Man-child bares all. There's an unsympathetic review for you. Really, I learned a lot from this book -- about England, about men of a certain age and time, about class and race, about mental health, about true fanatical football fandom; but more than anything about how frightening the terraces at Highbury or Stamford Bridge or Anfield would have been to me, a lover of football and hater of antisocial behaviour, and how they would likely be just as unappealing today. That Hornby doesn't shy away from any of that is admirable and makes for a much more interesting read than straight memoir would have. That he continues to forsake all other areas of life to maintain the deep relationship with Arsenal is less admirable. I'm not quite saying 'it's just a game', and clearly it isn't based on some of the societal ripples Hornby describes. Maybe, though, if everyone could acknowledge that it isn't life and death, the racist chants and domestic violence and financial crime that swirl around the game wouldn't be such an issue. What would I know, though, from so far away?

Don't listen to the blurbs that say this book is hilarious. Of course, it's got Hornby's trademark wit, some self-deprecation and self-mockery, but I didn't find it hilarious -- and that's not a complaint. I found it to be more serious than not: a meditation on being a lifelong fan, the lengths to which an obsession can take one (even how it affects Hornby's self-described depression from his teenage years on) and how this relates (or doesn't relate) to the rest of his life, from relationships with his father, mother, sister and half-brother (I found these relationships quite touching) to the current one (at the time of writing, at least) with the woman he only calls his partner.

Not knowing much about football (soccer) did hinder me some in understanding everything in this account, but those things weren't really important. As Hornby himself says, this book is not about football, but about the "consumption" of football. And as a lifelong fan (since its inception, though I'm certainly not as rabid as some!) of the New Orleans Saints (anyone knowing their history will know how this does and doesn't relate to Arsenal) this is something I can certainly relate to.

First Hornby I've read--managed to avoid the brief college craze after High Fidelity came out...but now wish I hadn't.

My roommate lent me this book after it came up randomly in a conversation...as I approach 30 and sports fandom becomes more ridiculous proportional to my age, I find myself having to defend my enthusiasm for baseball more and more. Being in Europe probably has something to do with this too. In fact, discussing my love of baseball generally turns into an argument for/against the legitimacy/prominence of professional sports in our lives generally, and this inevitably leads, in my current context, to pointless self-righteous circle-jerks about football hooliganism. Suddenly I'm being handed a book about an English football fan.

At any rate, I find Fever Pitch to be cogent defense of passionate sports fandom, with all the sheepish acknowledgments of occasionally 'overdoing it' that this obviously requires. It is thoughtful, well-written and funny, and describes the windy path of a personal/professional life as it develops alongside and sometimes in direct relation to the game-to-game, season-to-season drama of FC Arsenal in London.

Now, I am nowhere near as crazy and obsessed a Twins fan as Hornby is an Arsenal fan, but to the extent that I nonetheless have to hear questions like 'can you go a day without talking about baseball?' fairly frequently, I feel personally identified with his sometimes indignant self-defense. Now instead of trying to explain in the same old tired ways what is so exciting about baseball (which is obviously barking up the wrong tree in the first place considering the glaze that appears in any interlocutor's eyes the moment you use the word 'strategy,' much less 'intense personal struggle'), I can just recommend this book and let the chips fall where they may.

You either understand it or you don't...

A fantastic book! It's been a long time since I considered myself a fan of football, but Hornby does a wonderful job of relating his experiences to the reader in an appealing and satirical way. I loved reading about all of his football escapades; if you are even slightly interested in football, I would highly recommend.

Ho sempre voluto leggere Hornby per un motivo forse un po' stupido (tutti i film tratti dai suoi libri mi sono piaciuti moltissimo) e forse proprio per questo ho sempre rimandato, ma alla fine mi sono tuffata su questa autobiografia per entrare in contatto con lui perché, prima di tutto, ho amato i due film che ne sono stati tratti, e perché sono una grande appassionata di calcio (sono un'abbonata e, quando la mia squadra gioca in casa, faccio circa 400 km A/R per supportarla) e perché adoro anche il calcio inglese (lo vedo meglio organizzato, per alcuni aspetti, rispetto a quello italiano).

Durante la lettura, molte volte mi sono ritrovata a sorridere per alcuni aneddoti o per alcuni pensieri, perché credo che alla fine siano comuni a molti tifosi, ma soprattutto mi sono rispecchiata in molte descrizioni: i riti scaramantici, il pensare che si possa controbilanciare un successo della propria squadra del cuore con qualche evento mediamente negativo del mondo, che la propria vita sia legata a doppio filo con la vita della propria squadra calcistica, il sentirsi parte integrante della società... Insomma, non ho potuto non legarmi empaticamente ad Hornby!

"[...]avrei accettato un governo conservatore, se questo significava una vittoria dell'Arsenal nella finale di Coppa; non potevo certo prevedere che la signora Thatcher sarebbe stata il primo Ministro più a lungo in carica di questo secolo."

La scrittura scivola via quasi senza accorgertene ed è per questo che prossimamente continuerò a conoscere questo autore prendendo in mano anche altri suoi romanzi, per deliziarmi con questo stile e per verificare se la verve e l'ironia tipici di questa autobiografia accompagnano anche le sue altre opere.

Another book I abandoned in August.. 3.5 stars. Super funny and so easy to digest. It's not quite what I was expecting from a book I've seen described as one of the all time sports memoirs (it's really an all time fan memoir), but the feelings are so human and finishing it as the Blackcaps test season kicked off, and I'm in Wellington to watch the ABs so if we lose it's Sky Stadium's fault and not mine, really made me #reflect on my fan behaviours. It's so funny we get so much joy and sorrow and identity from other people doing their jobs. I think sports fans and stan twitter should party together.

As an Arsenal and football (it's football okay? Not soccer!) fan, there's no way I wouldn't love this. Nick Hornby nails the thoughts, rituals and mindset of a football fanatic (and gooner) perfectly. I really enjoyed this book and Hornby's voice. I would really love to see a follow-up though. I'd love to know how he felt during the Invincibles and the following trophy drought. And what he thinks of Henry and Bergkamp and Ozil and Sanchez. Basically I want to know everything he thinks of Arsenal!

"Spassoso, vero e profondo" Roddy Doyle, 1992
"Mr Doyle dice la verità" Procyon Lotor, 2009

E' un romanzo di formazione, la formazione essendo quella dell'Arsenal (antico e famoso football club londinese). Parla quindi di calcio, parla molto di calcio, della passione, in effetti il calcio da' perfino il titolo ai capitoli, nei quali si narra la vita dell'autore, meglio: nei quali si narra la partita del momento e quindi i fatti della vita sempre narrati con wit e humour (quando concesso dall'evento naturalmente).
Pertanto se detestate i romanzi di formazione, se detestate la passione, non importa da quali radici, se detestate i tifosi benché non hooligan, se detestate il calcio anche come onesto divertimento popolare, se detestate il wit e l'humour britannico e perfino la birra, questo libro non fa per voi, nemmeno voi per me comunque, per cui addio senza nostalgia.

Sappiate comunque che nonostante siano passati diciassette anni dal giorno nel quale questo volume d'enorme successo proiettò Hornby fra gli scrittori di fama internazionale, permettendogli di vivere del suo e di scrivere il resto dei suoi numerosi e meravigliosi romanzi, che giustamente tante sere di felicità ci dispensarono, il volume (del quale allora lessi un solo capitoletto in una rivista) non è invecchiato ed'è fresco come l'uovo che in certi pub vi servono con la birra.
(Che aborriate l'uovo con la birra vi è concesso) ___

PS. Il mio web-bot mi notifica testè che un signore mi ha definito pittoresco anglofilo e paraculo. Non sono in grado di obiettare allo stesso livello, mi fa male la schiena, ma improvvisamente sento di non aver sprecato la mia vita.

PPS. Sono un tifoso moderato e televisivo, il libro non mi è piaciuto perché aneli in modo particolare all'atmosfera da stadio, tolto uno svenimento durante Italia-Brasile dell'82, qualche scalata di fontane con dei e tridenti nello stesso anno e una catatonia protratta dopo Milan-Liverpool del 2005, interrotta da una solerte cameriera in abito tradizionale aragonese con un possente beveraggio rovente e qualche buona parola in castigliano, non ho aneddoti particolari né scontri cogli avversari da ricordare.

In ogni caso "La vita non è, e non è mai stata, una vittoria in casa per 2-0, contro i primi in classifica, con la pancia piena di patatine fritte." estratto dal romanzo.

Colonna sonora: The Clash - London Calling

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...

n  “I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.”n

I read a fair amount – I would say that those close to me, those who know me well, would say that reading is my life. They are not entirely wrong. Reading sustains me. I begin to physically shake if I haven’t read for a few days, the rare event that does occur once or twice a year when the schedule is unrelenting. But those that are the closest to me know that reading, books, all of that jazz, cannot wish, cannot ever hope to compare to Arsenal. If I was given the vile and abusive choice between not reading for a year and not watching Arsenal for a year, I would pack my library before the day was up. I’m sorry. Fuck off to the storage while I get the TV room ready, the game is almost on.

Being the way I am is a surreal experience. I have been an Arsenal fan since I was 6 or 7ish. I am now in my mid 20s. That means that for nearly 2 decades, I have been heavily indoctrinated in the cult that is Premier League football, the drug that is waking up at ungodly hours on my weekends in order to watch a drab 0-0 from my living room. Living in North America and being an Arsenal fan is an even weirder experience, seeing as I often meet 40-50 year old men who are Arsenal fans that have been supporting the team for five or six years, tops. So I often find myself giving advice, consoling, telling them it will be okay, that it was different, that it will always work out, that it will get better. Then they go back home to their families and kids and mortgages, while I go back home to do school work or read (depending on what the result has been). The story of my falling in love with Arsenal will have to wait for another day – I am only allotted a certain number of characters in a Goodreads review, and so I will keep this one a bit more concise.

There are moments in my life during which I attempt to paint a picture of my obsession, to tell others how it is to live my life tied to the whims and fancies of an abstract body situated in London, England, an institution that dictates so much of my day to day and whose schedule sets mine. In these moments, I get the eye rolls and I sense the disbelief. I am not trying to exaggerate for the sake of a piece written on Goodreads – I gain nothing in making others here believe in my state of mind. I am not adding flair and spice to my writing with hyperbole. I am addicted to this life and not many understand why. Nick Hornby understands it perfectly. I have never been so directly understood. A beam of light has shined on me. No doubt this is one of my favourite books of all time, if only because it showed me that I am not alone. That being said, I cannot in good faith recommend this to others readily. Why? Well, you may not give a damn about the intricacies of the game of football (and very specifically Arsenal); you may not understand the passion and this book may do nothing to further your understanding; you may find the premise unbelievable and the drama too fantastical, to all of which I say, fair enough. If you ever meet me in person and want to understand me deeper, then read this.

I couldn’t read this book without a pencil in my hand, and consequently the book is marked up beyond belief. Hornby’s words are better than my own, so I will use his quotes for the rest of the review. Feel free to read on if you want to – these dark necessities are part of my design.

“It’s in there all the time, looking for a way out.”

“What are you thinking about?’ she asks.
At this point I lie. I wasn’t thinking about Martin Amis or Gérard Depardieu or the Labour Party at all. But then, obsessives have no choice; they have to lie on occasions like this. If we told the truth every time, then we would be unable to maintain relationships with anyone from the real world. We would be left to rot with our Arsenal programmes or our collection of original blue-label Stax records or our King Charles spaniels, and our two-minute daydreams would become longer and longer and longer until we lost our jobs and stopped bathing and shaving and eating, and we would lie on the floor in our own filth rewinding the video again and again in an attempt to memorise by heart the whole of the commentary, including David Pleat’s expert analysis, for the night of 26th of May 1989. (You think I had to look the date up? Ha!) The truth is this: for alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron.”

“Fever Pitch is an attempt to gain some kind of an angle on my obsession. Why has the relationship that began as a schoolboy crush endured for nearly a quarter of a century, longer than any other relationship I have made of my own free will? (I love my family dearly, but they were rather foisted on me, and I am no longer in touch with any of the friends I made before I was fourteen – apart from the only other Arsenal fan at school.) And why has this affinity managed to survive my periodic feelings of indifference, sorrow and very real hatred?”

“I have friends who will regard this as pretentious, self-serving nonsense, the kind of desperate justification one might expect from a man who has spent a huge chunk of his leisure time fretting miserably in the cold. They are particularly resistant to the idea because I tend to overestimate the metaphorical value of football, and therefore introduce it into conversations where it simply does not belong. I now accept that football has no relevance to the Falklands conflict, the Rushdie affair, the Gulf War, childbirth, the ozone layer, the poll tax, etc., etc., and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who has had to listen to my pathetically strained analogies.”

“I was acutely aware of this, and so a new source of discomfort emerged: as Arsenal huffed and puffed their way towards 1–0 wins and nil-nil draws I wriggled with embarrassment, waiting for Dad to articulate his dissatisfaction. I had discovered after the Swindon game that loyalty, at least in football terms, was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you were stuck with. Marriages are nowhere near as rigid – you won’t catch any Arsenal fans slipping off to Tottenham for a bit of extra-marital slap and tickle, and though divorce is a possibility (you can just stop going if things get too bad), getting hitched again is out of the question. There have been many times over the last twenty-three years when I have pored over the small print of my contract looking for a way out, but there isn’t one. Each humiliating defeat (Swindon, Tranmere, York, Walsall, Rotherham, Wrexham) must be borne with patience, fortitude and forbearance; there is simply nothing that can be done, and that is a realisation that can make you simply squirm with frustration.” [Alan's Comments: If you are reading this on the day that I post it, by the way, happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. My dad has become a much more involved player in the matches, so I now look forward to watching the games with him, even if we end up arguing on the philosophy of football and life and the backpass - the darned backpass - for most of the 90 minutes.]

“I am aware, sometimes, in my group of Arsenal-supporting friends, of an understated but noticeable jockeying: none of us likes to be told something about the club that we didn’t know – an injury to one of the reserves, say, or an impending alteration to the shirt design, something crucial like that – by any of the others.”

“It is a strange paradox that while the grief of football fans (and it is real grief) is private – we each have an individual relationship with our clubs, and I think that we are secretly convinced that none of the other fans understands quite why we have been harder hit than anyone else – we are forced to mourn in public, surrounded by people whose hurt is expressed in forms different from our own.”

“It is hard for me, and for many of us, to think of years as being self-contained, with a beginning on 1st January and an ending 365 days later. I was going to say that 1980 was a torpid, blank, directionless year for me but that would be wrong; it was 79/80 that was these things. Football fans talk like that: our years, our units of time, run from August to May (June and July don’t really happen, especially in years which end with an odd number and which therefore contain no World Cup or European Championship). Ask us for the best or the worst period in our lives and we will often answer with four figures – 66/67 for Manchester United fans, 67/68 for Manchester City fans, 69/70 for Everton fans, and so on – a silent slash in the middle of them the only concession to the calendar used elsewhere in the western world. We get drunk on New Year’s Eve, just as everyone else does, but really it is after the Cup Final in May that our mental clock is wound back, and we indulge in all the vows and regrets and renewals that ordinary people allow themselves at the end of the conventional year.”

“Part of it was my own latent depression, permanently looking for a way out and liking what it saw at Highbury that night; but even more than that, I was as usual looking to Arsenal to show me that things did not stay bad for ever, that it was possible to change patterns, that losing streaks did not last. Arsenal, however, had other ideas: they seemed to want to show me that troughs could indeed be permanent, that some people, like some clubs, just couldn’t ever find ways out of the rooms they had locked themselves into. It seemed to me that night and for the next few days that we had both of us made too many wrong choices, and had let things slide for far too long, for anything ever to come right; I was back with the feeling, much deeper and much more frightening this time, that I was chained to the club, and thus to this miserable half-life, forever.
I was stunned and exhausted by the defeat (2–1, although the one came in the last minute, and we were well beaten by then): the next morning a girlfriend phoned me at work, and, hearing the tired dejection in my voice, asked me what was wrong. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ I asked her pitifully. She sounded worried and then, when I told her what had happened, I could hear, just for a second, relief – so it wasn’t, after all, the things she had momentarily feared for me – before she remembered who she was talking to, and the relief was replaced by all the sympathy she could muster. I knew she didn’t really understand this sort of pain, and I wouldn’t have had the courage to explain it to her; because this idea, that there was this log-jam, this impasse, and that until Arsenal sorted themselves out then neither could I… this idea was stupid and reprehensible (it gave a whole new meaning to relegation) and, worse than that, I knew now that I really did believe it.”

“The things that I have often tried to explain to people about football – that it is not an escape, or a form of entertainment, but a different version of the world – were clear for her to see; I felt vindicated, somehow.”

“One thing I know for sure about being a fan is this: it is not a vicarious pleasure, despite all appearances to the contrary, and those who say that they would rather do than watch are missing the point. Football is a context where watching becomes doing – not in the aerobic sense, because watching a game, smoking your head off while doing so, drinking after it has finished and eating chips on the way home is unlikely to do you a whole lot of Jane Fonda good, in the way that chuffing up and down a pitch is supposed to. 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, and sometimes if you look hard you can see the little poles that join them together, and the handles at the side that enable us to move them. 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.”

Thank you Mr. Hornby.

Obsession can be a tricky thing. It can compel us to achieve great heights or push us into the darkest depths of depression. Nick Hornby’s obsession is Football (NOT Soccer); Arsenal Football Club to be precise. And the obsession is so deeply ingrained that during a phase in his life, he believed that the only way for him to overcome a career and life ending depression is if Arsenal starts playing well again. Such is the premise against which the book is set.

In Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby takes us through his first encounter with Arsenal in 1968, to Arsenal’s astonishing season-ending-title-deciding match against Liverpool in 1989. One of the points that he’s made at the beginning of the book is that a true Football fan won’t remember his/her life in term of years (1968, 1969, etc.) but rather in terms of Football seasons (68/69, 69/70, etc.) nor would he remember some of the memorable events (both in personal life or world history) through the dates that they occurred, but some big match that took place around that event. And thus it is that, in a book where he describes his life with respect to Football; and how it affected the course of certain events in his life, each chapter in the book begins with a match details as sub-heading (for example: Liverpool vs Arsenal, 26.5.89) and then goes on to describe the other details surrounding the match.

Normally, I am not a big fan of autobiographies, and though this may come around as one, it is not exactly so. It’s a crisply written book describing a fan’s view of Football and Arsenal. And though the book is about Football and Arsenal (about 85 % of it), it is still a book that can be read by most sports fans and thoroughly enjoyed.

Honestly the writing on a sentence level is some of the best I’ve ever read.

The story is mundane at times, but that is kind of the point.

And it’s great to step into a very different era of soccer than the one we are in now, and from the perspective of one fan growing up with the game.

„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.