Manchester City Ruined My Life

Author: Colin Shindler
Publisher: Headline
ISBN: 0755363590
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Book Description
Colin Shindler has previously written of his deep love for Manchester City in the bestselling Manchester United Ruined My Life and three other previous books. Now he tells the story of his sorrowful disenchantment with his home town club as, on the instruction of its new foreign owners, it turns itself remorselessly into a global brand. Trophyless since 1976, in 2011 Manchester City won the FA Cup and set off on their quest for the Premiership and the Champions League. In their zeal to win every competition the new Manchester City has spent money with wild abandon, signing outstandingly talented players as well as a few ordinary ones but in almost every case at hugely inflated prices. From the nail-biting win over Gillingham in the League Two Play Off final at Wembley in 1999 to the climax of the 2011 season, Shindler watches his team get steadily more successful and, to his own bewilderment, feels steadily more alienated from it. This is the story of a frustrated romantic who finds in the glitz and glamour of the current media-obsessed game a helter-skelter of artificially fabricated excitement. As he details how football courses through his veins Shindler tells how it intersects with his own life, a life that has been marked by family tragedy, and how he finally found personal redemption even as his team lost its soul.

Manchester United Ruined My Life

Author: Colin Shindler
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0755363922
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Colin Shindler was dealt a cruel hand by Fate when he became a passionate Manchester City supporter. In this brilliant sporting autobiography he recalls the great characters of his youth, like his eccentric Uncle Laurence, as well as his professional heroes. Threaded through these sporting events is the author's own story, which touches on a universal nerve, growing up in a Jewish family, his childhodd destroyed by the sudden death of his mother and his slow emotional recovery through his love for Manchester City. It is a tale that reveals what it is like to be on the outside looking in, with his nose pressed up against the sweet shop window watching the United supporters take all the wine gums.

Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?

Author: Anthony Clavane
Publisher: Quercus
ISBN: 1623655390
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
Ever since the children of penniless immigrants caught the train from Whitechapel to White Hart Lane--to be greeted with the refrain: 'Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?'--this forgotten tribe have helped to shape the Beautiful Game. In telling the fascinating lives of these largely unsung trailblazers, Clavane uncovers a hidden history of Jewish involvement in English football. From Louis Bookman, the first Jew to play in England's top division, to the pugnacious winger Mark Lazarus, whose last-gasp goal won the 1967 League Cup for QPR, to shady figures like One-Armed Lou, a ticket tout who never told the story of his missing limb the same way twice, through to the businessmen who helped form the breakaway Premier League, and in the process changed the English game for ever.

Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life

Author: Shelley Tougas
Publisher:
ISBN: 1626724180
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Charlotte struggles to adjust when her mother moves the family to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, the small, boring town where pioneer author Laura Ingalls Wilder grew up, in hopes of finding inspiration for her writing career.

Lows, Highs and Balti Pies

Author: Steve Mingle
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752473662
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
Lows, Highs and Balti Pies comprises vivid, colourful and highly individual recollections of City's most memorable games over the past 37 years. One hundred matches are featured, starting with a 5-2 drubbing of Sheffield United in 1967 and ending with the 4-1 triumph in the first derby at the cursed City of Manchester Stadium. Not all of the games in between provided quite as much pleasure. The book contains affectionate portraits of the City greats down the years, together with forthright appraisals on the rich assortment of blundering buffoons which the club has seen fit to inflict upon its famously loyal supporters. However, even when describing the club's darkest moments and the individuals responsible for them, humour is never far away - be it biting, dry, self-deprecating or just plain daft. This approach capture perfectly the essence of what it is to be a City fan. The book also embraces diverse elements of popular culture over the period. Musical reference points abound, whilst the likes of Sid Waddell, Curly Watts, Ian Hislop, Tony the Tiger and Cyanide Sid Cooper all somehow find themselves featuring in the story. And how the hell did Albert Pierrepoint get in there? All long-term followers of football causes will be well familiar with the emotional peaks and troughs described so strikingly in this book. Most, like the author, will have experienced more troughs than peaks. But it's the range of imaginative, often scarcely credible, ways in which City have brought both highs and lows into the lives of their fans which truly sets them apart. It's a remarkable story, vibrantly and entertainingly told.

Manchester United Ruined My Wife

Author: David Blatt
Publisher: Pitch Pub
ISBN: 9781905449811
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
Manchester United Ruined My Wife, the hilarious tale of a life-long United supporter and the way his obsession affected his wife and daughters, one of whom grew up to be an international pop star, was first published in 2004 selling over 10,000 copies. This new, updated edition brings the tale from the tragedy of Munich up to the triumph of Moscow, including the protracted sale to American owners, the rise and rise of FC United of Manchester and finally the double whammy of United's 17th league title and the agony and ecstasy of Russian penalty roulette in Moscow. How can a man love one woman, when he is in love with eleven men? When people get married it is "Till death do us part," yet, for almost 40% of the population, marriage ends in divorce. But, when you fall truly, madly, deeply in love with your football team there is no divorce; you do not stray. Your team is the one constant, consistent, permanent, overwhelming obsession in your life. Rarely has a book been written that so painfully yet humorously conveys the all-consuming red-hot passion, joy and despair felt by the vast majority of football fans. With highs so intense it reduces sex to mere skin rubbing, David Blatt puts wives in their rightful place on the substitutes bench as he takes the reader on a journey through his United-watching adventures, from the Busby Babes via the 1968 European Cup final, relegation, promotion, the wilderness years of the 70s and 80s, a first Championship in 26 years and the glorious 1999 treble, which culminated in the unforgettable Champions League triumph in Barcelona. It is a tale that millions of so-called "ordinary" football fans can relate to. After all, how can kissing girls compete with getting up at 5am for a 400 mile round trip for home games?

Manchester City Ruined My Life

Author: Colin Shindler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780755363612
Category : Soccer fans
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Colin Shindler first wrote of his deep love for Manchester City in Manchester United Ruined My Life. Now he tells the story of his sorrowful disenchantment with his home town club as, on the instruction of its new foreign owners, it turns itself remorselessly into a global brand. From the nail-biting victory over Gillingham 1999 to the equally dramatic winning of the Premier League in May 2012 Shindler watches as his team becomes more successful yet, to his own bewilderment, he feels increasingly alienated from the club. This is the story of a frustrated romantic who finds in the glitz and glamour of the current media-obsessed game a helter-skelter of artificially fabricated excitement. As he details how football courses through his veins, Shindler reveals how it intersects with his own life, a life that has been marked by family tragedy, and how he finally found personal redemption even as his team lost its soul.

Encyclopedia of British Sport

Author: Richard Cox
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

Book Description
"Includes entries on: individual sports, from football to fencing and polo to pigeon racing; the London Marathon, the Grand National, the Isle of Man TT races, the Olympic Games, the F.A. Cup, Test Matches, the Boat Race, Wimbledon, Wembley Stadium and much more; key issues such as fair play, gender, racism, commercialization, professionalism, alcohol and drugs; the sociology, psychology and language of sport; and sport in drama, film, literature and the visual arts."--BOOK JACKET.

The Book of Football Quotations

Author: Phil Shaw
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781840182132
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
A guide to who said what, why and when in British football and beyond. It seeks to record all the witty, wacky, flamboyant, scathing, wry, pithy or pretentious things that have been said about leading players, clubs, managers, chairmen, fans, referees or players' wives in the two years since the fifth edition was published. The great rollercoaster of controversies - including Glenn Hoddle's demise as England manager, the ongoing battles with addiction of Tony Adams, Paul Merson, and Gazza, and John Hartson's attack on West Ham team-mate, and so on. The volume features people such as Michael Caine, Noel Gallagher, Jack Higgins, Rory McGrath, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dowager Marchioness of Reading, Ian Dury and Eileen Drewery.

Contesting Childhood

Author: Kate Douglas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authorsùfrom first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others. Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.