HOME AND AWAY, BY DAVE ROBERTS, PUBLISHED BY BANTAM PRESS, PRICE £12.99,RATING OUT OF 10: 9
IF YOU’RE reading a good book you fly through the pages at a rapid rate of knots – that was certainly the case with Home and Away.
Just over 300 pages whizzed by as Dave Roberts told the tale of Bromley’s first season in the dizzy heights of the National League.
But this was no ordinary story. The author of The Bromley Boys and 32 Programmes had left Connecticut to move back to England after 33 years.
His American wife Liz made the move with him, but it’s safe to say she didn’t know what she was letting herself in for.
With family ties enticing them to live in Leeds, it meant even going to see Bromley home games would be a big effort.
Roberts was keen to pass his love of Bromley on to his wife and decided a tour of the country, taking in Ravens games, was the way to do it.
As he said at the start of Chapter 17, “My brother-in-law Nick had just come back from Spain after a week away, and Liz was desperate to follow his example and take a break from the English winter.
“Her wish was about to come true. We were on our way to Wales for a Valentine’s Day weekend in Wrexham – because nothing says romance quite like a weekend in Wrexham, with a Bromley game thrown in.”
That’s the beauty of this book – it’s not just about football. It’s about travel, observation of how the country has changed in three decades and friendship. How Roberts forms bonds with his fellow fans and, despite the mediocre football at times, they enjoy themselves.
Roberts writes with a light touch, coming up with a host of amusing stories as he climbs steep hills to get to games, can’t believe any decision that goes against his team, fumes at the BBC for not providing commentary on matches, watches games on twitter and gets lost on the way to away grounds.
For example, describing Anthony Cook’s departure, Roberts wryly said: “And that was’t the only major catastrophe. As Mickey had predicted, Anthony Cook, one of our best players until the recent slump, had moved; although what motivated him to drop down a division to sign for extremely wealthy Ebbsfleet was a mystery.”
Roberts goes back to his old childhood home to stay the night there before Bromley’s home game against Woking, repeating what happened there 45 years earlier before the same game (“The couple who had bought the house from my parents back in the 1980s had made the mistake of saying that I was welcome to stay at any time.”) It was worth the effort, Bromley winning 2-1.
There are also some moving moments in the book, such as going with his old schoolboy pal John, forced to drag himself around on crutches, to the Woking game and the death of his dad.
All in all, this is a brilliant book, with lots to enjoy, including his account of being the mascot for a day and travelling on the Guiseley Supporters Club coach to their match against Bromley.
Bromley fans will love it, but this is a book that all football fans can enjoy and relate to.
SUNDAY FOOTBALL, BY CHRIS BAKER, PUBLISHED BY HOXTON MINI PRESS, PRICE £14.95,RATING OUT OF 10: 8
PERHAPS the front cover picture best sums up Chris Baker’s homage to Sunday league football – a player with fag in hand proudly shows off his paunch.
Yes, Sunday league has its repu-tation as the place where hungover players gather together with their mates to play the beautiful game, but no one can say it doesn’t attract its fair share of characters.
Sunday league lover Baker undertook a twoyear project with his camera on the infamous Hackney Marshes to show off the game in all its glory, and it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t captured the heartbeat of the game.
There are a terrific variety of pictures from the individual portraits to players celebrating … or awaiting ambulances. It shows that Sunday league is for all – black, white, fat, thin, small or tall – and even displays the human side of referees.
What adds to the pictorial extravaganza are the quotes from players and referees dotted throughout the book.
You know the type: “Our old goalkeeper wore glasses but couldn’t wear contacts. This was a bit of a problem as he could only really see a player or the ball when they reached the edge of his area. We conceded a lot of longrange shots that year.”
Or: “Can you all just shut up?! Listen, there are too many people out there with egos wanting to be the leading goalscorer, that’s f***ing bollocks. We won’t win like that, we’ll only win if we play like a unit.”
Baker calls his book a ‘love letter to the game that consumed me for so many years’. He’s definitely done it justice and, with Sunday league football coming under pressure from all sides, it deserves a wide viewing.
Naturally, it will appeal to people who have played or reffed Sunday league football, but this wonderfully put together small hardback book merits a broader audience.
As BBC presenter Dan Walker said in his foreword to the book: “Chris Baker has done something very special with ‘Sunday Football’. He’s managed to capture the essence of football, reminding us of all the reasons why we have so much affection for the beautiful game.”
FOOTBALL CLICHÉS, BY ADAM HURREY, PUBLISHED BY HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP, PRICE £8.99,RATING OUT OF 10: 8
LONDON-BASED football writer Adam Hurrey created the Football Clichés blog in 2007, so you could call him the ‘King of Clichés’.
Almost a decade later, he’s put together a richly entertaining book, with some excellent illustrations from designer James Edgar, to showcase the incredible array of phrases that have become indelibly linked with the world of football.
The book is cleverly split into different sections covering everything from scoring goals to the goalkeepers’ union, football reporting to Sunday league, the transfer window to the managerial merry-go-round.
This isn’t a book to sit down and read in big chunks, well not for me anyway, but it’s one to dip in and out of when you’ve got a spare few minutes and want to have a chuckle.
For Hurrey shows that ‘over the moon’ and ‘sick as a parrot’ are just the tip of the iceberg (oops). So much of what’s said and reported by players, managers, journalists and fans comes back to the phrases we all love (or hate) so much.
One section I particularly enjoyed was a 90-minute guide for would-be co-commentators, starting with, on two minutes, “Good evening everybody” (copyright: David Pleat). Then on 9 mins: Who’s made the brighter start? If unsure, claim that both teams are cancelling each other out or perhaps even feeling each other out.
On 16 mins: Someone tries a speculative effort from thirtyfive yards that flies wide. Regardless of who the goalkeeper is, they’ll have to do a lot better to beat a goalkeeper of his quality from that distance.
You get the gist.
Towards the end of the book, I also enjoyed the popular Sunday league phrases: ‘We’ve gone quiet!’, ‘It’s still 0-0’, ‘(Shirt colour) head on this’, ‘One of you!’ etc. There’s an awful lot in this book to enjoy. In fact, for me, it was something of a surprise package.
OPTA JOE’S FOOTBALL YEARBOOK 2016, BY DUNCAN ALEXANDER, PUBLISHED BY CENTURY, PRICE £12.99,RATING OUT OF 10: 7
IT’S difficult to move without being bombarded by football statistics these days. Whether it’s assists, pass completion or possession, there seems to be a stat for everything now.
It’s one of the ways the game has changed most over the last 20 to 30 years. Back then, most people were happy to know one key stat – the final score. Whether you love them or hate them, you might as well get used to them – stats are here to stay.
Opta Joe’s Football Yearbook 2016 will be a statistician’s delight, but also attempts to appeal to a wider audience with a reader-friendly analysis.
Does, for example, the much talked about 40-point target really guarantee another year of Premier League football? The answer is no, not always, as unlucky West Ham found to their cost when they were relegated with 42 points in 2002-03.
Or do the lowest-scoring teams in the top-flight always go down? No, though the teams that concede the most almost always do.
Opta Joe is the pseudonym of Duncan Alexander, one of the Britain’s top football statisticians and commentators, who has over 700k followers on twitter. That’s an impressive statistic and suggests there is a big demand for stats now. This book brings the bald stats to life and puts them into context.
There’s loads to ponder, including the lack of success of English managers in the Premier League, the goal-laden career of Cristiano Ronaldo and the true worth of Pep Guardiola.
Another of those books that’s best read in shorts bursts, there’s something here to keep everyone happy. Well, maybe not those people that really hate statistics…
