"Nichts ist jemals von Bedeutung - außer Fußball."

Ich selbst habe ja schon einen Großteil meiner Kindheit und Jugend mit Fußball spielen und verfolgen verbracht, aber was Nick Hornby da macht, ist ein ganz anderes Level.

"Unsere Jahre, unsere Zeiteinheiten gehen von August bis Mai [...]. Wir besaufen uns am Silvesterabend wie alle anderen, aber in Wirklichkeit wird unsere geistige Uhr nach dem Pokalfinale im Mai gestellt, und wir schwelgen in all den Vorsätzen, dem Bedauern und den Erneuerungen, die sich normale Menschen am Ende des konventionellen Jahres erlauben."

Nick Hornby ist kein Fan von Arsenal, er ist ein Besessener. Er findet für Vieles Worte, das ich in Ansätzen auch für den Fußball empfinde. Auch wenn ich mit Arsenal wenig anfangen kann, umso weniger mit den Mannschaften zwischen 1969-1991, hat es das Buch geschafft, die Faszination des Fußballs und Fan-Daseins schonungslos offenzulegen. Ein Blick in die Vergangenheit, als der Fußball noch so anders, aber irgendwie doch gleich war.

Eine absolute Empfehlung für alle Fußballfans und ich bin mir auch sicher, dass man nach der Lektüre versteht, wieso "wir" und nicht "die" 2014 in Brasilien Weltmeister geworden sind. ;)

One of the best expressions of fandom I have ever read, with all the good and bad that that entails. I never read this one at the height of my Nick Hornby love, because I didn't understand football at that point in my life, but I'm glad that I had it to read now, when I do and when I have more perspective on my own life as a fan. And now I can listen to the podcast episode that made me finally pick this up.

The football season ended with a huge sense of relief but almost instantly I was in pain at the thought of June and July, those two months of the year when I have to fill my mind with thoughts other than 'when are Arsenal playing next? What time of the night do I set my alarm for?' The two months without football are the worst of the year. Not least because now that I am living in Australia, as opposed to England, it's also winter. It felt like the perfect time to finally revisit one of the books I've enjoyed most in my life, the memoirs of Nick Hornby, the now celebrity Arsenal fan and writer of lit-light novels that get turned in to not bad movies.

Having initially read this book in 1994 at the age of 12, before my world changed in so many ways and before professional football in England changed in so many ways I was curious as to how Fever Pitch would stand the test of time and how accurate my memory of it was. And I am happy to report that I enjoyed as much, if not more, now than I did then but most likely for different reasons.

The anecdotes are often hilarious and the observations of people and especially obsession/fandom/fanaticism are incredibly accurate, at times it felt like somebody actually understood why I behave the way I behave, these things that I always struggle to put in to words to justify myself to those people who just can't understand my chosen passion or the effect it has on me. It's not just a game to me, no matter how often well meaning people try to console me with that cliched line and perhaps now I can hand them this book and they will understand.

From an anthropological perspective this is an invaluable text, its a fabulous historical document also and as entertainment it fulfils its purpose and then some but most of all it's a marvellous source of pride for 'us,' the fans of The Arsenal that something so highly thought of is on its surface about us and not some other bunch of lillywhites or oil rich zillionaires playthings.

It didn't make the wait for the new season any easier but merely served to heighten my anticipation and expectation for when it finally arrives.

“But when there is some kind of triumph, the pleasure does not radiate from the players outwards until it reaches the likes of us at the back of the terraces in a pale and diminished form; our fun is not a watery version of the team's fun, even though they are the ones that get to score the goals and climb the steps at Wembley to meet Princess Diana. The joy we feel on occasions like this is not a celebration of others' good fortune, but a celebration of our own; and when there is a disastrous defeat the sorrow that engulfs us is, in effect, self-pity, and anyone who wishes to understand how football is consumed must realise this above all things. The players are merely our representatives, chosen by the manager rather than elected by us, but our representatives nonetheless. […] I am a part of the club, just as the club is a part of me; and I say this fully aware that the club exploits me, disregards my views, and treats me shoddily on occasions, so my feeling of organic connection is not built on a muddle-headed and sentimental misunderstanding of how professional football works. This Wembley win belonged to me every bit as much as it belonged to Charlie Nicholas or George Graham (does Nicholas, who was dropped by Graham right at the start of the following season, and then sold, remember the afternoon as fondly?), and I worked every bit as hard for it as they did. The only difference between me and them is that I have put in more hours, more years, more decades than them, and so had a better understanding of the afternoon, a sweeter appreciation of why the sun still shines when I remember it.” p. 178-179

I wanted to like this more. Nick Hornby has an excellent writing style, is very witty and explores an unusual addiction, that of an obsessed sports fan. However, I am not a soccer enthusiast and, until I picked up the book, I'd never even heard of Arsenal Football club. What interested me was the effect of his obsession on Nick's relationships: his parents, extended family, friends and girlfriends. Hornby showed glimpses of those and the interactions were intriguing, but then he'd go back to describing some goal, or a rained out game or some other trivial matter and I'd be bored.

"Fever Pitch" is an interesting look at an addiction. Most of the time, Nick doesn't even seem to enjoy watching Arsenal. The stadium is old, the crowd is often dangerous (there are several accounts of people getting crushed to death or trampled at these games), the tickets expensive, and the effects on his health are scary. Apparently, to be a soccer fan, you have to smoke, drink a lot and eat a lot of fatty food. He loses friends, breaks up with girls, and misses family events because he has to be at every single home Arsenal game. At one point, he finds a therapist which is not too surprising. Hitching your happiness to the sucdess or failure of someone else is never a good idea.

Recommended for a particular audience -- the sports nuts and addicts.

Had this book on my shelf for many years. I kept looking at it, but I'm just not a big soccer (european football) fan. I enjoy a World Cup or Euro Cup, but I've never understood the different levels in Europe. And I guess I never really tried. But every All-time Best Sport Books list I read kept mentioning this book.

Finally, looking for a book with a sport theme during this 2020 pandemic where, apart from the NFL draft, sports have been 100% replay, I told myself I'd give it a try. And I'm happy I did.

As others have said, the book may be about european football and Arsenal, but it's more about being a sports fan. I've been an avid fan at times. I know many maniacs. I loved Hornby's deep reflections about fandom. Even nearly 30 years after the book was first released, much of what he says remains relevant. There's a certain credibility for suffering as a fan. There's a certain badge of honnor for knowing all the details. (Social media brings this to a whole new level!) There's also something so alive about sports - moments. Hornby captures all of this and more.

Writen like a long conversation - it's fun and easy to read. I can almost see the creation of an app where a true team supporter could write diary entries following every game in Hornby's format and find him or herself with their own Fever Pitch/Field/Rink/Court/Course account.

If you are a real sports fan, live with a real sports fan or even just know of a real sports fan, I recommend this book.

Well written, engaging, amusing and honest memoir of what it means to be a football fan. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in here about the nature of obsession and the clash between big business and fandom. At the end of the day, though, it’s about football. A subject I have no interest in at all.

I have been an Arsenal supporter for the past 12 years. I have seen the ups and downs of the football team, I have shared their glory, I have shared their pain. They have given me days where I would not have wished to be anywhere else, and they have given me days where I wondered why I got hooked onto them. It has been a fan's journey, and it is going to continue to be, as I find myself in one of my biggest love-hate relationships. Nick Hornby has been on this path since 1969. While this book was written during the 1991-92 season, it is still the narrative of someone who has lived a fan's life for more than two decades. It is a thought which I dread, and yet one I know I will have to experience too. Fever Pitch does not tell me in any way that things would get better, infact it does the opposite; but what it lets me come to terms with is the fact that I will not be walking out of this relationship, that I am in it for the long term, and that I am not alone.

Fever Pitch is a riveting book written from the heart by Nick Hornby who talks of the journey that Arsenal took since he started following the English football club, and how events on the field intermingled with events in his personal life. Arsenal back then were not even as exciting as they have been post the book's publication, so it really must have been something to support the club then. Fever Pitch talks about the club's heroes and villains of those years, and it talks about the events that went around in the football world then, be it hooliganism or the Hillsborough tragedy. But this book, as the author himself states, is not about the football as such, but its consumption. The turmoil that it can bring to a hardcore fan, the amount of significance it can assume for some, is something that can be mocked or respected. Nick Hornby asks you to do neither, nor does he care. He writes about the way things are, not about how they should have been. He writes his narrative with ease, mixing it with moments of dark humour, while also dwelling on the serious issues.

Fever Pitch is a book that should be read by any Arsenal fan. It should in fact be read by any sporting fan. The emotions in the narrative will strike a chord and make you nod your head repeatedly, for you have been there too... for you too would be loving something so much that it hurts.

GUNNERS



Mi innamorai del calcio come mi sarei poi innamorato delle donne: improvvisamente, inesplicabilmente, acriticamente.

Il libro che ha sdoganato i tifosi di calcio.
Quel tifoso che palpita per la sua squadra, conosce tutti e tutto a memoria, dati e date, quello che palpita urla gode e soffre, che vive passione ed emozioni piuttosto irrazionali e poco governabili. Come la musica, l’amore, il sesso.
Non il tifoso razzista squadrista nazista violento picchiatore magari spacciatore mafioso o affini.
Quell’altro tifoso, quello più pacifico, quello che fa simpatia, perfino tenerezza. Il cucciolone un po’ infantile che ha sostituito il pelouche con la squadra di calcio. Né hooligan né fight-club.


Colin Firth protagonista del film inglese del 1997.

Hornby ci racconta la sua vita attraverso capitoli che sono racconti distinti e collegati: ciascuno è un momento della sua vita, una ricorrenza familiare, un incontro felice, un evento personale. Ma tutti sono agganciati e collegati a un gol, una vittoria, un match, una posizione in classifica. È come se la sua squadra, che è l’Arsenal di Londra, la più importante tra le quattordici società calcistiche professionistiche della capitale inglese: quella che è nella serie A inglese (Premier League) ininterrottamente da più tempo di tutte, quella che ha vinto di più in ambito nazionale ma pochino in quello internazionale dopo Manchester e Liverpool.
A me ricorda un po’ quel club di Torino con la maglia bianconera che in Italia spopola, ma quando si confronta in Europa diventa timido, più bianco che nero, e moscietto. La cosiddetta signorina del calcio italiano. Anche se ormai sono sempre signore, signorina è rimasta solo la Franca Valeri.


Il remake americano del 2005, in originale sempre “Fever Pitch”, in italiano è diventato “L’amore in gioco”. La squadra di calcio diventa di baseball, i Boston Red Sox.

Esaltazioni e depressioni, manie, ossessioni, esagerazioni, riti scaramantici, occhi coperti come davanti a un film horror, urla sfrenate, salti di gioia, lacrime di disperazioni. Seguendo un pallone che passa da un piede all’altro, da un piede a una testa, a uno stop di petto, palleggio, tiro, goal, parata, fuori…
Anche se Hornby regala l’impressione che la sua vita sia regolata e sostanzialmente dominata dal calcio e dal tifo, direi che il suo libro è il trionfo di chi tifa ed è spettatore più che del giocatore, del campione, della stella calcistica. Ci racconta quello che succede in campo, ma la vita vera sembrerebbe essere quella sugli spalti.
E dagli spalti si passa alle strade, alla stanza da letto, ai pasti in famiglia, alla classe scolastica: attraverso il pallone, passando per chi lo guarda correre di qua e di là sul rettangolo verde del campo di calcio, Hornby racconta se stesso, e il suo divertimento libro diviene un’autobiografia che si trasforma in romanzo di formazione.

I learned a couple of important things from Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch. First, I'm a lightweight when it comes to sports fanaticism. And second, I need to suffer a lot more before I'm allowed to complain about Liverpool.

The first NFL game I remember watching was a Super Bowl over at the Waters' place. My whole family joined their whole family and while we kids messed around all over the house, the adults watched the game. I recall two things about that day: the Steelers won the game, but I left there a Cowboys fan. Since that day, the NFL became the Cowboys and a bunch of teams the Cowboys play. I still can't imagine being a fan of any other NFL team. It's Cowboys or nothing.

How does that kind of attachment occur? How does one get so tied up with a team that the fortunes of that team actually affect the quality of one's day? Hornby has a lot to say about that as he tells the story of his life through his infatuation with Arsenal, a football (soccer) team from London with one of the greatest names ever given a team. We experience the highs and lows of his life along with the highs and lows Arsenal, and he shows us how the two are connected. He's achingly honest. There were several moments where I sat open-mouthed at something he did as an Arsenal fan, to only realize after a few moments that yeah - I could see myself doing something similar. If I had lived anywhere near the Cowboys, I'm sure Hornby and I would have even more in common.

But still - I'm a lightweight, even though how the Cowboys were faring at various times in my life is perfectly clear in my memory, and as much a part of my life as the people I actually interacted with. Like that time in 1985 that I bet Bob Southon that my struggling Cowboys would beat his mighty Bears, and how he laughed and gave me 14 points (which made me laugh, but I took them), and how I came in to school Monday morning knowing that I was going to get humiliated because the Cowboys got thumped 44-0. Yeah, rough. But that's what happens. Fans of a team often act irrationally. When you think about it, every fan but those of a single team end every season in disappointment. Yet every year, we set ourselves up again.

Over the last three years my sport interest has shifted entirely from American football to the-rest-of-the-world football. Lots of reasons why. I watched random Premier League games until one day I watched Liverpool FC. Gerrard and Torres - it was love at first sight. Can't be explained, but that day, things changed. I went from a casual viewer to a fan, and that meant that I would allow Liverpool to affect my mood. This last season, my third (or my second full) season of following them, the wheels came off. Hornby makes it clear several times in the book that I have no right to complain along with Liverpool's lifelong fans. I simply haven't suffered enough yet. I have no context, I don't know where they've been. I didn't live through their history, and therefore won't be happy enough when they win, nor sad enough when they lose.

I understand his logic, believe it or not. Doesn't make me feel any better, but I know that I haven't reached his level of fanaticism. I think I'm better off if I don't get there.

Ho amato “Alta Fedeltà” e “Un ragazzo”, pertanto quando ho approcciato questo “Febbre a 90’” ero fiducioso e pensavo che niente sarebbe potuto andare storto… del resto anche il film tratto dal libro era leggero e scanzonato in pieno stile Hornby. Niente di tutto ciò: è un libro biografico (genere a me particolarmente indigesto) ed infarcito di aneddoti/riferimenti calcistici vintage di difficile comprensione per chi non mastica la Premier League a cavallo fra gli anni ‘60 e ‘80. Capisco possa avere lo status di cult, ma l’ho trovato di una noia mortale, faticosissimo da finire. Qualche spasmo di vita occasionale, ma per il resto calma piatta.

„Unalmas focira panaszkodni egy kicsit olyan, mint felpanaszolni, hogy miért végződik olyan szomorúan a Lear király…”

Ez a könyv, azon túl, hogy
a.) sporttörténet, ami felvázolja a brit szurkolói szubkultúra változásait a romantikus hatvanas évektől egészen a profitorientált kilencvenes évekig
b.) mentálhigiéniai olvasókönyv, melyben a szerző gyomorba markoló őszinteséggel vall függőségéről és a pszichopatológia határait feszegető lelki jelenségeiről,
mindenekelőtt egy
c.) atipikus love story, amiben főhősünk gyerekként beleszeret valakibe, és ez a szerelem egész életének csontos váza lesz. A baj csak az, hogy a szerető egy méhkirálynő, aki maga köré gyűjti a férfiakat, elvárja tőlük, hogy pénzt és időt pazaroljanak rá, de cserébe nem ad nekik semmit. Hitegeti szegényeket. Úgy csinál, mintha most aztán tényleg, de tényleg boldoggá tenné őket, de aztán fityiszt mutat: a sorsdöntő bajnokin összeomlik, kilátástalan és nézhetetlen focival kikap egy – nullra a kiesőjelölt ellen. Vagy a kupadöntőn 88 percig szemet gyönyörködtetően játszik, aztán az égbe bombáz egy tizenegyest, majd a kapusunk is lepkézik, és a szurkolók máris a depresszió ködtől nyálkás szakadékában találják magukat. Tizenhét évente azért eljuttat minket az extázis legmagasabb fokára, amikor egy ballábas kapáslövéssel bebiztosítja a bajnoki győzelmet, de ezt is csak azért csinálja, hogy a köztes tizenhét évben nyugodtan szívathasson minket. Ez a méhkirálynő a fociklub, aki meg sem érdemel minket, de mi mégis rajongunk érte.

Mint minden jó focikönyv, ez is sokkal több, mint focikönyv.