The Glory Game (Mainstream Sport)

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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? 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. Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win. (Gary Lineker)

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

With the palette of the Spurs team of 1971-1972 to paint with, Davies weaves an intricate pattern of inter-linked story-lines that change as the season progresses and fortunes of both the team and individuals change. With the hard to please manager Bill Nicholson and his un-PC sergeant-major assistant Eddie Baily, the team are constantly reminded of the club’s glorious past (of which they were both part), with the response to their methods sometimes at odds with performances on the pitch. 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. Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuthFootball 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. In the 1971/72 season, Davies was granted unprecedented access to Tottenham boss Bill Nicholson and his 19-man first-team pool. With no official contract behind him, he admits to “worming my way in” at White Hart Lane, and convincing all those concerned that an “inside story” book charting Spurs’ season would be a worthwhile project.

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. In 1972, Davies wrote a book about football, The Glory Game, a behind-the-scenes portrait of Tottenham Hotspur. Davies also wrote a column about his daily life in Punch called "Father's Day", presenting himself as a harried paterfamilias. In 1974, he was sent by The Sunday Times to look at a comprehensive school in action. He wrote three articles and then stayed on at the school – Creighton School in Muswell Hill, north London, now part of Fortismere School – to watch and study through a year in its life. The result was a book, the Creighton Report, published in 1976. [5] 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. 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. He writes a football column for the New Statesman. [7] A compilation of these articles was released as a book, The Fan, in 2005 by Pomona Press. Davies writes "Confessions of a Collector" in The Guardian's Weekend colour magazine. [8] He has written a book about his collections with the same title.

Joe Kinnear was a mainstay of a successful Spurs team for ten years. He went on to successfully manage Wimbledon for seven years before short spells with Luton and Nottingham Forest. After four years away from the game, he was appointed Newcastle United manager. He lives in London and Newcastle. Hunter Davies has been a personal friend of Joe Kinnear's for almost 30 years. He first wrote about Joe in his classic book The Glory Game. He lives in London and the Lake District.