Product Description

Can We Play You Every Week? gets right under the skin of every football league club and captures the great moments all fans cherish. Packed with anecdotes, quotes, tall tales, small players, crooks, corruption and crackpots, worst signings and bizarre injuries, this book is essential reading for anyone with the love of our national sport running through their veins.

Get the low-down on the chasm between rich teams and poor, find out which club was elected to the league without kicking a ball, which goalie took a bung because he couldn't sell his bungalow and which was the first club to ban celery as an offensive weapon. Be amazed at the club owner who believed in aliens and the player whose career was ended by an ironing board. But, most of all, read about the heroism, love and loyalty of ordinary fans, the thousands who have kept their clubs going when the chips were really down....

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152179 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
Max Velody's Can We Play You Every Week? has something to please every fan because it has a chapter dedicated to all 92 league clubs... Velody really knows his stuff, and every pen-portrait is lavish with anecdote, trivia and opinion.

Every chapter starts with an appropriate quote, of which a fine example is Dennis Wise describing life at Chelsea: "Obviously there's a language barrier. The majority of the lads speak Italian but there are a few who don't." Velody also provides contact details for every club and nominates local heroes. A practical and entertaining work. --The Telegraph, November 2008

Review
"A wonderfully irreverent study of all 92 league football clubs, this gem of a book contains a host of facts that will not be found in more solemn works of reference. So, in the chapter on Rochdale, we learn that the club's striker of the early Sixties, 'Little Joe' Richardson, also earned a nocturnal living as an 'Alsatian kidnapper', selling the bewildered hounds from the back of his van to Liverpool security firms. Similarly, the chapter on Sheffield United contains the startling image of the club's 24-stone goalkeeper, William 'Fatty' Foulke, striding down the corridor stark naked after the 1902 Cup Final as he sought to confront the referee over a controversial decision. For Velody, the real heroes of lower league football are the fans, whose dedication has kept so many clubs alive."

Review
"Can We Play You Every Week has something to please every fan... there is often a whiff of Wikipedia about books like these, but Velody really knows his stuff, and every pen-portrait is lavish with anecdote, trivia and opinion."

Customer Reviews

If you buy just one football book this year.......
.... buy this one. Who'd have dreamed that the likes of Port Vale, Rotherham and Carlisle could be so entertaining? It's packed with info and laugh-out loud stories but it is so much more than a collection of football funnies. This bloke really knows his stuff and more often than not the comedy is there to make a serious point, For instance the chapter on Liverpool kicks off with a quote from the American owner of Liverpool - "My son Foster is a fan of soccer. He was a goaltender. His brother was a defenseman" - which says it all. This is very much a book for fans, and the author is often scathing about who runs the clubs and the league. He's especially good on the way money has affected the game and the part fans have played keeping clubs going. I was nearly put off buying it by the cover, I thought it might be one of those hooligan books, but it isn't. Although there's a very funny bit in it about the time two gangs of Millwall supporters beat each other up by accident. I bought it thinking I might put it in the loo and dip into it occasionally but actually I read it all in one go, it's a fantastic read.

The funniest serious book about football ever
I found this book through Facebook, of all places. Can We Play You Every Week has its own Facebook page which contains some of the more fascinating or funny things in the book. So there's a short documentary about a women's team of factory workers from Preston who were the most popular team in England in the 1920's. And some footage about the incredible Walter Tull, the first black outfield player in England and also the first black man to be appointed an English army officer - even though it was against army regs at the time. The funny stuff includes a northern pop star I'd never heard of reading the football results on the BBC and Melinda Messenger modelling latex (the relevance? the chairman of Doncaster Rovers was her cosmetic surgeon!!!!), as well as my own favourite, an emotional Delia Smith bellowing at Norwich City fans to make some noise. The Facebook page is very like the book, with a lot of very serious issues - racism, hooliganism, corruption, money - but in a very readable and entertaining way, and also has a lot of hilarious stuff too . It's also got a great explanation about why Brian Clough was a genius.

Heart-warming book full of human interest stories
Most of these books are recycled rubbish and I couldn't see why this one would be any different but at half price on Amazon, in an optimistic moment I thought I'd give it a go. Glad I did. It's entertaining and funny, and is full of hilarious and incredible stories about the history of each club which gives them their individual identity. But after reading a few entries, the bigger picture becomes clear and you realise just how much football clubs actually have in common. Many have had chairman just interested in making a buck for themselves, or managers clueless about their team. Others have suffered from a useless FA, the greedy clubs at the top - but all have a loyal following of fans who turn out on murky Saturdays every week to cheer their lower division team on and dig into their pockets to keep their club alive if they have to. This book tells the heart-warming tales of fans who've clubbed together and rescued their ground by clearing weeds and rubble with their bare hands, bought their grounds - and even players - and formed their own trusts to run the clubs - all of which remind you that there is still a heart in football, not just a pay packet.