My Father And Other Working Class Football Heroes

My Father And Other Working Class Football Heroes PDF Author: Gary Imlach
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446483738
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A poignant and moving account of the author’s search for the man his father was and the life he led as a well-known footballer, blending the personal and the historical into an unforgettable story Stewart Imlach was an ordinary neighbourhood soccer star of his time. A brilliant winger who thrilled the crowd on Saturdays, then worked alongside them in the off-season; who represented Scotland in the 1958 World Cup and never received a cap for his efforts; who was Man of the Match for Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final, and was rewarded with the standard offer - £20 a week, take it or leave it. Gary Imlach grew up a privileged insider at Goodison Park when Stewart moved into coaching. He knew the highlights of his father's career by heart. But when his dad died he realised they were all he knew. He began to realise, too, that he'd lost the passion for football that his father had passed down to him. In this book he faces his growing alienation from the game he was born into, as he revisits key periods in his father's career to build up a picture of his football life - and through him a whole era. ‘The most emotionally charged and moving sports book I've ever read’ Daily Mail

My Father And Other Working Class Football Heroes

My Father And Other Working Class Football Heroes PDF Author: Gary Imlach
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446483738
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A poignant and moving account of the author’s search for the man his father was and the life he led as a well-known footballer, blending the personal and the historical into an unforgettable story Stewart Imlach was an ordinary neighbourhood soccer star of his time. A brilliant winger who thrilled the crowd on Saturdays, then worked alongside them in the off-season; who represented Scotland in the 1958 World Cup and never received a cap for his efforts; who was Man of the Match for Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final, and was rewarded with the standard offer - £20 a week, take it or leave it. Gary Imlach grew up a privileged insider at Goodison Park when Stewart moved into coaching. He knew the highlights of his father's career by heart. But when his dad died he realised they were all he knew. He began to realise, too, that he'd lost the passion for football that his father had passed down to him. In this book he faces his growing alienation from the game he was born into, as he revisits key periods in his father's career to build up a picture of his football life - and through him a whole era. ‘The most emotionally charged and moving sports book I've ever read’ Daily Mail

The Football Man

The Football Man PDF Author: Arthur Hopcraft
Publisher: Aurum
ISBN: 1845138384
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
‘Football matters, as poetry does to some people and alcohol does to others… Football is inherent in the people… There is more eccentricity in deliberately disregarding it than in devoting a life to it. The way we play the game, organize it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are’ Written just two years after England’s ’66 triumph when the national game was at its zenith, Arthur Hopcraft’s The Football Man is repeatedly quoted as the best book ever written about the sport. This definitive, magisterial study of football and society profiles includes interviews with all-time greats like Bobby Charlton, George Best, Alf Ramsay, Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby and Nat Lofthouse. It is a snapshot of a pivotal era in sporting history; changes and decisions were made in the sixties that would create the game we know today. For many who are disenchanted with the modern game – the grip of businesses and corporations, the dominance of advertising, the extortionate ticket prices and inaccessible matches, the fickleness of teenage millionaires – The Football Man takes the reader back to the heart and soul of the national game when pitches were muddy and the players were footballers not brands. Voted in May 2005 as one of Observer’s top sports books of all time, this is a long-awaited reissue of the classic football ‘bible’. ‘Masterpiece among sports books’ Guardian ‘It remains one of my favourite football reads’ Graham Taylor

Only a Game?

Only a Game? PDF Author: Eamon Dunphy
Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK)
ISBN: 9780140102901
Category : Soccer players
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The season began so well for the Republic of Ireland international midfielder Eamon Dunphy at Millwall - and ended in disillusionment and being on the transfer list. In classic memoir, he charts the progress of the team during a season that begins with such high hopes and is filled throughout with high drama.

Ice Time

Ice Time PDF Author: Jay Atkinson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307434281
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
As kids, we all had passions -- something we loved doing, experienced with our friends, dreamed about every spare moment. For Jay Atkinson, who grew up in a small Massachusetts town, it was hockey. When Bobby Orr scored the winning goal in the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals against the St. Louis Blues, Atkinson became a fan for life. In 1975, he played on the first Methuen Rangers varsity hockey team. Once and always a rink rat, Atkinson still plays hockey whenever and wherever he can. Twenty-five years after he played for the Rangers, Atkinson returns to his high school team as a volunteer assistant. Ice Time tells the team's story as he follows the temperamental star, the fiery but troubled winger, the lovesick goalie, the rookie whose father is battling cancer, and the "old school" coach as the Rangers make a desperate charge into the state tournament. In emotionally vivid detail, Ice Time travels into the rinks, schools, and living rooms of small-town America, where friendships are forged, the rewards of loyalty and perseverance are earned, and boys and girls are transformed into young men and women. Along the way, we also meet his five-year-old son, Liam, who is just now learning the game his father loves. Whether describing kids playing a moonlit game on a frozen swamp or the crucible of team tryouts and predawn bus rides that he endured himself, Atkinson carves out the drama of adolescence with precision and affection. He takes us onto the ice and into the heart of a town and a team as he explores the profound connection between fathers and sons, and what it means to go home again.

The Class of Football

The Class of Football PDF Author: Adam Schefter
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061957577
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Insightful, poignant, inspiring, and witty, The Class of Football is a heartfelt collection of hard-earned wisdom and life's lessons from the Hall-of-Fame induction speeches of the NFL's all-time greatest players. Compiled in conjunction with the Pro Football Hall of Fame, The Class of Football brings together sage advice from legends of the game whose knowledge, leadership, experience, and athletic prowess made them heroes on and off the field. George Halas speaks on history, Alan Page on justice, Gale Sayers on perseverance, John Madden on passion, Steve Largent on mentors, Mike Singletary on childhood, Michael Irvin on family, Marv Levy on philosophy, and Willie Davis and the rest of the great Green Bay Packers on Vince Lombardi. Each Hall of Famer reflects on his life and career and, even more important, addresses how and why he was able to arrive, once and for all, in Canton, Ohio. Motivating and gripping, these wise words from nearly five decades of Hall-of-Fame history will live on long after the cheering.

The Varsity Dad Dilemma

The Varsity Dad Dilemma PDF Author: Lex Martin
Publisher: Lex Martin
ISBN: 1950554015
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
A USA TODAY BESTSELLER! I’ll just ignore Rider and those soul-searing looks he gives me every time I reach for the baby. He broke my heart three years ago… he won’t get a second chance. What’s worse than having Rider Kingston, the hotshot quarterback on your college football team, give you the big brushoff because he doesn’t want to get serious? You’d probably think living across the street from him, where you get a first-hand view of his hookups, right? That’s what I thought, until someone drops off a surprise baby with a note pinned to her blanket that says one of those jocks—either Rider or one of his numbskull roommates—is the father. I wouldn’t care one bit about their paternity problems—except my brother lives there, too… which means that adorable squawking bundle might be my niece, and there’s no way I’m leaving her unattended with those bumbling football players. They need my help, even if they don’t know it yet. Once we solve this dilemma and figure out who the daddy is, I’m out. * * * The Varsity Dad Dilemma is a sexy, small-town sports romance novel from USA Today best-selling author Lex Martin. Over three thousand readers are raving about the passionate, angst-filled enemies-to-lovers romance, and the smoking-hot chemistry between Gabby, the slightly nerdy Latina with a take-charge attitude and her surprisingly sweet ex-boyfriend Rider. Who knew that he actually had a heart of gold underneath that deliciously ripped, well-defined exterior? “Gabby and Rider have great chemistry and their banter is HOT. While she had loathed everything about Rider since freshman year, there was no denying the physical attraction they had towards each other… If you are looking for a college romance that brings the laughter, with loads of sexual tension and plenty of heart melting moments, check this book out!” – Reader Review

Heartfelt

Heartfelt PDF Author: Aidan Smith
Publisher: Birlinn Publishers
ISBN: 9781841585109
Category : Soccer fans
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
You can change your house, your car, your political affiliations and even your partner, but your football team is one of life's constants, right? But are the divides between football's biggest rivals – Man City and Man Utd, Everton and Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal, Newcastle and Sunderland, Hearts and Hibs – really too wide to cross? How hard would it be to change sides, to sleep with the enemy and sup Bovril from the devil's cup? A lifelong Hibs fan takes on the challenge that TV's Faking It and Wifeswap were too scared to even contemplate, as he tries to follow his team's hated rivals Hearts for an entire season. With gritty realism and riveting detail, Aidan Smith demonstrates the importance of loyalty in being a fan. Going undercover, he swaps his colors, drinks in rivals' pubs and even sings their songs, trying to get under the skin of the opposition.

Fourth and Long

Fourth and Long PDF Author: John U. Bacon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476706441
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.

Why Football Matters

Why Football Matters PDF Author: Mark Edmundson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110163572X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite of passage as a high school football player to get to larger truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority. The athlete is a noble figure with a proud lineage. The jock is America at its worst. When Mark Edmundson’s son began to play organized football, and proved to be very good at it, Edmundson had to come to terms with just what he thought about the game. Doing so took him back to his own childhood, when as a shy, soft boy growing up in a blue-collar Boston suburb in the sixties, he went out for the high school football team. Why Football Matters is the story of what happened to Edmundson when he tried to make himself into a football player. What does it mean to be a football player? At first Edmundson was hapless on the field. He was an inept player and a bad teammate. But over time, he got over his fears and he got tougher. He learned to be a better player and came to feel a part of the team, during games but also on all sorts of escapades, not all of them savory. By playing football, Edmundson became what he and his father hoped he’d be, a tougher, stronger young man, better prepared for life. But is football-instilled toughness always a good thing? Do the character, courage, and loyalty football instills have a dark side? Football, Edmundson found, can be full of bounties. But it can also lead you into brutality and thoughtlessness. So how do you get what’s best from the game and leave the worst behind? Why Football Matters is moving, funny, vivid, and filled with the authentic anxiety and exhilaration of youth. Edmundson doesn’t regret playing football for a minute, and cherishes the experience. His triumph is to be able to see it in full, as something to celebrate, but also something to handle with care. For anyone who has ever played on a football team, is the parent of a player, or simply is reflective about its outsized influence on America, Why Football Matters is both a mirror and a lamp.

Muck City

Muck City PDF Author: Bryan Mealer
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307888630
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
In a town deep in the Florida Everglades, where high school football is the only escape, a haunted quarterback, a returning hero, and a scholar struggle against terrible odds. The loamy black “muck” that surrounds Belle Glade, Florida once built an empire for Big Sugar and provided much of the nation's vegetables, often on the backs of roving, destitute migrants. Many of these were children who honed their skills along the field rows and started one of the most legendary football programs in America. Belle Glade’s high school team, the Glades Central Raiders, has sent an extraordinary number of players to the National Football League – 27 since 1985, with five of those drafted in the first round. The industry that gave rise to the town and its team also spawned the chronic poverty, teeming migrant ghettos, and violence that cripples futures before they can ever begin. Muck City tells the story of quarterback Mario Rowley, whose dream is to win a championship for his deceased parents and quiet the ghosts that haunt him; head coach Jessie Hester, the town’s first NFL star, who returns home to “win kids, not championships”; and Jonteria Willliams, who must build her dream of becoming a doctor in one of the poorest high schools in the nation. For boys like Mario, being a Raider is a one-shot window for escape and a college education. Without football, Jonteria and the rest must make it on brains and fortitude alone. For the coach, good intentions must battle a town’s obsession to win above all else. Beyond the Friday night lights, this book is an engrossing portrait of a community mired in a shameful past and uncertain future, but with the fierce will to survive, win, and escape to a better life.