Going to the Match: The Passion for Football

by Duncan Hamilton

Overview

'Simply magnificent.' Mail on Sunday

A massive audience in sitting-rooms, parks and pubs watched England in the 2018 World Cup. Yet as Duncan Hamilton demonstrates with style, insight and wit in Going to the Match, watching on TV is no substitute for being there.

Hamilton embarks on a richly entertaining, exquisitely crafted journey through football. Glory game or grass roots, England v Slovenia or Guiseley v Hartlepool, he delves beneath the action to illuminate the stories which make the sport endlessly compelling.

Along the way he marvels at present-day titans Harry Kane, Mo Salah, Kevin De Bruyne and Paul Pogba, reflects on sepia-tinted magicians Stanley Matthews, Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Charlton and Pele, and assesses managerial giants from Brian Clough and Jose Mourinho to Arsene Wenger and Gareth Southgate.

The odyssey takes Hamilton from Fleetwood to Berlin, via Glasgow and a Manchester derby, making detours into art, cinema, literature and politics as he explores the game's ever-changing culture and character.

The result, like the L.S. Lowry painting that inspired the book, is a football masterpiece.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473661806
Publisher:	Hodder
Publication date:	12/10/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.87(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Duncan Hamilton is a journalist who has won two William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prizes. He has been nominated on a further four occasions. He has also claimed two British Sports Book Awards and is the only writer to have won the Wisden Cricket Book of the Year on three occasions. His biography of the Chariots of Fire runner Eric Liddell, For the Glory, was a New York Times bestseller. He most recently collaborated with Jonny Bairstow on the cricketer's autobiography, A Clear Blue Sky.

He lives at the foot of the Yorkshire Dales.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Kind of Gentle Madness 1

1 Home is the Oldest Place You Will Ever Know 13

2 Don't Think You're Special … We Lose Every Week 29

3 A Tan Suit and a Wad of Tickets 45

4 This Side of Paradise 61

5 What There is to Say We Have Said 77

6 The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Long Range Free Kick 93

7 Jealousy, Selfishness. Hypocrisy 111

8 The Sweet Revenge of the Jammy Bastards 127

9 Some are Dead and Some Are Living 143

10 Old Water, Old Bridges 157

11 Writing On the Back of the Lavatory Door 173

12 Of Splendour on the Grass 189

13 From Sea to Shining Sea 205

14 What We Talk About When … 223

15 The Little Death of Defeat 241

16 To The Infinity Bridge and Beyond 259

Epilogue: The Kings of the Car Park 279

What Happened Next 295

Author's Note and Acknowledgements 305

Selected Sources 311

Index 317

Editorial Reviews

Hamilton is steeped in the history and traditions of football and communicates his knowledge lightly and with wit and intelligence. Above all, though, this is a fan's-eye view that brilliantly expresses the passion that millions like him, in pursuit of happiness and belonging, feel for the beautiful game. Simply magnificent.—Mail on Sunday

From the Publisher