The Glory Game (Mainstream Sport)

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The format. A season makes for a good story. The opportunity to explore different aspects of the club and the characters therein. You get to know people and care a little about them in human terms. I've enjoyed a few books that have taken this approach and this challenges my favourite which up until now has been I Lost My Heart to the Belles by Pete Davies where Davies once again showed himself to be a generation ahead of his time. Davies was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, to Scottish parents. For four years his family lived in Dumfries until Davies was aged 11. Davies has quoted his boyhood hero as being football centre-forward, Billy Houliston, of Davies' then local team, Queen of the South. [1]

Glory Game by Hunter Davies - AbeBooks Glory Game by Hunter Davies - AbeBooks

When I talk about the soul, I mean the part of football that is more than business,” he continues. “The soul is the passion and the loyalty of fans, but it is also the joy to be found in playing the game. As other collective institutions disappear, football clubs are becoming an increasingly central part of people’s identity, and that’s why we see these heroic struggles to save clubs when they are threatened.” There is no way that a writer these days could possibly do what I did in The Glory Game,” explains Hunter Davies. “He or she wouldn’t be able to get past the minefield of agents, lawyers and officials.” Author Hunter Davies was allowed unparalleled access to the inner sanctum of a top professional soccer team, the Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs), and his pen spared nothing and no one. During the Beatles sessions for the Let It Be album , the Beatles recorded a song called "There You Go Eddie" about Hunter Davies that appears on bootlegs. It was not officially released. [9] Something unexpectedly nice about the book is that there are no photographs. At the time it was written, most readers, especially Spurs fans, would have known what the players looked like. Now you realize them on a different and deeper level, as humans rather than an image. Through Hunter Davies’ descriptions, for example of Martin Chivers popping the plate with his front teeth out before games, you draw the characters in your own mind.As a ghostwriter, he has worked on the autobiographies of footballers Wayne Rooney, Paul Gascoigne and Dwight Yorke. The Rooney biography led to a successful libel action in 2008 by David Moyes, the manager of his former club, Everton. He has also ghostwritten politician John Prescott's 2008 autobiography, Prezza, My Story: Pulling no Punches. [6] Davies, Hunter (17 April 2008). "Modern fitba, eh?". New Statesman. London . Retrieved 20 November 2013. First released four months before the 1966 World Cup, John Moynihan’s The Soccer Syndrome is more a personal ode to post-war football, Brylcreem and all, rather than any kind of assessment of England’s chances at the upcoming tournament. And it’s all the better for it. Davies’ 1972 book offered incredible insight of life at a football club as he was granted unprecedented access to Tottenham Hotspur’s 1971-72 as they went on to win that season’s UEFA Cup and challenging at the sharp end domestically. A tad archaic but still insightful. With all the hype surrounding it, I was anticipating something more sensational or groundbreaking, although it probably was both of these things, when it was released initially.

The 50 Best Football Books Ever: 30-21 | FourFourTwo The 50 Best Football Books Ever: 30-21 | FourFourTwo

Testing AI at Chelsea's training ground: How innovative technology is being used to improve pros and scout new stars across the globe McDonagh, Melanie (12 February 2016). "Hunter Davies: 'As long as I live she'll be with me' ". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 18 January 2017.Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Football in the 1970s was a completely different beast, and that shows not only in the game and the style of play but the players and coaches themselves. As other people have pointed out, there is racism, there is homophobia, there is a lot of misogyny (Bill Nicholson doesn't let his wife go to games, for example). I hate to use the phrase 'a product of its time' and these things can't and shouldn't be excused. But I suppose they also have to be read in their context, which is contemporary attitudes and also Hunter Davies meticulously transcribing and noting down every single thing that happens.