Because it's Saturday: A Journey into Football's Heartland [9781785316463]
Because it's Saturday is a compelling portrait of life in the professional grass roots of football, far from the glitz and glamour of Premier League superstars. Why does anyone travel from Grimsby to Accrington on a wet Tuesday night in November to watch players battling on a muddy pitch with more gusto than grace? How do teams survive in half-empty stadia, and how does a Cotswolds village side owned by an ex-hippy challenge the likes of Luton for promotion? Award-winning writer Gavin Bell spoke to the owners, managers, players and supporters of eight lower-league sides, over the course of a season, to discover the fierce passions and loyalties that sustain clubs unlikely to win anything other than the devotion of their fans. Going beyond the fields of dreams, Bell explores the communities for whom these clubs are more than football teams. From gritty northern towns blighted by post-industrial decline, to ivory towers of academia and a seaside resort riven by a fans' civil war - it's a rollercoaster ride of a season. AUTHOR: Gavin Bell is an award-winning travel writer whose wanderings from Antarctica to Zanzibar have failed to diminish his passion for football and Motherwell FC. He is probably the only person who has cheered during heavy fighting in Beirut on hearing his team had beaten Celtic. Gavin is a former foreign correspondent of Reuters and The Times. This is his third book.
Did your home haircut make your child look like Friar Tuck?Did you forget to put bananas in your banana bread?Did your primary-schooler have to correc…
What does it mean to deeply love a home place that haunts us still? From Mark Twain to Grant Wood to Garrison Keillor, regionalists from the Gilded Ag…
In Kansai Cool anthropologist, writer and filmmaker Christal Whelan offers profound insights in the only collection of essays to focus on Kansai, Japa…
Ultras are often compared to punks, Hell's Angels, hooligans or the South American Barras Bravas. But in truth, they are a thoroughly Italian phenomen…
Neville Cardus once said there could be no summer in England without cricket.The 2019 season was supposed to be the greatest summer of cricket ever se…
Liverpool Matches of My Lifetime provides a unique perspective on 50 iconic Liverpool games spanning the author's lifetime, from 1960 to date. It take…
Victorian England in the 1870s and the early years of the FA Cup. Pitches are little better than mud baths. Crossbars and referees' whistles don't exi…
The brutal 2010 murders of promising footballer Eddie Moussa and his brother were a harbinger of the gang violence now laying siege to Sweden. Written…
How to Run a Football Club is the story of our national game. Told through a journey up the pyramid, from the muddy pitches and ramshackle changing ro…
What Was Football Like in the 1980s? provides a fascinating and insightful perspective on the game in a decade when football faced major challenges on…