Book Reviews - Most popular for 2010
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This weekend football authors Simon Kuper and David Goldblatt published the kind of book reviews
that warm an author's heart.
"Nobody understands the background to African soccer better than the Italian-American historian
Peter Alegi," writes Kuper in the Financial Times.
Truly Reds does not normally do book reviews. Although many Manchester United ones go on the market
each year, their reviews are normally left to specialist websites.There is the occasional
one...
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Book Review: Feet of the Chameleon by Ian Hawkey
Every two years, managers from across the continent seem to join forces in their criticism of that
which has become the most despised competition in European football: the African Cup of Nations.
Being deprived of some of their best players for up to a month in the middle of the season can have
a highly unnerving effect on managers, particularly if results start going against them during that
period.
For those of you interesed in reading good soccer related material I suggested reading Soccernomics
a few weeks ago (Sam also previously recommended it in a post a while back). Since soccer related
books seem to be popping up with some frequency, mostly due to World Cup excitement, I've been
searching for US and MLS related material to share and I've found a few good ones.
Book Review: Great Face for Radio by John Anderson
It is hard not to envy John Anderson. For years his job involved travelling all over the world to
watch some of the top sporting events of our lifetime: Olympics, World Cups, major championships,
big boxing fights, you name it and he probably was there.
I can still recall my fascination when I first came across a copy of When Saturday Comes magazine
sometime in the early nineties and saw that it dedicated two pages to listing the contact details
of all the fanzines that were around. All clubs had at least one of these home-made magazines that
gave a voice to fans who at the time were still considered as little more than a nuisance.
The Manager by Barney RonayBarney Ronay is a difficult one to pin down. A senior sports writer for the Guardian, he is often
the one to pick up ackward stories - a recent piece went by the title 'Should Sepp Blatter Lock
Himself in a Cupboard - and in all fairness he rarely writes anything that isn't interesting.
There is something exciting about the thought of moving to an exotic new country and leaving
everything behind. Even the most breathtaking of sights can be rendered unremarkable through
familiarity. It is this desire to break free from the hold of everyday life that makes the dream of
a drastic change seem so enticing.
Those who have only been following football only over the past two decades will find it hard to
believe, such is the hype around the game, but there was a time when it was significantly harder to
follow your team. Football fans were treated as louts whose working class background automatically
meant little or no intellectual faculties.
Imagine sitting, say, on a train or in a pub. You're having a relaxing chat about football with one
of your best mates. He's brought along a couple of other people, you're introduced and get on
really well with them. The conversation and the beer flows, a good time is had by all. It's a [...]
A few weeks ago I wrote a review of Beau Dure's "Long Range Goals". Both Dure's book and Gary
Hopkins' "Star Spangles Soccer" cover the growth and expansion of Major League Soccer but Hopkins
expands his reach to include the growth of the game in America as a whole. While Dure focused on
Major League Soccer's history, Hopkins reels in the development and future growth of the American
game in economic, social, and athletic terms.
Will You Manage?: The Necessary Skills to be a Top Gaffer by Musa OkwongaEveryone thinks he's a coach these days. There's no way you can watch a game without coming across
someone overly eager to instruct the manager what he should do and tell all those who will listen
that he got hs tactics wrong.
Posted by Jared Montz
Above is a video review I did of The Wild Soccer Bunch's 1st book called Kevin the Star
Striker. Enjoy!
If you want to enter the Landon Donovan autographed ball and copy of The Wild Soccer Bunch
contest we are doing here is how it works.
If you are an OnlineSoccerAcademy.
Looking back, Gilly almost ruined things, just as it all began. The impeccable touch, leaping
headers and sharp finishing even as a teenager I knew this was class. Trouble was, unconsciously I
compared everything that followed with this benchmark, little realising that what I took as a
wide-eyed youth to be the norm was [.
There are a lot of footballers out there, and there are a ton of writers as well, and for the
most part, these are separate spheres. There's usually not much overlap. You never hear of how
James Joyce scored a hattrick for Celtic or how Baggio wrote a dissertation disproving Freud's
Oedipus Complex.
Pay As You Play by Tomkins, Riley and Fulcher - Book Review by Roy HendersonBefore We Start - Full DisclosureIt's only right to disclose that I had a small involvement in the book, having been one of the many
bloggers and writers who contributed to its second part. I would hopefully have been more involved
too, had I not been involved in a few other extra-curricular activities over the last few months.
It could be my impression but 2010 hasn't been a particularly good one as far as football books are
concerned; especially if like me you don't happen to be particularly fond of biographies. Meaning
that selecting what has become my annual roundup of best books read during the year was a bit
tricky. But, having jogged my memory a bit to see which books I've read over the past twelve
months, I've managed to draw up a list of four must read books.
