The Footballer Who Could Fly

Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2013 The story of one man's life told through the prism of his father and grandfather's love of football. 'Without football, we were strangers under a shared roof. With it, we were father and son.' Inspired by his father's devotion to Newcastle United and the heroes of yesteryear, Duncan Hamilton brings to life a bygone age telling the story of British football from the hardscrabble 1940s and the 'never-had-it-so-good' '50s right through to the dowdy First Division of the '70s and '80s, and today's slick Premiership. Hamilton recalls some of football's most sublime players, managers and characters, from Bill Shankly and Jackie Milburn to George Best and Lionel Messi. But at the heart of The Footballer Who could Fly is Hamilton's relationship with his own father. Here he tells how football became the only real connection between two people who, apart from their love of the beautiful game, were wholly different from one another.

Duncan Hamilton is the author of Provided You Don't Kiss Me- 20 Years with Brian Clough which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year for 2007. In 2009, he was awarded the William Hill again, for Harold Larwood, as well as winning the prestigious Wisden Book of the Year for 2009 and Biography of the Year at the 2010 British Sports Book Awards. He lives in the Yorkshire Dales.

Heart-crackingly nostalgic * The Times * Spellbindingly evocative ... an unforgettable homage not only to his father but to his flat-capped generation of ye grand olde days of thud and mud and Saturday's teatime urban gloaming. * Observer * Pitch perfect ... This marvellous and affecting book, which is about love and fatherhood and history and manners as much as it is about football ... Hamilton is a first-rate pen-portraitist. * Spectator * Hamilton wrote two of the best sports books of recent years, on Brian Clough and the cricketer Harold Larwood ... a fine collection of vignettes ... make this another winner. * Sunday Times * Hamilton takes us on a hugely enjoyable nostalgia trip...a moving depiction of how football can bind together a family. * Sunday Express *