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    #76
    Originally posted by imp View Post
    Some clever US academics from the Football Scholars Forum grilled me last night about this book, and the resulting discussion is here.
    Well, that's a bummer for me. I was on the email list but hadn't been able to join the past few sessions because of conflicts with my teaching schedule. I guess I got dumped from their email list. Of course, the conflict would have happened again since they keep doing these on Wednesdays and those days are never good for me, but it would have been nice to join that conversation.

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      #77
      I listened to the first 35 minutes or so this morning while in the gym (made a change from the usual raucous noise I motivate myself with). I haven't read the book but after listening intend to get it, if only to find out what the 12 games in question are.

      The podcast itself was - from what I've heard - strangely monologuish at times; I don't know if this is the normal format for this particular show, but it seemed at first a lot more staidish and less spontaneous than the kind of stuff I normally listen to. On the other hand, you get the chance to listen to people and their well-informed and developed opinions instead of a series of constant interruptions and irrelevant asides. However, the latter style is more dynamic by far. Not sure which I prefer.

      On growing up with football: many of us on here remember the days when the only way to follow what was going on was via the radio (or for some people here maybe it was the wireless!). Personally, I recall the days, especially for midweek games, when the first news I had of the result in the morning was when the Daily Express (my father's choice of morning newspaper) plopped through the letterbox and I was able to find out what had happened the previous evening. The Swindon Evening Advertiser would subsequently inform me of Swindon Town's progress in the League Cup. (Of almost equal importance in that paper was Swindon Robins speedway team, who won their only national championship back in 1967.) I suppose there would have been radio updates but my parents never had the radio (ok so my father called it the wireless) in the evening.





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        #78
        danielmak - sorry to hear that. If I'd had any idea, I'd have notified you beforehand.

        Sporting - thanks for taking the time to listen. I'm frankly amazed that anyone would. It's not really a podcast, as such, more the 'forum' described in its title, and I think specifically there as a research resource for sports science students and the like. You won't have got as far as the section where one participant somewhat takes me by surprise by bringing up a WSC article from 2010 when I apparently "eviscerated" his research (I think that's the word he used), and he wondered if I had an anti-academic bias. I looked the piece up afterwards and it was largely a re-cap of what I actually thought was a sound theory on football and happiness, with one admittedly unnecessary and snarky aside. Will drop him a note to apologise, if a little belatedly.

        With you on the radio/newspapers as prime media in the 70s. I miss that waiting part and not knowing, though it's still occasionally possible if you're in the right isolated place. Last night I forgot about the Stuttgart/Union Bundesliga play-off because it was on a pay-per-view platform, and got a weird kick out of watching the two minute highlights not knowing the score.

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          #79
          As imp noted, this isn't a podcast. Instead, it's merely a recording of a scholarly discussion. I think the best way to describe it is a book club for professors who research football (among other topics) and they invite an author as a guest speaker to the book club. Most of the participants are historians. Football (again) is either one of the topics they research or it is a way to understand history more generally. I have participated in a few of these, although I can't remember which ones at this point. A lot of the conversations focused more on historical stuff than fit my interests since (A) straight histories of anything tend not to interest me as much as cultural narratives that can get at some history and (B) I'm not a history professor. I didn't recognize many of the names listed so I think whoever took over the organizing might have lost some of the email addresses along the way so I wasn't alone in not knowing about imp's guest stint. But given the book club/academic combo the tone is going to be much more scholarly debate/longer answer/longer question focused. Jonathan Wilson was one of the previous guest speakers and I've been meaning to check out his session as well since he pre-dated my awareness of the group. I'll have to remember to d/l that one and imp's and listen next week during my commute to work.

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            #80
            I listened to the not-a-podcast last night and enjoyed the format of a discussion framed by what seemed to be a very earnest set of academics, especially when stacked up against what seems like an impressionistic and personal book. Today I’m going to attend the bookfair associated with the London Festival of Football Writing and hope to be able to pick up a copy there.

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              #81
              My programme yesterday evening was Zilina vs Ruzomberok, a couple of post-match beers and then 40 minutes of this recording. How much more exciting can Friday nights in Slovakia get?
              I enjoyed what I heard, including the courteousness of the discussion ; there was almost a 'no, after you' air about one or two of the questioners. Ian's answers then roamed quite freely, which brought in some interesting sub-themes. Much of these 40 minutes were MLS-based, and MLS is not something I know a lot about, so I felt like I learned something.

              I'm looking forward to coming back to the rest of it later in the weekend. Also wish I could have got to the Football Writing Festival today.

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                #82
                Thanks for listening, all of you. Furtho, I hope WSC had a copy at their stand.

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                  #83
                  They did and I bought one.

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                    #84
                    Published today to a doubtless unsuspecting Mediterranean reading public - the Italian translation. Much better cover than the original.

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                      #85
                      Good luck with that imp

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                        #86
                        To round off this thread once and for all, Unbound wrote to me last week saying that "The Quiet Fan is now out of stock and sales over the past year fall below the minimum threshold required for a reprint. As a result, we are reverting all rights in the book back to you". The digital book will also be removed from all platforms, so on the off-chance anyone was still planning to read it, you've got maybe a couple of weeks to buy an e-copy. I'm not planning to re-publish it. I only still have three copies for the archives/skip where my kids will dump all my shit when I'm dead. Plus a copy in Italian.

                        It's funny reading this thread back. I would never put myself through this again, or recommend it to any writer unless they had a ready-made audience guaranteed to hit the funding level within a very short time. I suppose I'm glad the book exists, but the world would not be a different place without it. I'd hoped to trigger a discussion about what constitutes 'being a fan' to counter the whole Hornby/Sky/loyalty & passion narrative, but it never happened. Possibly because the kind of fan who agrees with my overall theory is probably not the kind of fan who'd be arsed about having such a discussion.

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                          #87
                          I'm glad you wrote it, and was happy to support it.
                          Can't be sure I would have been quite so interested if you hadn't supported the Imps, mind.

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                            #88
                            I ordered the last copy on Amazon.

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                              #89
                              Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                              I ordered the last copy on Amazon.
                              That's great - I love that an old friend picked up the last copy.

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                                #90
                                I got it digitally before but want a real copy.

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                                  #91
                                  I really enjoyed it, as I wrote above. I don't know if they will send you the book in digital form (epub or PDF). If so, you could find a friend with graphic design skills to change the front page credits and put it back on Amazon and other digital sales sites or you could put it on your Ref blog and do a pay what you want. Even if you get a few people paying 5euro here and there, that's a slice of pizza.

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                                    #92
                                    Just buying kindle version. Tho the wheel keeps going around and around...

                                    Done.

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                                      #93
                                      I've just broke the bank and spent £2.20 more than normal for a book on my Kindle.

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                                        #94
                                        Have also contributed to the imp retirement fund.

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                                          #95
                                          Thank you, people - the e-book briefly scaled 'personal record' five-figure amazon rankings before it was pulled for good last night.

                                          Thanks to danielmak for the suggestion - will look into it. I think I have a copy of the ebook on my computer.

                                          I also discovered from Unbound how very, very limited the print run was, so if I ever become an internationally best-selling author from one of my other lucrative publishing ventures, you'll be minted.

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                                            #96
                                            Memory jogged by the resurfaced thread, I have bought and started a copy and am enjoying it very much so far, despite my respect for authority being rocked by OTF's man with the whistle outing himself early on as an inveterate abuser of officials from the other side of the touchline. While adding to The Quiet Fan's growing momentum as a sleeper hit to rival Stoner or the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, I haven't done anything for the retirement fund, having to go second hand to the collector's market for a physical copy.

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