“Savage Enthusiasm traces the evolution of the football fan from the sport’s earliest origins right up to the present day, exploring how football became the world’s most popular spectator sport, and why it became the undisputed game of the people. The book starts with football’s big bang in 1863 with the creation of Association football. Within ten years, the public was hooked and football was woven into the fabric of if not daily life, then certainly weekend life. Brown posits this rise to football simply being the best sport and supports this with scientific theory published in Nature in 1996 alongside his own rather more plausible explanation that it is its simplicity that accounts for its popularity. …” Football Pink, amazon
Daily Archives: October 18, 2017
Tottenham’s coming of age performance in the Bernabeu proves they are here to stay
“Perhaps Tottenham were slightly fortunate to get a draw in Madrid on Tuesday night, given that Cristiano Ronaldo hit the post and Hugo Lloris made a barely credible close-range block from Karim Benzema and a spectacular tip-over from Ronaldo. But maybe they weren’t. After all, as Brian Clough always used to say after a performance of particular excellence from Peter Shilton, the goalkeeper is a part of the team. Plus, Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen both had chances to win it, Spurs should have had a penalty for Casemiro’s foul on Fernando Llorente and there was probably a foul in the move leading up to Serge Aurier’s stupid challenge on Toni Kroos that led to the penalty from which Ronaldo equalised. Nobody could realistically argue that Tottenham deserved to win, but it’s easy enough to conceive how they might have done. …” unibet – Jonathan Wilson
Edin Dzeko: ‘I don’t run? I don’t give my best? Come on! That is a joke’
“Edin Dzeko looks as if he wants to jump up from the chair. He is animated. His cheeks are red and he gesticulates wildly. … It is a moment that encapsulates what the Bosnia-Herzegovina striker is all about. He has been described as being indifferent and cold but when we meet in an empty hotel restaurant on the outskirts of Sarajevo he is neither. Instead he is extremely passionate about the game, more perhaps than any other player I have interviewed, and a man who realises how lucky he is to play football for a living. …” Guardian
TURF WARS: A history of London football
“The four giant cranes climb strikingly above the north-east London skyline. They are visible from the North Circular Road as Tottenham’s new stadium takes shape – soaring and dynamic symbols of London’s endless football revolution. Spurs new ground will open in 2018 with a capacity of 61,000, which will be 548 more people than they get into Arsenal’s Emirates. The percentage difference is 0.939 per cent, but every little counts in London’s most fierce football turf war. Not as much as winning trophies or league placing, at which Arsenal are so much better than their neighbours. But Spurs have a plan to change all that and the tiny difference in capacity is a part of it. …” London football history: Why our city’s turf war makes it the world capital of football, amazon