Football Book Review Thread

[danielmak]

I'm only 50 pages into Michael Chaplin's book Newcastle United Stole My Heart, but so far it is a very enjoyable read. He's a good writer. I'm not a Newcastle fan but Chaplin's memoir is football focused in a way that anyone who doesn't hate Newcastle will find interesting. Again, mostly personal narrative but he also weaves some interviews with ex-footballers, family members of ex-footballers, and some guys involved with management and weaves these parts in a literary way. It's a 350+ page book so I haven't made a dent and it could get take a nosedive as he gets older, but so far so good. I think I heard the book referenced by Harry Pearson on the WSC podcast a year or so back and glad I kept it on my radar.

[Jobi1]

Finally read Pat Nevin's The Accidental Footballer, which I'd been looking forward to getting onto for ages as I've always liked him as a pundit (and as a player, from the little bits I caught towards the end of his career). It's an interesting tale, being as he quite unusual in his approach to pursuing a professional career (in that he more or less didn't pursue at all, hence the book title). He is quite self-deprecating at times in terms of acknowledging how annoying he probably was to some people, but I have to be honest I found the constant reassertion of how he was never bothered about having a professional career began to get a bit wearing. And the way he goes to such great pains to stress how lucky or 'no big deal' some of the great things he did were, unfortunately do make it come across as humble bragging in places. I suppose we have to just read it at face value and assume he genuinely did feel that lucky/not bothered, but you can't help but feel that's not what's going on.

Also, while I hate to denigrate the work of fellow editorial professionals, I think this could have done with a far more robust editing process. I can't remember the last time I read a book where I was so constantly thinking about the lines I would have cut, or moved, or at least flagged as annoying repetition, to the point I began to find it a bit off-putting. (Am I now humble bragging?! Oops!) It's a good story and he genuinely is an interesting character, but as a book I felt it could have been an awful lot better. He's now got a follow-up covering the latter part of his playing career and unusual foray into executive management. Do I want to read it? Possibly, but I might not necessarily pursue it too vigorously.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Agree with so much of that review Jobi1 it's almost Partridge esque at times. I'm sure he's an honest chap but the bit about random black people, tapping their heart and mouthing "respect" at him because of his admirable stance over the the overt racism of the day, seemed at best, heavily exaggerated.

[Jobi1]

Oh yeah, I think I actually said "wtf!?" out loud at that bit. It definitely does stray perilously close to "some of my best friends are [minority]" territory in places. And some big Jeff Winter "the Kop gave me a standing ovation" energy.

[danielmak]

Two months later and I finally finished Chaplin's book that I mentioned a couple posts back. It was an enjoyable read. The book will certainly be of most interest to Newcastle United fans, but the writing is very good. Anyone who enjoys memoir blended with football stories should dig this. In short, the book is in the same orbit as Fever Pitch, Adrian Childs' book about West Brom, etc. Perhaps one difference is that Chaplin interviews various ex-Newcastle players, folks affiliated with the club, and people involved with youth football in the area. It's a good book. I'm on to a surfing book next that is about a variety of bohemians who end up in Indonesia but then will be back to another football book.

EDIT: I forgot to note that the version of the book I purchased includes an additional chapter to reflect on the new ownership. The new chapter reads like an add-on (a bit more match report and less memoir) but the chapter is worthwhile to see how he felt about being done with Ashley's ownership.

[tee rex]

After today's FA Cup news, there's a book I'd love to read ... but I don't know if it exists. If not, one of OTF's budding writers should claim it: one advance sale here, guaranteed.

The Replay ... "the definitive history of a great football tradition". Author: you. (Winner of William Hill Sports Book of the Year).

The FA Cup alone would provide a hundred stories, but you could add countless other competitions, domestic and international, with all kinds of chapters on topics like neutral grounds, multiple replays and fixture pile-ups, financial lifelines (sliding doors moments), and so on.

Just write it all down soonest, because it won't be long before the word "replay" will only be in history books.

[imp]

tee rex Nice idea. If it's been done, it's probably been done badly by Pitch. The key to making it work well would be to find new angles and conduct interviews with people involved, presuming they're still alive. The downside would be finding a publisher willing to finance a decent author's research and travel budget. First you'd have to convince them enough people were going to buy it to make it worth their while.

[danielmak]

I also wonder if some of this has been done in shorter form in the WSC book The Half Decent Football Book. It's more of an encyclopedia and I've only read into the letter "A" so I don't know how much they've dealt with fixture pile-up, multiple replays, and your other topics.

I also have Harry Pearson's Encyclopedia on the shelf but haven't cracked that one. I'd assume he might deal with some quirkier features of the FA Cup.

[danielmak]

Five+ years ago I picked up all of Tony Incenzo's ...to Wembley "personal reviews" of the FA Vase competition. It looks like he put out six of these. I finished the first one that covers 1982-1983. Comparing this zine (he uses the phrase "booklet") to some of the books that ground hope, I think this was more enjoyable. The length works well, the writing is more journalistic and tighter, and he does a good job putting the reader in the scene with quotes from fans, players, and club officials. Again, a bit more journalistic than literary. The one funny (odd?) move is there is a bit of big-shotting that happens with some name dropping (e.g., mentioning that he was interviewed by the BBC, talking about meeting up with club secretaries, viewing the final from the press box). But these moves don't take away from the overall quality. And on the plus-side he is able to get access to some interviews that have not often featured in some of the books I have read recently.

There are a number of these on ebay that don't sell for much if anyone is looking to take a trip down memory lane or if you're like me, and simply curious about unofficial accounts of cup competitions/looking to read some old zines. I'll probably jump into the issue for the next season and then get caught up on some other zines before coming back to the others in this series.

I just finished the 1983/84 FA Trophy zine. He uses the same general style for this one. These are enjoyable reads. I have to add a little qualifier about my comment above about some name-dropping. I thought Incenzo was a little older by the time he published these zines but in this one he writes about taking a break from studying at university to attend some of these trophy matches. From that standpoint, I'm impressed that he was able to coordinate to get quotes from so many different people.