Decent Footy Books

[Tony Moanero]

For some reason I went through a phase of buying football books of players that werent, on the surface, particularly interesting. Some of them have been brilliant-

 

John Hartson

Paul McGrath

Tony Cascarino

Keith Gillespie

 

Steve Nicol's looks a good read.

 

I picked up a random book in a store at the weekend:

 

Its basically just interviewing all of the players from that era/squad- I managed to read the whole "John Scales" chapter while waiting for the Mrs to get something. It was surprisingly good

 

The Eric Meijer one is boss.

 

All the books in that series (Red Machine, Men In White Suits and Ring Of Fire) are very good.

[The Golden Eel]

 

http://thesefootballtimes.co/

 

 

Yeah, this site has good articles.  I read that one about Jardel the other day too, very interesting.

[Strontium]

I got this cool little hardback book today (John Devlin - True Colours Volume 2) from the discount book shop in St John's shopping centre for £1.

 

 

It's just an elegantly presented catalogue of football strips for about 20 teams between 1980 and 2006 (NB cover artwork differs slightly from that above). Well worth it if you have any interest in footy kits.

 

Amazon sells it for £14.99 so you can't argue with the price.

[Tony Moanero]

I got this cool little hardback book today (John Devlin - True Colours Volume 2) from the discount book shop in St John's shopping centre for £1.

 

 

It's just an elegantly presented catalogue of football strips for about 20 teams between 1980 and 2006 (NB cover artwork differs slightly from that above). Well worth it if you have any interest in footy kits.

 

Amazon sells it for £14.99 so you can't argue with the price.

Yeah, those True Colours books are boss. I haven't been to the St John's shopping centre for a long, long time, but if that discount book shop is the same one that was there years ago, I had loads of bargains from there. Football, boxing, local history and even Tom Slemen (the biggest bullshitter known to man) ghost books.

[Tony Moanero]

Speaking of football kit related books, I recommend 'A Lover's Guide to Football Shirts' by Neal Heard. It's excellent.

[El Rojo]

Speaking of football kit related books, I recommend 'A Lover's Guide to Football Shirts' by Neal Heard. It's excellent.

Never Heard of the cunt.

[Strontium]

Yeah, those True Colours books are boss. I haven't been to the St John's shopping centre for a long, long time, but if that discount book shop is the same one that was there years ago, I had loads of bargains from there. Football, boxing, local history and even Tom Slemen (the biggest bullshitter known to man) ghost books.

 

It's the same shop, but it's moved near the lifts after it went into financial trouble and most of the books are £1 now.

 

I think they also had signed copies of Red or Dead by David Peace for £5 too.

[General Dryness]

Yeah, those True Colours books are boss. I haven't been to the St John's shopping centre for a long, long time, but if that discount book shop is the same one that was there years ago, I had loads of bargains from there. Football, boxing, local history and even Tom Slemen (the biggest bullshitter known to man) ghost books.

I'm more interested in knowing what's up with Darren.

[razor]

Agreed on that Parkes review nobody does invective and demolisng of ego like he can, he also turned out one about James Cordon's stupid tournement TV show a few years ago it was fantastic.

 

  A summer spent with James Corden

19 August ~ The World Cup may be starting to fade into memory but the banality of the tournament's TV programming hasn't. In WSC 282 (August 2010), Taylor Parkes evaluated ITV's primetime offerings

 

The separation of football and the intellect isn't always a wholly bad thing, but too many people make a career of it. Put that thought to the guilty men – including almost everyone who works in television – and the chances are they'll scoff. "It's only a laugh – that's what footy's all about, isn't it?" Well... no, that's not what "footy" is all about, not exclusively.

 

It's a bit of a stretch to link the media's increasingly blockheaded treatment of football to the blockheadedness of the England football team – plenty of better explanations for that. But it's all part of the same thing, really: a thickening culture of bullish arrogance, absolute pride in not thinking. This idea that it's all a bloody laugh. It's eating away at everything now, and it's only getting worse.

 

Not so long ago, a World Cup meant a few old matches or half-decent documentaries dropped into the TV schedules somewhere. All that's left now, it seems, are endless clip shows like The World Cup's Most Shocking Moments, in which creepily boyish Richard Bacon and comedy natural Peter Crouch present those overfamiliar clips (now about as "shocking" as Del Boy falling through the bar), complete with sneery, know-nothing comment from preening young comedians.

 

Colin Murray, the BBC's new golden boy, turned the nightly highlights show into another backslapping gagfest, largely dispensing with match analysis in favour of feeble home-brew humour: footballers, we learnt, have amusing haircuts and sometimes dive unconvincingly. Lee Dixon laughed, at least.

 

The never-more-visible James Corden, like Murray and his backroom team of would-be comedy legends, suffers from that curious hubris which convinces every media oddjob they're some kind of polymath. Corden may be a passable actor, but he's not a naturally funny man nor a very likeable personality, and even he must be sick of the sight of himself.

 

Yet ITV, having paid £6 million for his services, devised a show for Corden to front with his quick wit and personal charm and broadcast the results at prime time for the duration of the tournament. And with sapping inevitability, James Corden's World Cup Live was truly, truly horrible, a cack-handed cross between Soccer AM's infantilism and TFI Friday's Class A shoutiness.

 

Abbey Clancy was hired to do what Abbey Clancy does; the backroom boys worked out some skits about how Uruguay's players had long hair and looked like girls; a polo-shirted audience whooped with well-marshalled efficiency. "Lovely stuff!" barked Corden, banging his cards on the desk. Somewhere in Britain, another library closed.

 

Ex-footballers with nothing better to do squeezed onto the sofa with sort-of celebs like Denise van Outen and Pixie Lott, the kind of people no one really cares about, without whom no TV show is commissioned ("Have you been watching the World Cup, Pixie?" probed our fearless host. "Well, I saw the England game," giggled the vacant Lott).

 

In the aftermath of England v Algeria, Adrian Chiles trailed the show with a rather hopeful link: "If anyone can cheer you up after that performance, it's James Corden." I stuck around but somehow wasn't cheered – instead I felt my immune system trying to reject my brain. Almost inevitably, Russell Brand appeared. He said things like "jizz" and "ballbag", and everybody whooped again. Baffling to me, but then I'm not part of the football demographic. I know this because I have no urge to drink oddly-coloured alcopops after watching a man barge in for a shit while his wife is in the bath.

 

Amid the gormless triumphalism that followed England's win over Slovenia, someone called Jack Whitehall (an instantly loathsome fluff-bearded whelp with a voice so hatefully smug and plummy he may have been a Class War plant) cracked a joke about how Germans are Nazis which would have offended Spitfire Ale's admen. We got a real celebrity at last, Shakira joining JC and his ego in a grotesque salsa dance-off, the only humorous element of which was the fact that Corden is overweight, and thus looked "funny" shaking his booty next to a lithe professional dancer. While the man's entitled (some would say forced) to pick up laughs in any way he can, this relentless belly-flaunting which is Corden's main comedic thrust throws a curious light on his recent spat with poor old Patrick Stewart, who earned himself a volley of abuse for a lame crack about Corden's size at an awards ceremony. "Christ almighty," Stewart must have thought. "Hattie Jacques was never like this."

 

However obnoxiously ambitious he may be, there's something of the puppy dog about James Corden: no idea of his own limitations, never sensing when people are sick of him, responding to admonishment with hurt incredulity. You almost feel for him – underneath the insecure bluster, he may even be a nice guy. But no one's forcing him to carry on like this, loudmouthed and bovine, everyone's mate, greeting the half-witted cracks of his guests with false, desperate laughter. No one's forcing him to breathe all over everything; to become, as he has, as ubiquitous as sadness.

 

And what he has to realise now, as he weeps over England's exit, is that he's part of the problem. Sure, it's only a laugh – but this overbearing oafishness bolsters the culture which has England stinking out one tournament after another, bullishly arrogant, proud of not thinking. Corden would probably scoff at the thought, but I guess you have a different perspective when you're making a career of it.

[Jairzinho]

Just finished reading "Soccer War" by Ryszard Kapuscinski (he also wrote The Shadow of the Sun, which is brilliant. In fact, he's just a great writer). Technically only one, fairly lengthy, chapter is about football (the "Soccer War" chapter, obviously), but the rest of the book is ace as well.

[mouse1989]

Halfway through Pep Confidenfial. Pretty good insight into his management to be fair. It's made me appreciate Lahm even more as a player just how easy he found it to adapt to a new role

 

Also just finished Das Reboot. Again, pretty good. I probably would've appreciated it more if it didn't take me a good 6 weeks to finish due to be busy over the Christmas period.

[VladimirIlyich]

Ive got a few on my tablet that I have been meaning to read for months but not got round to.

[El Rojo]

Jurgen Klopp the biography by Elmar Neveling.

 

These unauthorised things are often awful rush-jobs, but this is well worth a read. Really well constructed history of his early life and career interspersed with chapters on his training methods, back-room team and playing philosophy. Further enhanced my appreciation of everything about the man.

[Bjornebye]

Not long finished Roy Keanes 2nd auto-biography. Well worth a read. Doesn't hold back on himself or others. 

 

Currently 2/3 the way through The Secret Football Agent. There is some utter vermin within the game. Players, Agents, Chairman.... Very eye opening to a world you already knew was corrupt as fuck. 

[Jairzinho]

Have you read "Broken Dreams", Stig?

[El Rojo]

And The Sun Shines Now by Adrian Tempany is fantastic and hugely moving in parts.

 

Living On The Volcano by Michael Calvin is well worth a read, especially the Brendan Rodgers chapter.

 

Honigstein’s book on Klopp is great too. Gives a really good overview of his footballing philosophy, inspirations and general decency.

[Bjornebye]

Have you read "Broken Dreams", Stig?

No Jair whats it about?

[Jairzinho]

Corruption in football. Really good book.

[SammyAftershave]

The Geoff Twentyman one 'Diary of a Football Scout' was a good read, moreso to those of a certain generation:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SECRET-DIARY-LIVERPOOL-SCOUT-Hughes-ebook/dp/B005KAHF0S

[Bjornebye]

Corruption in football. Really good book.

I'll have a look for that mate. That secret football agent is unreal. Just finished it.

[Jairzinho]

I'll get a copy when I'm next back in the UK.

[VladimirIlyich]

I'll get a copy when I'm next back in the UK.

Why? Where are you now?

 

Asking for rico.

[Lee909]

Not read this but it's on sale for kindle

Might interest a few

 

 

[Peter Cormack]

Three Sides of the Mersey brilliant oral history of the reds, blues and tranmere. Full of wonderful stories.
 

the Ball is Round, a long history of the game
 

Any of David Squire‘s cartoon books are worth an hour or so of anyone‘s time as are the various editions of the book of football quotations

[VladimirIlyich]

On 10/05/2018 at 22:22, SammyAftershave said:

The Geoff Twentyman one 'Diary of a Football Scout' was a good read, moreso to those of a certain generation:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SECRET-DIARY-LIVERPOOL-SCOUT-Hughes-ebook/dp/B005KAHF0S

Was a very good read this one. Inverting the Pyramid is a must,as Ive probably said before. Tom Finney and Bob Wilson Autobiographies are good too. Wilson really went up in my estimation after reading his.