Product Description

Between August 1997 and May 1998, John Aizlewood went to a football match at each and every one of the ninety-two football league grounds in England. He describes not just the match but the ground, the people he meets there, their relationship to the club (in two instances, both clubs) and the town they come from. From the slick marketing experience that is Manchester United and its sea of London-based supporters buying Giggsy calendars, to the sodden, lonely, seaside ground of Grimsby Town, so far away that you can't even see the town of Grimsby, this will be a diary and a travelogue, an opinionated odyssey around the country and passionate paen to our favourite sport. This is as much a book about the places as it is about the games. The tone is worldly, chatty, funny and informative. Aizlewood is a writer who loves football rather than a football writer; this book will leave its anorak at home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #503405 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Review
Ground-hopping is not an honourable pursuit. The desire to watch football at all 92 English league grounds is not something a man with a wife and commitments should have in his life, never mind trying to cram all the visits into one season. But John Aizlewood persuaded his wife it was a good idea, and then persuaded a publisher in the same way (presumably). And what we end up with is fascinating: a book about fans, rather than about football and about the state of the nation rather than the state of the game. Aizlewood trawls around the towns and cities of England and Wales, eating the awful food at the ground, mixing with the fattest and smelliest the nation has to offer, suffering abuse, foul weather and awful football. But what sticks out are the moments that make it worth it. Unexpected moments of tolerance, kindness or good humour from Neanderthal fans, shafts of wisdom from unlikely sources, beauty in the strangest locations, and even the occasional passage of good football. The author is an avuncular figure and generally a tolerant guide. Any man who can find beauty and cheer in Oldham has retained his faith in humanity. But it's a close run thing. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
John Aizlewood is 32 and was born in Rotherham. He is the Associate Editor of Q, the UK's bestselling music magazine. He also writes on football for Total Sport and FHM magazines. He works regularly on radio as an expert contributor on Kaleidescope, Newbeat, 5 Live, The Hit Parade and The Album show.He is a lifelong supporter of Sheffield Wednesday and is not ever so keen on Manchester United.

Customer Reviews

From Barnsley to Birmingham - 9 months labour of love
The mission itself appears simple enough: One football season, 92 football league clubs - see every team play a home game. However, with only around 40 saturdays in any one season, this is no weekend hobby. His entire life is spent trekking the motorways and railways of England, from hot, late-Summer days in South Yorkshire, via freezing and bizarre seaside experiences in deserted December Blackpool, onto the final game at Aston Villa in May, 9 months and one lead-lined stomach later. His experiences - often taking in 4-5 games per week - echo those of thousand of devoted football fans the country over, the pre and post match rituals, rock-hard meatpies; inedible burgers; hundreds of beers and feisty barstaff; fantastic goals and saves; terrible on-pitch blunders; the loneliness of the neutral invading what is to many a cultist existence of nylon replica shirts and woollen scarves. What he manages to convey is the fact that, despite the money and elitism of the Premiership, the smaller clubs in places like Rochdale and Chesterfield do something that nothing else in those places can - uniting people to a common cause. Why do 2000 people turn up at Spotland every fortnight to watch a team who have won nothing in most people's lifetime, and probably never will? Why do 10 year olds at Rochdale schools put up with the mockery of the other children whose fathers take them to Old Trafford? Because the football team is the town, and vice versa. Without the football club, all that would remain is a ghost town, no soul, no common cause. This book emphasises this fact 92 times over, whilst not ignoring that not all is well in English football. There is still hooliganism, grounds are still unsafe, facilities nothing short of Dickensian. Despite all this, a love for the game - characterised by conversations with people he has never met before, sharing sweets and flasks of coffee - runs through the book like Friday night's pie and peas ran through the author's stomach. Divided into Chapters for each game, commencing with often prophetic excerpts from managerial programme notes, the book is great to dip into every now and again, but to get the full "footballing-odyssey" feel, I recommend it is read from cover to cover, diary style. I assure you it will either leave you wanting to do the rounds yourself, or put you off ever making a 500 mile round trip on a cold Saturday in February to watch your team play at home against Huddersfield...but I'll be there. Thanks, John, for telling it as it is.

Britain in the 90's - and football too!
Aizlewood spent a season visiting all 92 football league grounds, but this is not just a book about sport - although, admittedly, it does help if you like the game. He took the time and trouble to research each town and area, finding that whereas there is much that is becoming depressingly similar across England (& Wales), there is still a refreshing streak of originality and humour, often native to a particular region.

The book is never less than entertaining. Each match is briefly described, but it is the social observation which you will remember, captured in special moments - which I won't spoil by revealing - some hilarious, some disgusting, to which you will finding yourself turning back to re-read.

No doubt some fans will take exception to his comments on their team and town, but from my experience of visiting many many grounds over the years as a long-suffering Manchester City supporter, he does seem to capture the spirit and atmosphere (or lack of it - see Old Trafford!) of the various locations.

Overall, an excellent read and an essential addition to literary football fans' collections - keep it next to Simon Inglis's 'Football Grounds' books to get the social flavour besides the architecture!

Intelligent, cynical football fans journal
The idea of going round all 92 football league grounds in one season has been attempted before - I can't remember the name of one writer who tried it, but his book was absolutely dreadful. This is much better. Aizlewood is a proper writer, unlike many of his football book-writing contemporaries, and his witty turn of phrase often makes you laugh out loud. A criticism would be that this is another left-leaning, Gaurdian reading pseudo intellectual who rises above the masses to observe them and their funny ways, getting easy material out of things that have been going on for years and will do for many years hence. He also has a rather weird occupation with race, and on one occasion refers to the two'whites' that robbed a petrol station in Coventry. Wouldn't 'men' have done? He's also keen to relate incidences of swearing and his perception of towns is often unnecessarily harsh. Perhaps the slog of his adventure made him jaded and bitter. There's also the problem of the reader knowing more about a parochial place or thing than the author does and hence knowing he is wrong. But, quibbles aside, this is a superior sport book.