Wings of a Sparrowby Dougie Brimson Published by eBookPartnership.com 2012, £1.90 (Kindle) ASIN: B00AFXLKRO [I] wonder how many Southampton fans havefantasized about a large lottery win in the past two years – one that could see them elbow aside the various suitors bidding for control of rivals Portsmouth, promptly running the club even further into the ground on assuming ownership of the Fratton Parkers - selling off assets and wreaking havoc from within.
Clough biographies have tended to be personal recollections by journalists who knew or were used by
the great man at the time like Duncan Hamilton or Tony Francis. Wilson is a reporter from
Sunderland who now writes for the Guardian and this claims to be the first full biography
of Clough from birth to death.
Records must have broken this year as a plethora of Forest books hit the shelves – the postman
serving the LTLF offices is currently taking three months off with a crippled spine from carrying
all the review copies that have dropped through our letterbox in the last few months. But aside
from giving postal workers back problems, what purpose are all these books serving?
Addicted by Tony Adams Published by Willow 1999, prices vary ISBN: 978-0002187954 [H]aving read many footballer's autobiographies over the years, few are seldom worth picking up for a second read. Tony Adams' account of his life as a professional footballer of over 17 years with Arsenal and England, Addicted, is one of the exceptions to that rule.
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby Published by Penguin as a Penguin Modern Classic 2012, £8.99 ISBN: 9780141391816 It's a Friday night at the New Theatre in Oxford, and an appreciative round of applause ends Fever Pitch the play, a 90 minute soliloquy performed admirably by James Kermack. The production is an easy watch – the one-man format is faithful to the original book but somehow lacks ambition – and the audience, consisting of well-to-do folk in nice coats and a sprinkling of young men in Arsenal shirts, chuckle throughout.
TheLong Wayby A. E. Greb Published by Wholepoint Publications June 2012,£1.50 ASIN: B008A3BLGG A week away from this season's FA Cup third round, it seems appropriate to look back to A. E. Greb's account of the 2011-12 competition, published in the Summer as an eBook, a collection of the blog posts which accompanied his ten month peregrinations and which concluded with Chelsea's win over Liverpool in May (at this point I'll admit that the result of that particular encounter had escaped me – and this from a boy who could at one point tell you all the showpiece occasion's goal.
I am the Secret Footballer Published by Guardian Books July 2012, £7.99 ISBN: 9780852653081 The Guardian's decision to gather together their Secret Footballer columns into this new book appears to have been handsomely vindicated on first glance; sitting as thevolume does atop their online bookshop chart as well as prominently on the shelves of Britain's retailers.
Moneyball by Michael Lewis Published by W. W. Norton 2004, £9.99 ISBN: 978-0-393-05765-2 Unless
you've spent the last year living under a rock or in Andy Carroll's armpit, you're sure to have
heard of Moneyball. Either you've read the seminal Michael Lewis book, seen the Brad Pitt film
adaptation, or read one of the torrent of blogs, articles, and sundry internet scoffings about the
statistics based system developed by General Manager Billy Beane for acquiring undervalued talent
for his Oakland A's Major League Baseball team.
The Smell of Football by Mick 'Baz' Rathbone Published by Vision Sports Publishing July 2011,
£12.99 ISBN: 978-1907637148 I have a regular correspondent who likes to talk football. A
Liverpool die-hard, man of Shrewsbury, our exchanges normally concern the current wiles of his
personal idol, Rafael Benitez, or his affection for his hometown 'Salop!
Larry Lloyd's Hard Man: Hard Game is one of the best accounts of Forest's golden years
that I have read. I think Lloyd benefits hugely from having a female ghost writer. At the risk of
being sexist, it just allows one of the hardest men I have ever met to admit to all sorts of things
that I am not sure he would if he'd have played it safe and used a male sports journalist to help
him write the book [.
I have often said "the referee is bought" during football games to the amusement of many friends. It is funny, but I have always meant it as only half a joke; there is no doubt that the bribing of referees in football matches has happened at the highest level. Notable examples are the semifinal of the UEFA Cup in 1984, where Anderlecht had paid the referee, who gave them a dubious penalty and
During the latter stages of the World Cup I was turning the pages of Barça: A People's
Passion. Considering the fact that nearly half of the players on the field in the final were
current or former Barcelona players and that the majority of the cup-winning Spanish team were
Barcelona players playing in Barcelona's formation du jour, my choice of reading material
seemed inspired.
A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke by Ronald Reng Published by Yellow Jersey 2011,
£8.99 ISBN: 9780224091664 Like all the best sports books, Ronald Reng's A Life Too Short is about
so much more than sport. The biography of Robert Enke, the German goalkeeper who committed
suicide in 2009, it is a quiet yet powerful tribute to a young man ripped apart by clinical
depression.
Our latest book review comes from Tom Bodell, editor of Vital Watford. Tom can be followed on
Twitter at @TBBodell and here casts his eye on the autobiography of Richard Lee, one time Hornet
and now a Bee. Graduation: Life Lessons of a Professional Footballer By Richard Lee Published by
Bennion Kearny August 2010, £9.
Here, in the latest of our book reviews, Ben Summers takes a look at Barney Ronay's The Manager, a
book which surely deserves more than its two current stars on Amazon. The Manager: The Absurd
Ascent of the Most Important Man in Football By Barney Ronay Published by Sphere August 2010,
£8.99, ISBN: 9780751542790 This book's incongruous appearance in Fabio Capello's 2010 World Cup
luggage leant it a curious subplot that could easily have been incorporated into the book itself.
Only a Game: The Diary of a Professional Footballer By Eamon Dunphy Published by Penguin (second
edition) July 1998, £8.99, ISBN: 9780140102901 Left Foot in the Grave By Garry Nelson Published by
CollinsWillow August 1998, available from 1p, ISBN: 9780002187749 [E]veryone wants to be a
footballer. I still do, and I'm 37.
There is an argument to be made that Gordon Smith is the forgotten giant of Scottish football.
Although his memory lives on with those lucky enough to have seen him play, recognition for his
exploits as a player and for his unique acheivements seems to have slipped away.
Yet his was a remarkable career: five league championships with Hibs, Hearts and Dundee.
Martin O'Neill: The Biography by Simon Moss (John Blake Publishing) It's a tricky thing, writing an
unauthorised biography. How do you pitch it? Do you go for the muckraking reportage of rumour and
innuendo like Kitty Kelley or Albert Goldman? Or just use existing sources to build a portrait of
the subject.
Today, this blog is featuring a new book - "Planeta do Futebol: do Brasil a fronteira
afega"("Football Planet: from Brazil to Afghan" in English, pictured above) written Brazilian
football journalist Renato Andreão
Renato, as you can remember, was the kind gentleman who conducted my email interview with S.
History fascinates me, combine history with footy and well it doesn't get much better than that
really. For any fan of the beautiful game, The Rules of Association Football 1863 is a must read
that takes one back to the simple yet amazingly crucial rules that built the foundation for the
modern game.
It's about time we reviewed something you can visit our shop to see what we recommend. This time
it's the cerebral 'Inverting the Pyramid' by Jonathan Wilson the thinking man's football book. Read
one to see what we thought...
This is not your average football book, let's get that clear.
Let's get this straight. There is the game. The one that involves 22 players dribbling, passing,
and shooting, trying to get past their opponents to stick the ball in the back of the net. It is a
game of individual skill and vision or small bits of...
Anyone who reads Advantage Played regularly knows one thing about me, I really don't like David
Beckham. The "ultimate professional" has never been a true professional and his actions on and off
the field have proven that to every Major League Soccer fan.
A Professional Unprofessional
When exactly did I realize Beckham was nothing more than a passive aggressive punk?
In a book that is sure to rile some feathers of the biggest names in the MLS, Grant Wahl of Sports
Illustrated has written the probable book of the summer in his all telling book, The Beckham
Experiment. Hopefully I will pick up the book today and have it read by sometime next week, but
[...]
Serie B Focus: History Made As Sassuolo Wins League And Promotion is a post from: Serie A Weekly Serie B Focus: History Made As Sassuolo Wins League And Promotion is a post from: Serie A Weekly If you were visiting Parma (for cheese undoubtedly) and decided to drive to Bologna (for some delicious meats to go with the cheese), you would take the A1 southeast, driving by smaller Italian cities like.
The Chairman's Daughter by Ian Plenderleith 2012, £3.09 ASIN: B008K25IWA There are many good football books, but few good football novels. While baseball in particular has featured heavily in the world of American Letters, the national game in England and Scotland has been provided with little literary lore.
Orientation by Adam Michie Published by Chequered Flag Publishing 2012, £11.99 ISBN: 978-0-9569460-1-0 Our second book review of the week see Leyton Orient supporter Chris Roberts, a recent contributor to our Great Teams series, run the rule over Adam Michie's Orientation. Adam can be followed on Twitter at @flicksandtricks Adam Michie describes himself as a Tottenham Hotspur fan who has found room in his heart for Leyton Orient.
The Away End by Dean Mansell Published by CreateSpace June 2012 £6.95 ISBN: 978-1477654262 Our
Book Reviews Week draws to a close with regular contributor Craig Telfer providing his thoughts on
a book brought to us by Chesterfield fan and blogger Dean Mansell along with a preface from that
doyen of Yorkshire and North Derbsyhire football correspondents, Alan Biggs.
50 Teams that Mattered by David Hartrick Published by Ockley Books July 2011, £13.99 (eBook:
£7.99) Fortunes for football blogging have been immensely fluid over the past 12 months or so.
While a number of excellent platforms have finally called it a day, other writers have branched
out to mainstream media and publications like The Blizzard, while the predicted emergence of
'megablogs' featuring a range of the internet's best has come to full fruition.
The Far Corner: A Mazy Dribble through North-East Football by Harry Pearson Published by Little,
Brown and Company October 1994 ISBN: 978-0-316-91189-4 Harry Pearson is a Billy Bragg lookalike and
Guardian journalist with the misfortune to have been born in a village near Middlesbrough called
Great Ayrton, whose most well-known son is the explorer Captain James Cook.
The Very Best of Pitch Invasion edited by Tom Dunmore Published by Pitch Invasion Press December
2011, $5.99 ISBN: 978-0615546834 Recent weeks have seemed pivotal ones for the football
blogosphere. Three prominent general blogs, Les Rosbifs, European Football Weekends and The
Equaliser have all decided to call it a day while pioneering club websites Viva Rovers and Boy from
Brazil have also stepped aside; the circumstances behind the latter events having been chronicled
in these pages.
Sport Italia by Simon Martin Published by I. B. Tauris August 2011, £22.50, ISBN: 9781845118204
If anyone had any doubt about sport's ability to warp society, Simon Martin's sumptuous Sport
Italia will leave them without arguments. A nation, remember, only since 1861; Italy has survived
its first one and a half centuries by following the path described in Benedict Anderson's
influential book, Imagined Communities – and sport has played an integral part in that.
Viewed strictly on its merits as a work of fiction, Michael Maddox's novel The Ten Shirt: How
The United States National Soccer Team (Might Have) Won The 1982 World Cup leaves a lot to be
desired. Perhaps as a function of driving towards its predetermined climax within its 319 pages,
too many characters are introduced only to be thinly drawn and too many story lines are left
unexplored.
Below is a book review of Steve Wilson's newly released book, "The Boys from Little
Mexico". Our blogger Tim Patterson wrote the review. We are recommending this book for readers
on a high school grade level and above. Following the review below are the details on how you can
win a FREE autographed copy of "The Boys from Little Mexico".
Blank slate. Ramble time? Or a Larry King-style stream of consciousness collection of random
thoughts? More likely neither, but let's see how a directionless late night post goes... As a
fan...
A new semi regular column is going up soon here on the 2-6. The twentysixpanels book review will
look at the biographies, case studies and novels that have defined the world of football and soccer
through the decades. It will be a way for readers to familiarize themselves on the better books on
soccer around the world.
