Books about football - which books have you read that offer something new?)

I'm reading a fascinating book at the moment about Dutch football (sort of) called "Brilliant Orange - the neurotic genius of Dutch football" by David Winner

Its an incredibly interesting read because despite it being, on the face of it, about football, it talks about the history and development of football in the Netherlands in the context of Dutch art, architecture, philosophy and history, and is just generally about how their football is influenced by their world view in the same way that their art and architecture is.

I hadn't realised that the Dutch see the world in such a markedly different way to us in the UK, and apparently it stems from the fact that half their country is reclaimed from the sea, which gives them a special view of space and landscape because they have had to work so hard to get the land area they have hence its importance in the Dutch psyche.
I have copied a short section just to give a taste of what it is about, and was interested if anybody else has come across a football book that has really gripped them.

"The Dutch landscape has also shaped the Dutch way of seeing the world - and, of course, the way they view their football. Rudi Fuch, director of the Stedelijk Modern Art Museum in Amsterdam and also one of the country's most influential art critics and historians, argues that every country and culture has its own way of seeing. 'The psychologists deny these differences exist, but it's there in the [Dutch] art and culture. Ask any Dutch person to draw the horizon and they will draw a straight line. If you ask someone from Yorkshire or Tuscany or anywhere else, it will have bumps and hills. A Scandinavian blue is cold and steely, completely unlike a blue in Italy. Italian painting is rich in warm reds, but when red appears in the work of a northern artist like Munch, it's blood in the snow.' Furthermore, these climatic and geographically shaped aesthetic differences are inevitably reflected in football. 'Catenaccio is like a Titian painting - soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you, and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like a thrust of a dagger. The Dutch make their geometric patterns. In a Vermeer, the pearl twinkles. You can say, in fact, that the twinkling of the pearl is the whole point of Vermeer. The whole painting is leading to this moment, the way the whole of football leads to the overhead goal of Van Basten. The English like to run and fight. When Gullit tried to transplant this Dutch art to Newcastle, he was trying to do something impossible. He was bound to fail'
To make sense of the vast flatness of their land, Fuchs says, the Dutch developed a way of calibrating distances from the horizon, calculating space and paying meticulous attention to every object within that space. Dutch art thus developed an extraordinarily precise and reverent approach to this reality. The nineteenth century writer Eugene Fromentin wrote about this in his 'Masters of Time Past,' his study of Dutch art in the Golden Age:
'Every object, thanks to the interest it offers, ought to be examined in its form and drawn before it is painted. In this way nothing is secondary. A landscape with its distances, a cloud with its movements, a piece of architecture with its laws of perspective, a face with its physiognomy, its distinctive traits, its passing expressions, a hand with its gesture, a garment in its natural folds, and animal with its carriage, its frame, the innermost characteristics of its kind' Fuchs develops the idea: 'To measure distance is a natural inclination, an instinct for Dutch people. We measure space quietly, very precisely and then order it in detail. That is the Dutch way of seeing, the Dutch approach to space: selective detail. It's a natural, instinctive thing for us to do. You see it in our paintings, our architecture and our football too. Dutch football also is all about measuring space very precisely.'

Apologies for anyone that actually trawled through that little lot, but I'm loving the book and wanted to share something a bit different. (Plus there was gin involved )

 

I always found the Michael Hardcastle ones pretty good.

 

Excellent. I read about this book while in Holland, sounds as good as I thought. I was going to track it down the other day despite totally forgetting what it was called.

 

I will try this book now.

I would recommend "The Miracle of Castel di Sangro" - a diary of a season that an Italian mountain village town with a population of 4,000 people had a team reach Serie B. Written by an American journalist, you need to beat with the Americanisms and terminology, but an amazing true story that, by the end, will have you thinking it is too far fetched to be a true story. I read the book and was then inspired to go to this out if the way Italian village just to see the place, the ground and get a feel for the story and place. The journalist was a guest of the team for the season and then story follows the season after they gain promotion to serie B, having gone through five promotions in a short space of time.

Highly recommended.

 

Cheers FLT, as a Saints supporter, I have a natural affinity with the underdog, and they sound like the ultimate underdog. Is it on Kindle?

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brilliant-O...d=1415609391&sr=1-1&keywords=brilliant orange

Only £4.63 too.

 

No idea .. it is by Joe McGinniss

 

Sorry I thought you were talking about Brilliant Orange! Doesn't look like The Miracle of Castel di Sangro is on Kindle yet.

 

I hope you realise that over 800 acres of our fair city has been reclaimed from the sea or more accurately the water which leads to our unique view of the world. Ask a Southampton person to draw the horizon and he will draw funnels, masts and cranes.