The book concentrates on the devastating fall that many young players experience being released or sent out on loan to the lower divisions after the early promise fails to materialise. It tackles homophobia – the one remaining taboo in football – with a sensitivity that’s brilliantly nuanced. George Best may have recklessly squandered his genius, while Duncan Edwards had his tragically stolen, but Burn’s beautiful, elegiac writing elevates them both to legendary figures of a country that changed dramatically in the decade between their respective emergences as star players for Manchester United in the 50s and 60s. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/ShutterstockĪ compelling study of two footballing giants, doomed to be remembered differently due to the circumstances of their deaths. Lennie’s attitude to life and football is a mix of the two real-life subjects from my next choice.ĭuncan Edwards in 1956. The story follows Lennie Hawk, still at school but already showing the ability of a future England international. The book’s depiction of the red brick back courts of northern England – and of the early 60s social context – is brilliant, and the characters are realistically flawed. It’s less well known than A Kestrel For a Knave and I’m perhaps the only person in the world who thinks it’s better. Insomnia takes hold and the Clough of the novel struggles to understand why the skills and practices that made him a brilliant football player – prior to career-ending injury – and then a mercurial manager, have apparently deserted him. Peace’s masterful novel depicting the 44-day tenure of Brian Clough as manager of Leeds United depicts how his paranoia and loneliness (and irrationality) grow with his increasing isolation. So, in that spirit, here are the 10 still on the field as the final whistle blows. It should have been 11, but Ayrshire Junior football teams always get one sent off early for dissent. Don’t believe me? Have a look at my Top 10. There’s a lot more than a simple game at stake.ĭig deeper and you’ll find books framed against the game’s irrational passions and ambitions that are among the best books written about anything. Just as The Damned United (listed below) is a book that examines, through a stream-of-consciousness narrative, the obsessions of a man being played out in an often-illogical, unforgiving, alpha male-dominated environment. It is a book set in a footballing context, but it isn’t a book about football. My new novel There’s Only One Danny Garvey is set in 1996.
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