Deleted
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2017 18:49:22 GMT
my father and other working class heroes by gary imlach is a great and poignant read.
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2017 18:56:33 GMT
A Season with Verona - Tim Parks is an excellent read. Crazy book that,interesting insight into italian football and its fans. |
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harrybuckle
Always look on the bright side
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 5,573 
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Post by harrybuckle on Nov 14, 2017 19:06:13 GMT
Bristol Rovers Players Who's Who 1946-2018 Due to be published next Summer.650 biographies of all those who played in the Football League.£25. From Mike Adams to Bobby Zamora. Blue-and-white quartered shirts can mean only one thing to any football supporter. The iconic Bristol Rovers, once located at Eastville, exiled to the City of Bath and then back home to Horfield, has been well served by so many hundreds of players. Everyone who represented the club in the Football League since World War Two is documented here in detail, from the unknown local to the World Cup winner, from the halcyon days of the Fifties, through the Smash and Grab era to the double-promotion side. Club historians Stephen Byrne and Mike Jay have compiled eloquent biographies of every one, cataloguing details and anecdotes, photos and memories for every fan of this well-respected east Bristol club.
Become an advance subscriber and have your name listed in the book. |
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 10,361
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Post by kingswood Polak on Nov 14, 2017 20:15:32 GMT
Geoff Bradford Bristol Rovers' Legend book. Geoff Bradford. He holds the club record for goals scored (242 in 461 Football League appearances) and remains the only player to win a Full England International cap while with the club. To research this book, the authors have been given access to an archive of information and original photographs from his family. Bristol-born Geoff with a loyal one-club man having turned down the option of a transfer to First Division Liverpool. He suffered two very severe career-threatening knee injuries and returned to play football for his club, who rewarded him with a Testimonial match at the end of his fifteenth season. Besides representing England, he also won other honours for Rovers winning the Third Division (South) Championship in 1952-53 and also played in many representative matches for the English Football Association including a six-week tour to the West Indies in 1955. There has never been a biography of Bradford, so this will be a welcome title for all dedicated Rovers fans. Thank you Mike. I have read it, of course, and an interesting read it is - as are your other collaborations with Ian and Stephen. But it's not quite what I was after really; It's not quite the poetry and prose I mentioned before. When I started the thread, rather than a standard biography, I was looking more for the quality of writing: something evocative; a football book that contains metaphors and similes; a book with a nice smattering of colons, semi-colons, dashes, and hyphens. However, the title of the thread does say "Recommending a football book ...", which it most certainly is, so I should let it pass. And, a right to the head KO’s Buckle |
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kingswood Polak
Without music life would be a mistake
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 10,361
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Post by kingswood Polak on Nov 14, 2017 20:18:40 GMT
"Saturday 3pm - 50 eternal delights of modern football." - Daniel Gray.
Football may well be 'The Beautiful Game', but cricket always had the poetry and prose. Cricket seemed to have the best writers: Arlott; Robertson-Glasgow; Cardus; Gibson; Swanton; James; Keating; Barnes, and so on. I think things started to change with the advent of Football Fanzines, and has been carried on in the age of Bloggers. "Saturday 3pm ... " is probably the best writing on football I've seen. It comprises 50 short essays on subjects such as 'Seeing a ground from the train' / 'Watching an away end erupt' / 'Getting the fixture list' / 'Listening to the results in the car' / 'The first day of the season' / 'Slide tackles in the mud' / 'Standing on a terrace' / 'When the ball goes in the crowd' / 'Outfield players in goal'. I found I could relate to every one of the 50 essays. Daniel Gray is a Middleborough fan, and one game he saw in the north east features Rovers in a chapter titled 'Singing'. It was Gateshead v Bristol Rovers, and here is a short extract: " One supporter starting singing, and before he had finished the first word, five or six more had joined him. By the second line of the song, hundreds were in on the round, most now standing, arms aloft. 'Irene, goodnight, Irene/Irene goodnight,' they sang in surprisingly arresting melody. 'Goodnight, Irene/Goodnight, Irene/I'll see you in my dreams.' A reprise followed, and by now it was impossible to spy a soul who hadn't joined in the chorus. On this habitually dull February afternoon they had sprinkled romance around an athletics stadium set in an industrial estate. It wasn't just the content of the song, or the whirring Bristol lilt, that conjured this rosy sheen, nor the unity and shared sense of purpose. It was the uncomplicated jubilation of strangers singing, of base affection expressed." If anyone else has a good football book to recommend, to help get through the close season, I would be most grateful! As someone who reads most of this stuff quite closely I would argue that the situation has now flipped around and that modern football writing is on the whole far superior to modern cricket writing which, with a few noteworthy exceptions (Gideon Haigh for one) has largely failed to move with the times and produces a load of 10th rate versions of the above mentioned writers. Cricket is no longer the game of public schools, village greens and empire but most writers still seem stuck with that image and seem out of touch to me. Football writing on the other hand I used to find pretty tedious - either it was sensationalist and poorly written, hagiography, stat-obsessed (and with highly questionable poor quality stats at that) or strangely snobby when written about in the 'grown-up papers' - in none of those cases did the descriptions of the game remotely resemble the experience I, or the people I talk to about football, have of the game. Also I always found the obsession with self-promoting autobiography to be tedious. Now though there seems to be a much wider range of football writing that approaches the game from a much wider range of perspectives and angles. The fanzine did make a difference because for the first time it acknowledged the bleeding obvious - that football is actually mainly about the fans and the people who follow the game and their experiences and perspectives which had been ignored and condescended for decades. Dry as dust match reports or season descriptions that discuss the game as if it was a statement of parliamentary record or some kind of high-art performance and hero-worshipping biography exercise miss the point for me; it's about the people in and around the game and their warts and all stories. Both the history of the game and the current sport itself becomes far more interesting when people take off the rose-tinted specs and present the human stories and frailties that exist behind it - it doesn't taint the legacies of the past, it enhances it. But football was for a long time a very closed shop with a 'what goes on in the dressing room stays in the dressing room' attitude that permeated the whole sport. Cricket on the other hand has always been far more gossipy. That's what has changed - basically people have started writing about the interesting stuff and the wider social and cultural context of the game which is actually why most people like the sport in the first place. I'd add to people's positive reviews of Tor. Forza Italia by Paddy Agnew is very good. 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 years with Brian Clough' is very good. I like David Goldblatt's the Ball is Round but that is quite heavy going in places. Generally though I'd recommend picking up a copy of the Blizzard (quarterly journal of quality football writing largely based on these kind of principles) and using that to identify some writers you like. That's the main football journalism that I read. Oh, and anything by Hunter Davies - who was lightyears ahead of everybody in noticing the simple fact that football is about fandom. There's probably a debate to be had over the extent to which this whole boom in football writing is part of the bottom-up process that started with fanzines or the bourgeosation of football in which middle class people suddenly feel the need to put a wider significance to their football fandom. However, I do think it's a great shame that there wasn't really a 'great chronicler' of the golden age of the game before the 2nd world war in the sense of those cricket writers mentioned. Says a lot I think about the snobbish and condescending attitude the publishing industry had towards football for much of the 20th Century. The fact that no one had really written a 'football novel' until Fever Pitch came along says it all really. You don’t do short posts do you 👍🏻 |
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irishrover
Global Moderator
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 3,372
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Post by irishrover on Nov 14, 2017 21:31:48 GMT
As someone who reads most of this stuff quite closely I would argue that the situation has now flipped around and that modern football writing is on the whole far superior to modern cricket writing which, with a few noteworthy exceptions (Gideon Haigh for one) has largely failed to move with the times and produces a load of 10th rate versions of the above mentioned writers. Cricket is no longer the game of public schools, village greens and empire but most writers still seem stuck with that image and seem out of touch to me. Football writing on the other hand I used to find pretty tedious - either it was sensationalist and poorly written, hagiography, stat-obsessed (and with highly questionable poor quality stats at that) or strangely snobby when written about in the 'grown-up papers' - in none of those cases did the descriptions of the game remotely resemble the experience I, or the people I talk to about football, have of the game. Also I always found the obsession with self-promoting autobiography to be tedious. Now though there seems to be a much wider range of football writing that approaches the game from a much wider range of perspectives and angles. The fanzine did make a difference because for the first time it acknowledged the bleeding obvious - that football is actually mainly about the fans and the people who follow the game and their experiences and perspectives which had been ignored and condescended for decades. Dry as dust match reports or season descriptions that discuss the game as if it was a statement of parliamentary record or some kind of high-art performance and hero-worshipping biography exercise miss the point for me; it's about the people in and around the game and their warts and all stories. Both the history of the game and the current sport itself becomes far more interesting when people take off the rose-tinted specs and present the human stories and frailties that exist behind it - it doesn't taint the legacies of the past, it enhances it. But football was for a long time a very closed shop with a 'what goes on in the dressing room stays in the dressing room' attitude that permeated the whole sport. Cricket on the other hand has always been far more gossipy. That's what has changed - basically people have started writing about the interesting stuff and the wider social and cultural context of the game which is actually why most people like the sport in the first place. I'd add to people's positive reviews of Tor. Forza Italia by Paddy Agnew is very good. 'Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 years with Brian Clough' is very good. I like David Goldblatt's the Ball is Round but that is quite heavy going in places. Generally though I'd recommend picking up a copy of the Blizzard (quarterly journal of quality football writing largely based on these kind of principles) and using that to identify some writers you like. That's the main football journalism that I read. Oh, and anything by Hunter Davies - who was lightyears ahead of everybody in noticing the simple fact that football is about fandom. There's probably a debate to be had over the extent to which this whole boom in football writing is part of the bottom-up process that started with fanzines or the bourgeosation of football in which middle class people suddenly feel the need to put a wider significance to their football fandom. However, I do think it's a great shame that there wasn't really a 'great chronicler' of the golden age of the game before the 2nd world war in the sense of those cricket writers mentioned. Says a lot I think about the snobbish and condescending attitude the publishing industry had towards football for much of the 20th Century. The fact that no one had really written a 'football novel' until Fever Pitch came along says it all really. You don’t do short posts do you 👍🏻 I posted that 6 months ago - has it taken you that long to read it?! |
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2017 22:12:06 GMT
For whatever reason ive never enjoyed a bristol rovers book!
I wish eamon dunphy would write a book about rovers.
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Smithy Gas
Craig Hinton
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 271
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Post by Smithy Gas on Nov 14, 2017 22:26:35 GMT
Above Head Height: A Five a Side Life - James Brown
Worth a read for anyone who’s played any game of s**te football in a bog, or a five a side game at 10PM at night. A lot of of it resonates and I ripped through it on a holiday last year.
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bs5
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 456
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Post by bs5 on Nov 14, 2017 23:31:32 GMT
Soul crew by Tony Rivers and David Jones is a decent read if fiction is your thing 😂
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bs5
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 456
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Post by bs5 on Nov 14, 2017 23:42:49 GMT
I’ve just read ‘ kicking the habit’ by Jason Marriner but also worth checking out these autobiographies:
‘Congratulations you’ve just met the ICF’ by Cass Pennant
‘ Armed got the match’ by Steven Hickmott and Colin Ward
‘Scally’ By Andy Nicholls
‘Muscle’ by Carlton Leach
‘Good afternoon gentlemen the names Bill Gardner’ by Bill Gardner and Cass Pennant
Bovver’ by one of our own Chris Brown
Tottenham massive ‘ by Trevor Tanner
‘Annis’ by Annis Abraham
‘Sex, drugs and football thugs’ - Mark Chester
And the original terrace favourite ‘ Steaming in’ by Colin Ward
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Deleted
Joined: January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2017 16:42:36 GMT
I’ve just read ‘ kicking the habit’ by Jason Marriner but also worth checking out these autobiographies: ‘Congratulations you’ve just met the ICF’ by Cass Pennant ‘ Armed got the match’ by Steven Hickmott and Colin Ward ‘Scally’ By Andy Nicholls ‘Muscle’ by Carlton Leach ‘Good afternoon gentlemen the names Bill Gardner’ by Bill Gardner and Cass Pennant Bovver’ by one of our own Chris Brown Tottenham massive ‘ by Trevor Tanner ‘Annis’ by Annis Abraham ‘Sex, drugs and football thugs’ - Mark Chester And the original terrace favourite ‘ Steaming in’ by Colin Ward Bovver is a great read but I don't think that it should be considered as "hoolie lit", although it contains his memories of hooliganism I thought it was much more social history than aggro at football.
A bit dry and probably hard to get hold of now is 'The Roots of Football Hooliganism, an historical and sociological study' Eric Dunning,Patrick Murphy and John Williams, starts in the 1880s and I thought it was quite interesting from an historical point of view.
I have read a few players and managers stories and mostly found them a bit boring with a few funny anecdotes.
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Post by Colyton Gas. on Nov 15, 2017 16:50:10 GMT
 Was Linesman at the Liverpool v Arsenal title decider May '89 when Micky Thomas scored in the last minute.Famous film 'Fever Pitch' captured the moment so the book by Nick Hornby is good. |
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bs5
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 456
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Post by bs5 on Nov 15, 2017 20:03:21 GMT
View AttachmentWas Linesman at the Liverpool v Arsenal title decider May '89 when Micky Thomas scored in the last minute.Famous film 'Fever Pitch' captured the moment so the book of the same name is good. Proper tash, bit of favouritism sporting the scouse look 😂 |
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bs5
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 456
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Post by bs5 on Nov 15, 2017 20:07:46 GMT
View AttachmentWas Linesman at the Liverpool v Arsenal title decider May '89 when Micky Thomas scored in the last minute.Famous film 'Fever Pitch' captured the moment so the book of the same name is good. Proper tash, bit of favouritism sporting the scouse look 😂 Also my old Mum charged me £30 extra in my housekeeping because when the gooners scored that second and 1st division title goal I jumped up arms aloft and accidentally smashed her glass and brass light fitting clean off the ceiling and landed on my dad 🙈,that was half a weeks wages for an 18 year old then . |
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ricardo
Steve Elliot
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 138
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Post by ricardo on Nov 16, 2017 19:28:02 GMT
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Post by The Concept on Jun 9, 2019 8:01:34 GMT
Trautmann's Journey - by Catrine Clay.
Just finished reading this book. Most people will be aware of the famous story that Bert Trauttman broke his neck in an FA Cup Final and played on. The interest in this book goes wider than his football career though, as it covers his time growing up and mostly on the part he played in WWII and time spent in PoW camps.
I'd heard, read, and watched about the Allied and Jewish side of the war (Anne Frank, Primo Levi etc.), but this was the first time I'd read about the human side, the emotional side, from a German perspective: living under a dictatorship; adults pressured into joining the Nazi Party; children pressured into joining the Hitler Youth; not knowing any different; not knowing atrocities going on; the brave people who resisted, and the consequences for many of speaking out and not conforming.
It really is was a very poignant read, with the D Day commemorations taking place over the past week.
One other point, that endeared me to Bert, was that while he was still playing for St. Helens Town, before joining Man City, he turned down another club...
He was transferred to work in a bomb disposal unit in Bristol. In the PoW Camp he was reunited with one of his former Kameraden, Karl Krause, who was playing for Bristol City Reserves. Alex Eisentraeger was also playing for City, and he went on to be a well loved and respected player there.
While having a kickaround on Clifton Downs Karl tried to get Bert to join them at Bristol City, but Bert said no.
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Post by The Concept on Jun 11, 2019 17:58:59 GMT
Thank you for the 'like' Mike.
I was pleasantly surprised to see you'd liked the post, especially having seen your recent facebook post on D-Day.
Hope you get a chance to read it, and I hope it may make you reconsider your views.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 5, 2019 16:42:50 GMT
Harry Bamford - Bristol Rovers’ First Gentleman of Football
2017 Tangent Books. By Hilary Lewis with Joyce Woolridge and Steve Sutor.
I've just finished reading it. It's thoroughly researched and beautifully written.
It might not go in for socio-economic analysis or studies of organisational politics, but this reassuringly weighty book offers a deeper understanding of the essence of Bristol Rovers.
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warehamgas
Predictions League
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 3,590
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Post by warehamgas on Jul 5, 2019 20:55:00 GMT
Harry Bamford - Bristol Rovers’ First Gentleman of Football
2017 Tangent Books. By Hilary Lewis with Joyce Woolridge and Steve Sutor.
I've just finished reading it. It's thoroughly researched and beautifully written. It might not go in for socio-economic analysis or studies of organisational politics, but this reassuringly weighty book offers a deeper understanding of the essence of Bristol Rovers. Thanks GasMacc1. Hadn’t realised HB had a book, will now look it out. UTG! |
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eppinggas
Administrator
Ian Alexander
Don't care
Joined: June 2014
Posts: 8,604
Member is Online
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Post by eppinggas on Jul 6, 2019 9:08:08 GMT
Harry Bamford - Bristol Rovers’ First Gentleman of Football
2017 Tangent Books. By Hilary Lewis with Joyce Woolridge and Steve Sutor.
I've just finished reading it. It's thoroughly researched and beautifully written. It might not go in for socio-economic analysis or studies of organisational politics, but this reassuringly weighty book offers a deeper understanding of the essence of Bristol Rovers. I'd second that - definitely worth a read... |
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