Football Memories: 50 Years of the Beautiful Game Book

When Brian Glanville left Charterhouse aged 17 in 1949, he reluctantly became an articled clerk after it was made apparent to him that football journalism was no career for a gentleman. All that was to change later that summer when he walked into the offices of the Italian Corriere dello Sport in Rome. The newspaper made him their English correspondent, even though he couldn't speak a word of Italian. Football Memories charts Granville's life, as a journalist, writer and player, since that day. Having covered every World Cup since Sweden in 1958 and met, interviewed and written about just about every football great (and more than a few football reprobates) since then, he is certainly in a position of authority. His career in Italy is covered, as are the many years spent writing for the Sunday Times. But alongside the compelling personal tale is another, of how football has changed since the days when amateurs still played for England. (Many of those amateurs were Granville's childhood heroes; some later joined him in the press box.) Notorious for his forthright views and lack of apprehension in expressing them, Glanville has made as many, if not more, enemies than friends; his accrimonious relationship with former England boss Graham Taylor is well known and is documented in the book. But he also refuses to pull his punches about others: ...as we know, a football brain is sui generis. It does not preclude intellect outside the field of play, any more than an intellectual need necessarily be an unintelligent footballer. But the football brain is essentially a thing of instinct, the reductio ad absurdum being a player such as Paul Gascoigne, who is wonderfully inventive, aware and original on the filed, but displays few of these qualities off the pitch. Successful as a writer away from the press box, Glanville explains his career as an author in full and talks a lot about the Chelsea Casuals, the team he has run for years and still plays for at the age of 67. An all-round story of one man's obsession with the beautiful game.Read More