The Glory Game (Mainstream Sport)

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Football life in 1972 is light years away from the current game. The salaries are nowhere near comparable, the lives from this day and age being regarded as fairly average, training facilities that would be regarded as primitive now and the only surprising contrast to today was after an FA Cup defeat at Leeds, when the team return to London by train and encounter some Spurs fans. Expecting to be on the end of their anger at having lost, they receive positive support despite the cup run being ended. Davies, Hunter (20 July 2016). "Hunter Davies: After Margaret died, I had to sell our family home". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 16 December 2018.

Glory Game: The New Edition of the British Football Classic The Glory Game: The New Edition of the British Football Classic

Before his more famous tactical opus Inverting the Pyramid, Wilson’s first book offered a fascinating peek behind the Iron Curtain into Eastern Europe. Dedicating a chapter per country, or former super-state in the case of former Yugoslav states, Behind the Curtain shows just how influential politics has been on football in Europe’s outposts. From dictatorial influence in Romania with Nicola Ceausescu to the disintegration of Yugoslavia and descent into genocidal civil war, there are stories aplenty. The Glory Game defined the fly-on-the-wall sports book. Although Nicholson later claimed that he’d occasionally felt inhibited by Davies’ presence (particularly when chastising Martin Chivers), the Spurs players and staff were remarkably candid in confiding their hopes and fears. Aside from the frequent references to flares, Triumph Stags, and Nicholson’s hatred of men with long hair, Davies’ book simply doesn’t date. “The tensions, the personality clashes, the fear of losing one’s place in the team, the monotony of training, triumph and despair, concern over injuries, old players fading... all these factors will remain constants in team sports for as long as they’re played,” argues Davies. The fears, the tensions, the dramas, the personality clashes, the tedium of training, the problems of motivation, injuries, loss of form, the highs and lows, new people coming through, old stars beginning to fade, that sort of stuff goes on, and will go on forever.”Brilliant, anthropological account of life with Tottenham in 1973, before there were press officers and brand managers David Goldblatt, author of the World Football Yearbook a b "Hunter Davies". Qosfc.com. 26 September 2009. Archived from the original on 29 June 2015 . Retrieved 20 November 2013. Much of the talk of great teams from Dynamo Moscow to Dynamo Kiev and Steaua Bucharest is repeated in Inverting the Pyramid, but it’s the people to whom Wilson speaks for this book that implore the reader to care about teams they may otherwise ignore. Each country, each club, is dealt with great tact. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side.

Glory Game: Year in the Life of Tottenham Hotspur The Glory Game: Year in the Life of Tottenham Hotspur

And to celebrate the 50th anniversary since The Glory Game came out, Well Offside photographer Mark Leech delves into the Offside Sports Photography Archive to dig out the pictures taken for the book. McDonagh, Melanie (12 February 2016). "Hunter Davies: 'As long as I live she'll be with me' ". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 18 January 2017. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. a b c Davies, Hunter (28 June 2007). The Beatles, Football and Me. Headline Book Publishing. ISBN 978-0755314034.

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. Staggeringly raw and uncompromisingly revealing. I was expecting some unconvenient truths about the game to be shown, but the ammount of darkness that this book portrays still surprised me. I know that you're not supposed to apply your own moral standars on past times, and the 70's had things our time doesn't but still: the energy around Spurs in '72 comes across as outright destructive. Davies mercilessly shows how the players suffer not only from their own fears and prejudices, but also from the reactionary, judgemental and emotionally arid culture around them. As a Spurs fan I've learned to consider Bill Nicholson a "club legend", but after reading Davies' depiction of his almost pathological criticism of people around him, and his contempt of weakness and vulnerability, I feel less inclined to do so. I don't know if things have gotten better since then at Spurs and clubs like them, but in any case I'm glad I wasn't there. I’d originally been told that as a club, Spurs would be completely unapproachable, and that Nicholson would be dour and difficult,” recalled Davies. “He was completely cooperative though, and when I informed the players that I would keep 50% of the royalties and split the other half equally between them, they were happy too. It wasn’t a huge amount of money though!” Ken Loach might have turned all this into a powerful social film, but the avuncular Davies sprinkles in so many cheery anecdotes that the book bounces along enjoyably ' ( Sunday Times ) - Praise for VOLUME 1: THE CO-OP'S GOT BANANAS!

A Life in the Day by Hunter Davies | Goodreads A Life in the Day by Hunter Davies | Goodreads

HUNTER DAVIES is the author of the only ever authorised biography of The Beatles, still in print in almost every country in the world. In 2012 he edited The Lennon Letters, published in 20 different foreign countries, and in 2014 The Beatles Lyrics. He wrote the first book about the Quarrymen. Plus forty other non-Beatly books, including novels, biographies, travel and children’s books. As a journalist, he has a column in the Sunday Times about money and in the New Statesman about football.KEITH BADMAN is an author, journalist and film and video archives researcher. He has written or contributed to ten books about popular music, including four on The Beatles, and been a columnist for Record Collector magazine for 20 years. He assisted with the archive film and video research on The Beatles Anthology series. The exposure of the dreadful state of English social attitudes; whether it be about gender roles or sexuality or race relations. This tells of a white male only world that was becoming at odds with the progressive and inclusive world that was over-taking it. There are numerous cringe-worthy sections and several that would have been indefensible even in the dark ages of 1971. Books on the business of football can be unreadably dry, but The Beautiful Game? is passionate and bleakly humorous. Quite aside from the depth of the research, what sets Conn’s book above Tom Bower’s Broken Dreams, a mystifying winner of the William Hill’s Sports Book of the Year Award in 2003, is the sense that he really cares. Broken Dreams was riddled with errors, both of fact and of spirit; Conn, simply by noting, for instance, that fans know intuitively why Notts County matter, taps into a depth of tradition of which Bower has no grasp. Bower just says football is in a very bad way; Conn tells us why it is worth putting right. Jonathan Wilson The book moves across one season through chapters on the players, manager, staff, directors, and even fans. Almost anyone connected with the team who would talk to him, and even a few who were reluctant to, are profiled. In the chapter ‘Bill Goes to Bristol ‘, Davies takes a trip with manager Bill Nicholson to watch a reserves match. For all of the difficulties in getting the manager to open up, the conversation that they share in this chapter reveals Nicholson as a man whose life is as measured and considered as the answers he gives. “I get no pleasure out of being a manager,” he tells Davies. “It’s a job.” Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth