Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35805 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Released on: 2006-02-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Customer Reviews

Narrative and Stats
What I enjoyed most about this book is the great combination of a narrative story and all the stats and figures that a footy fan (any sports fan) needs. You get the story with its ebbs and flows and near disaster and great human characters.

An Utterly Fascinating Read
I can't speak highly enough about this book. It vividly recreates a forgotten era, and should have a far broader appeal than for just United die hards. If you want detail it is all there, comparative league tables, player profiles, cigarette card photos of hard men defenders with even tougher looking haircuts, there is even a Noddy guide to the off-side rule at the time for all unfamiliar with the FA rulebook for 1922. But the appeal for me lay in the inter war social history that Blundell brings to life with much humour and, it would appear, a strong affection for English eccentricity in all its mad and varied forms.

A highly entertaining debut
Apparently this is Justin Blundell's first book but you'd never know it. Don't be put off by the subject matter, this is a much more important tome than the proliferation of depressingly empty football books on offer these days. If you want to know what Wayne Rooney's favourite member of Atomic Kitten is this isn't for you. If however you want a surprisingly entertaining account of how the mighty Manchester United rose from the rubble of the depression era setting the foundations for the Busby era, get hold of this book. The characters may not be overly familiar even to the most fanatical of United followers but Blundell effortlessly manages to draw contemporary parallels with passion, wit and a heartfelt love of his subject matter. With the current incarnation of Manchester United in very real danger of asphyxiation under the weight of the post-Glazer debt this is a story worth reading.