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    Imlach's book is awesome. His writing flows so effortlessly across time and space between the personal and the political. When he is writing about Sweden 1958, for example, you feel you are right there; a few minutes later you're back in Lossiemouth or on the Nottingham Forest training ground.

    My favourite section is on the war matches played in Elgin: Stan Matthews, Bill Shankley, Stan Mortensen. The lives of the wives, stuck in an unequal marriage to husbands with oppressive professional contracts, are also captured with empathy.

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      Originally posted by Sam View Post
      I realise I've said this before, but the Argentina book is superb, and isn't structured the same way as the England one. It's a lot more Behind the Curtain-like. I would recommend getting the second edition as there were one or two small errors in the first that should have been tidied up by the new one, and getting the UK edition if you can as it's substantially fuller than the US one.
      Finally got round to this. Definitely the best account of the 1958-1978 period that I have read, and fair to the greatness of the 1978 achievement whilst acknowledging that the team had its fair share of gamesmanship, such as Kempes doing a Suarez, handball on the line, against Hungary. The book also references this excellent goal from 1973

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TNHyGVyqXI0

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        Originally posted by sw2bureau View Post
        Bought, read and thoroughly enjoyed Roger Hermiston's "Clough & Revie" book last week, the stuff about old Middlesbrough being particularly enjoyable for me - but there's a whole lot more to it than that.
        I'm really enjoying this so far. Halfway through (they've stopped playing, started managing), which is about the point where a lesser, lazier book would start. Recycling the well-known stories of Clough and Revie would be easy, but Hermiston gets off the internet and chases up dozens of former players and others who knew them. Some would have passed away since, so the book was probably written just in time.

        By going back before they were managers, Revie's reputation gets revised more positively. He comes across as a decent human being, before he drank the potion and transformed into "dirty Leeds".

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          Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
          Here's my list of 'goalkeeper books' I've read

          Trautmann's Journey - Catrine Clay
          More Than Somewhat - Bruce Grobbelaar
          An Autobiography - Pat Jennings
          the Boy Who Wanted to Fly - Don Mullan
          the Incredible Adventures of the Unstoppable Keeper - Lutz Pfannenstiel
          The Keeper of Dreams - Ronald Reng
          A Life too Short - Ronald Reng
          The Binman Chronicles - Neville Southall
          Lost in France - Spencer Vignes
          Behind the Network - Bob Wilson
          The Outsider- A History of the Goalkeeper - Jonathan Wilson

          Recommendations welcome. Also if anyone wants to rehome books by or about goalkeepers to a loving bookshelf then I'm happy to take them.
          This is tremendously gauche of me, but, well, imp seems to have liked it:

          http://www.wsc.co.uk/reviews/64-Play...386-small-time

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            OK, gloveguy, I will try and track that down. Don't apologise for the gaucheness.

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              I just finished Steve Leach's book, Conference Season. The book was published in 2014. Four years from a publication date is about as close as I can get in terms of reading for pleasure. Usually I'm about 10+ years behind. The book covers the 2012-13 Conference season and Leach visits all 24 grounds. He frames the book by discussing how he became a Manchester City fan as a kid but has become disillusioned with the club after the new regime purchased the club and by discussing an early exposure to non-league football in the mid-1950s (or clubs that were in the lower division that would eventually fall down the pyramid). Each chapter follows a similar structure: a description of his journey to the city where the game is happening, some information about the city itself, some discussion of the club and its history, some discussion of the stadium and it's feel as well as its amenities, a short match report, and some concluding reflection about the overall experience of the match/where the team might be headed. He integrates local news reports and non-league publications.

              In general, I found the book to be an enjoyable read. I live in the US. Although I have heard of many of the teams discussed, I have only seen a few play in televised FA Cup matches and/or read about the sides in WSC. I have written before that I tend to be more interested in football books that can blend a focus on the culture of football, travel writing, and fan's experiences versus club histories or player/manager biographies so this book kind of checks most of those boxes. The writing is less literary than some of the books I have enjoyed most (e.g., Parkes, Pearson, and Davies come to mind), but I liked the general structure and was able to learn a bit about the clubs and their home cities. If you know a lot about smaller sides/non-league football then the book probably won't offer much new information, but for me it was a good read during my commute to/from work the past few weeks.

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                Passion of the People? Football in South America by Tony Mason (1995) - good on the history and sociology of the game, especially up to 1958. A bit superficial on post-1958 World Cups (1982 is ignored completely). Favours Pele over Maradona, so will displease some.

                Out of His Skin by Dave Hill (2001 WSC edition) - has more power to shock now than it did then because it must be comprehensible to anyone under 35 that, for well over a decade, commentators and officials would just look the other way when a large crowd was racially abusing a player. The comments by Grobbelaar and Tommy Smith are unsurprising but impossible to excuse by context or "it was part of his background." But again the more decent players were guilty of looking the other way. Barnes being scapegoated for, say, Euro 88 would be less likely today but not impossible, as we might have seen something not dissimilar happen to Raheem Sterling if England had met a good team earlier in the 2018 KO stages. Very good chapter on Liverpool v Everton games in the 1987-88 season and the BBC ignoring the racism in the one it showed live; infact it's much worse than that, with pundits praising the traditional good-natured banter of the fans, as if the cameras were at a totally different, fictional event.
                Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 31-07-2018, 20:53.

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                  So I finished Pavel is a Geordie last night. If you're going to read it, be prepared for stream of consciousness writing which goes into some strange tangents. The last three chapters are filler - two are the 'greatest teams I played with' cliches and one is all about how a coach he was working with at the time of writing should be given a job in the Premier League and slagging off Mike Ashley.

                  Some highlights:
                  Pep Guardiola probably used nandrolone (Pavel certainly hints at this)
                  His hatred of Kenny Dalglish is quite amusing in its vitriol
                  Some insights into Kevin Keegan's management style
                  There's some throwaway bathos when he talks about his favourite music and such, and how he was disappointed when he went to a Chris Rea concert. He then adds as an aside that he also went to see The Lighthouse Family once, which just felt hilariously inconsequential.

                  It's hard to read the book without feeling a sense of poignancy, given that he died suddenly the year after it was published.

                  Lowlights:
                  There's lots of 'the banter was great', 'he's a great guy' etc etc about players
                  There could have been more order and structure to his story - he mentions not playing at Euro 96 several times, but doesn't talk about his international career in any detail.

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                    Some highlights:
                    Pep Guardiola probably used nandrolone (Pavel certainly hints at this)
                    Hardly the revelation of the century, given Guardiola tested positive for nandrolone in 2001.

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                      PT, does Srnicek's book give much space to his season and a half at Wednesday?

                      Bought Terry Curran's autobiography for 99p from a charity shop today. When it came out a few years back I assumed it was going to be a "PC, what's that all about" kind of affair but then ad hoc gave it a positive review in WSC so it's worth a go. Thought the layout looked rather familiar and indeed it's from the same publishers as Brian Laws's book.

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                        Originally posted by Sam View Post
                        Hardly the revelation of the century, given Guardiola tested positive for nandrolone in 2001.
                        He was subsequently cleared though. Pavel implies he shouldn't have been and that he used it at Barcelona.

                        @longeared Short answer: no

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                          I’ve just ordered Wembley Wonders, the story of Bristol City’s 1986 Freight Rover Trophy final win which was the first game I ever attended. I’m looking forward to reading the interviews with my uncle who played in the game and his teammates including David Moyes, Keith Curle and Alan Walsh.

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                            Well, I've been meaning to write something substantive about Ian Plenderleith's The Quiet Fan and time just keeps getting away from me. This is the best I can do with a holiday approaching in the US and a hectic travel schedule. A few months back I was talking with a work colleague who reads a lot of history and loves autobiographies of "important" historical figures. I told him that autobiographies aren't really my thing, but upon reflection I realize that I have read a lot of autobiographical books in recent years. All use football as an entry point into a memoir. I don't know if Ian would go with the memoir tag, but he's certainly using football to reflect on his life and his life to reflect on football. Of course, post Fever Pitch there have been a lot of books that fit this genre but good storytelling will separate (for me, at least) what's worth some attention and what seems to just use first person narrative.

                            There's a point early in the book where Ian notes that there are range of industries that want us to think that football is very important and he's critical of that marketing/discourse. And on the other end of the spectrum we have people who think football is important because the sport is the context for joining a gang. But really this is a book about football being important. It's not important in the ways that the sport is marketed or because the stadium is a place where people can beat on one another. Instead, football becomes a context for reflecting on personal experience, local and regional geographic nuances, social and community connection. It is also an opportunity for some level of escape (even in times of personal or national or international tragedies). And football provides a context for learning about one's own identity: what you believe in, how you try on a different sense of self (here I am thinking about his discussion of feeling Scottish but Scots viewing him as English).

                            The other thing that stands out to me about this book is that holding on to different footballing experiences provides a lens to reflect on one's past. For example, having old programmes helps inspire memories about football experiences and then opens a door to other personal memories and stories. Of course, football and football artifacts aren't the only tools to help with storytelling (photos, scrapbooks, other kinds of gifts that people hold onto all serve the same purpose) but for a football fan and for a football writer, the junk that accumulates is really a collection of storytelling aids versus just being junk in the attic.

                            In the end, I really enjoyed reading this book. I spend way too much time watching football and talking with other people about football. I could care less about "transfer deadline day" or which player is sponsored by which shoe company (the kind of big football that Ian identifies as marketed as important), but football is important at the level of everyday life for me. This book helps narrate how that level of importance takes shape for him and by extension for many other (quiet) football fans. I'm sure I have more to say about the book and the chapters that make up the book but I've been buried with work and I'm a bit fried. Hopefully others will chime in about the book and I'll add to that discussion.

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                              Many thanks for that, dm. PM for you.

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                                I reviewed Barney Ronay's new book about the 2018 World Cup here.

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                                  I have a mildly embittered rant here about the economics of being a largely unknown author of football books.

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                                    Thanks danielmak for the review (and thanks even more, Ian, for the book) . I read imp's book just before Xmas and enjoyed it very much. It's definitely a memoir - I'd even call it an autobiography and it's a good autobiography to boot. There were a couple of chapters which didn't really work, I felt, but most of them really did. I'm also not sure to what extent "knowing" imp and a reasonable amount about the course of his life especially over the last 20 years provided a framework for me to get started with the book or if it would have been just as easy to get along with without that foundation. No way I can know.

                                    I applaud you, Ian, for writing it and for going through all the hassle you needed to to get it published. I'm very glad you did. Thanks.

                                    Yours, man with an OTF avatar drawn by Tim Bastard

                                    PS a book on your refereeing experience would be fucking great too. If you're looking for the next project

                                    Comment


                                      Well worth reading



                                      ‘In 1981 a young semi-professional [soccer player] – known as ‘Imam Beckenbauer’ for his piety and his dominant style of play – has his career cut short after a confrontation with Turkey’s military junta. His name was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and three decades later he is Turkey’s most powerful ruler since Ataturk….’

                                      Turkey is a nation obsessed with soccer From the flares which cover the stadium with multi-coloured smoke and often bring play to a halt, to the ‘conductors’ - ultras who lead the ‘walls of sound’ at matches, Turkish soccer has always been an awesome spectacle. And yet, in this politically fraught country, caught between the Middle East and the West, football has also always been so much more. From the fan groups resisting the government in the streets and stands, to ambitious politicians embroiling clubs in Machiavellian shenanigans, football in Turkey is a site of power, anger, and resistance.

                                      Journalist and football obsessive Patrick Keddie takes us on a wild journey through Turkey’s role in the world’s most popular game. He travels from the streets of Istanbul, where fans dodge tear gas and water cannons, to the plains of Anatolia, where women are fighting for their rights to wear shorts and play sports. He meets a gay referee facing death threats, Syrian soccer players trying to piece together their shattered dreams, and Kurdish teams struggling to play soccer amid war. ‘The Passion’ also tells the story of the biggest match-fixing scandal in European soccer and sketches its murky connections to the country’s leadership. In doing so he lifts the lid on a rarely glimpsed side of modern Turkey.

                                      Funny, touching and beautifully observed, this is the story of Turkey as we have never seen it before.

                                      Comment


                                        Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
                                        I applaud you, Ian, for writing it and for going through all the hassle you needed to to get it published. I'm very glad you did. Thanks.

                                        Yours, man with an OTF avatar drawn by Tim Bastard

                                        PS a book on your refereeing experience would be fucking great too. If you're looking for the next project
                                        Cheers, andy - really glad you enjoyed it (and mildly curious as to which two chapters you thought didn't quite work - not because I want to literarily duke it out with you, but wonder if they coincide with a couple of chapters I was unsure about myself).

                                        I would love to do a refereeing book, but guess what, "refereeing books don't sell", according to The Industry. I should probably give it a try, though.

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                                          Yes, really enjoyed Imp's book - he's unblinkingly honest about himself and his relationships (not only with football) and it makes for an insightful and, at times, appropriately uncomfortable read.

                                          Otherwise I recently read Tim Rich's 'Caught Beneath The Landslide', his look back at Manchester City in the 1990's. Very entertaining piece of work which I have reviewed in the new WSC.

                                          Comment


                                            Originally posted by Tony C View Post
                                            Yes, really enjoyed Imp's book - he's unblinkingly honest about himself and his relationships (not only with football) and it makes for an insightful and, at times, appropriately uncomfortable read.

                                            Otherwise I recently read Tim Rich's 'Caught Beneath The Landslide', his look back at Manchester City in the 1990's. Very entertaining piece of work which I have reviewed in the new WSC.
                                            Was there much about the Bury game in 1998, Tony? It features heavily in...

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                                              Things Can Only Get Better: Bury's mid-90s rise under Stan Ternent, which I launched earlier today.

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                                                A successful launch event at Gigg on Saturday with Tony Rigby, Ian Hughes, David Pugh, Lee Bracey and Andy Woodward.

                                                https://twitter.com/jamesisaburyfan/...86635370565632

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                                                  I'm intrigued to see Bruce Grobbelaar has a new biography reviewed in the latest WSC. I read the autobiography he put out in the 80s where he justifies his racist comments to team-mates as just banter and how some black players laughed at his racist jokes while other needed to get over themselves. I'd like to read this biography to see if he feels the same way (or dares to put those opinions in print 30 years later)

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                                                    Good work, and good luck with the new book Giggler. Is it on Kindle?

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