Product Description

Despite its immense wealth, and the high public profile it enjoys, English football is not a land of milk and honey. The national side has won the World Cup only once when England staged the tournament in 1966 and the woeful performances in recent years would suggest that Sir Alf Ramsey's success will retain its unique status. Fifty People Who Fouled Up Football casts a sceptical eye on the game in this country. It looks at the game as it really is, through the gaze of an outsider, who grew up loving the game but who has been turned off by the excesses of players, managers, broadcasters and fans, and increasingly by the rich men who own and run the clubs. The big bang came in 1992, when the Premier League went its own merry way, aided by the millions that Sky television found to ease the passage. Now the game is richer, and can attract the world's leading stars, but it is poorer in spirit. The old football community means little to these Masters of the Universe. The old links between club and community have been ruined, and many players live in a different world, where they feel free to behave as they like. The book names the guilty, who include those on the fringes of the game as well as the ones at the heart of it. Indignant in the right sense, it is a lament for a spoilt game, and a world that has vanished. The 50 People are: Roman Abramovich; Sam Allardyce; Mike Ashley; David Baddiel; Tony Banks; Joey Barton; Ken Bates; Victoria Beckham; George Best; Sid and Doris Bonkers; Billy Bragg; Ashley Cole; Garry Cook; Hunter Davies; Didier Drogba; Martin Edwards; Sven-Goran Eriksson; The Fans ; Paul Gascoigne; Geordie Blubber ; The Golden Generation ; Alan Green; Alan Hansen; Derek Hatton; Nigel Kennedy; Richard Keys; Lord Kinnaird; Nick Love; Steve McClaren; Freddie Mercury; Piers Morgan; Jose Mourinho; Graham Poll; Sir Alf Ramsey; Antonio Rattin; Charles Reep; Don Revie; Peter Ridsdale; Robinho; Cristiano Ronaldo; Wayne Rooney; Richard Scudamore; Bill Shankly; Bob Shennan; Peter Swales; Gordon Taylor; Sir Harold Thompson; Terry Venables; Ian Wright; Pini Zahavi

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3512 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Review
[An] entertaining polemic ... likely to provoke passionate debate. --Daily Telegraph

'Good knockabout stuff written with wit and verve'. - Independent on Sunday

'A very enjoyable read'. - Good Book Guide

Outrageous and guaranteed to have the nerve ends raised from the first quirky page. --The Independent

Pointed, intriguing and controversial but also humorous. --The Observer

About the Author
Michael Henderson was born in Lancashire, educated in Derbyshire, and lives in London. A well-known writer on sport and the arts, he has worked for the Times, the Guardian, and the Mail, and was cricket correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. He also writes about music for The Spectator. His interests include German music, Dutch paintings, Russian novels, American films, French wine and English ale.

Customer Reviews

Thoughtful, controversial and hilarious
Knuckle-scrapers and those whose two hemispheres of the brain are some distance apart will find much to fume about in this list of 50 foulers, but for the more discerning football fan there is much to recommend here. Michael Henderson takes on the nearly impossible task of whittling down to a list of 50 some of football's biggest rogues, simpletons and showy practioners who in way or another have bespoiled the beautiful game, and he does it with humour and insight. Yes, there are some sacred cows included that will leave 'real fans' enraged, but the tone of the book is one of sorrow more than anger - he clearly loves football and laments the passing of a once unifying national pastime now taken over by megadeals and foreign millions. I didn't agree with many of his selections but I do agree with most, and yes, he could have included others, but each 'fouler' is drawn as an exemplar of what is wrong with particular aspects of the modern game; the individuals might be controversial but the faults they are used to illustrate are not. Great and entertaining reading - it is what the bog was invented for.

Typical Hendo--and glad of it
I have been a fan of Micheal Henderson's writing--mainly on cricket--for years and his vitriolic style is always good value. What about a cricket title on a similar theme?

A load of rubbish!
What is the point of this book? It's written by an insignificant old man who has no knowledge about the game and has openly stated before that he has never liked football! So why read a book written by a man who slates the likes of Sir Alf Ramsay, Don Revie and George Best? Simple: You shouldn't. I heard an interview with this man on The Game podcast from The Times and he sounded ignorant every time he spoke. He said Sir Alf ruined football because after the World Cup in '66, England should have adopted a higher quality of football rather than the type which WON US THE WORLD CUP AND GAVE THIS COUNTRY IT'S BEST EVER SPORTING MOMENT IN HISTORY! Sir Alf made significant, game changing decisions like leaving Englands best striker, Jimmy Greaves, on the bench and playing Sir Geoff Hurst... and he's still a man who ruined football?!?

He's a joke and so is his pathetic excuse of `literature'.