aiming to tell the history of the Argentine game.

As promotional claims go this one seems slightly exaggerated:

At least the first two of those are just going to be statistical rundowns (they're supplements from, respectively, a magazine and a newspaper, rather than books), and I suspect the fourth as well in large part. The Bayer one is apparently very good, but like many others seems, from the reviews I've seen, to be a very detailed look into how each and every club in the Buenos Aires area was founded, got its name and nickname etc. It's not really the kind of thing a non-obsessive would necessarily be interested in reading.

[Sundeporino]

Football Book Review Thread

Just started Steve Tongues "Turf Wars" which is a history of London pro football. It's the 30s now and it's OK so far if a trifle dry. Not enough gossip. Hopefully it livens up with the swinging 60s and its consequences.
Apologies if he gets on here. Last time I said owt like that John Foot appeared to message me concerning his Calcio book.

[gloveguy]

Football Book Review Thread

The lovely people at 'Put Niels in Goal' have given my book an overwhelmingly good review, which even includes a picture of my dog. So I'm self-promoting here, for the second time in three years, in the hopes that some of you will buy multiple copies for everyone you know or might someday know.

https://www.putnielsingoal.com/single-post/SMALL-TIME