Recommend me a good Footy Biography!

[vulture]

It would be better if you read the text, Kestrel, rather than just looking at the pictures.

But I would have to have a brain to do that I am only a simple bird(bit like gina )

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Paul Merson and Tony Adams

 

[Starry]

The Gentle Giant, John Charles is a good footballing read. It was edited and finished by someone else, Charles died before he got to finish it. Well worth reading though.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

The Gary Imlach book mentioned is really good, really highlights the changes that have taken place in football, highly recommend.

 

[Wienergull]

Maybe not quite what you had in mind, but Tim Parks' A Season With Verona is a top read. Tells it brilliantly from a fan's perspective, and I was struck by the parallels to following the Albion. Although a play-off with Reggina to avoid relegation from Serie A hardly matches up to our plight at the end of the 96/97 season, the following passage describes the Hereford experience perfectly:

"... above all it's sport wound to a tension far beyond that which galvanises any cup final. Here we're fighting for the right to exist. It's fang-and-claw Darwinism. At the end there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth on one side, wild rejoicing on the other."

 

[Hannibal smith]

The Gary Imlach book mentioned is really good, really highlights the changes that have taken place in football, highly recommend.

One of the best sports books I have ever read. If only Ashley Cole had read that before he moaned about getting 55K a week, he might realise why everyone thinks he is such a twat.

Fowlers is a good read. Its highly prescient about Sven bearing in mind it was written before the last World Cup.

I would also highly recommend Once in a Lifetime about the rise and fall of the New York Cosmos. Everyone from Rodney Marsh to Franz Beckenbaur is in it and it could only happen in America.

Someone on this thread said Fergusons. I thought it was awful. I couldn't get past the tone of 'I'm great me and i'm from the university of hard knocks' Scottish Idiot.

 

[SW17]

Paul McGrath - Back from the Brink. Superb

 

[SW17]

Oh and Gazza's as well. Very funny

 

[empire]

a 30 second read.Football management by mark mcghee

roy keanes
bestys
glen hoddles
bryan robsons

 

[empire]

Paul Merson and Tony Adams

great reads

 

[empire]

if its a good one,they get read in a few days,unlike rooneys ,still reading that 5 months on

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Oh and Gazza's as well. Very funny

The new one is gash

 

[Hiney]

Paul McGrath - Back from the Brink. Superb

Spot on. A brilliant and in many ways disturbing book.

HOW on EARTH did he manage to perform like that with all that stuff going on.

Amazing.

Roy Keane's book is very good, as is Niall Quinn's

Football biographies are COOL

 

[hans kraay fan club]

My bestest football book is 'Dynamo' about the persecution of the Dynamo Kiev players [and the rest of the Ukrainian population] by the Nazis.

Those fellas had balls of steel, and took on the Germans in a couple of matches that made the big match at teh end of Escape to Victory look like a Sunday morning friendly.

Its an amazing book, that will inspire you, and possibly upset you quite a bit. Anyone who wants to borrow it is more than welcome, but they'll have to get it off Hiney first!

 

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

cloughies was good, as was venables and vinnie jones's

 

[Arthur]

Maybe not quite what you had in mind, but Tim Parks' A Season With Verona is a top read. Tells it brilliantly from a fan's perspective, and I was struck by the parallels to following the Albion. Although a play-off with Reggina to avoid relegation from Serie A hardly matches up to our plight at the end of the 96/97 season, the following passage describes the Hereford experience perfectly:

"... above all it's sport wound to a tension far beyond that which galvanises any cup final. Here we're fighting for the right to exist. It's fang-and-claw Darwinism. At the end there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth on one side, wild rejoicing on the other."

On a similar theme The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro is well worth a read.

Also on even more of a tangent Playing the Moldovans at tennis is very good indeed (as are all of Tony Hawk's books)

Just finished Micky Quinn's and it wasn't bad. Interesting to hear his views on Keegan.

 

[Seasider]

Gary Nelson's two books and Tony Adams are good reads

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Hiney,have to agree. Niall Quinn's book is not a bad read at all.

 

[Hiney]

Anyone who wants to borrow it is more than welcome, but they'll have to get it off Hiney first!

ooops

 

[SussexSpur]

Eamon Dunphy's diary, from the late Seventies, is quite fun and as catty as his TV commentary. Danny Blanchflower's autobiography is a little more sensible, but equally strident.

Oh, and the appendix of Alan Shearer's book is good.