Saturday, 3pm
50 Eternal Delights of Modern Football
1st Edition
Published on 6. October 2016
160 pages
978-1-4729-2512-1 (ISBN)
Description
Overpaid players. Sunday lunchtime kick-offs. Absurd ticket prices. Non-black boots. Football's menu of ills is long. Where has the joy gone? Why do we bother? Saturday, 3pm offers a glorious antidote. It is here to remind you that football can still sing to your heart.
Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to what is good in the game. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that remain sweet and right: seeing a ground from the train, brackets on vidiprinters, ball hitting bar, Jimmy Armfield's voice, listening to the results in a traffic jam, football towns and autograph-hunters. This is fan culture at its finest, words to transport you somewhere else and identify with, words to hide away in a pub and luxuriate in.
Saturday, 3pm is a book of love letters to football and a clarion call, helping us find the romance in the game all over again.
Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to what is good in the game. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that remain sweet and right: seeing a ground from the train, brackets on vidiprinters, ball hitting bar, Jimmy Armfield's voice, listening to the results in a traffic jam, football towns and autograph-hunters. This is fan culture at its finest, words to transport you somewhere else and identify with, words to hide away in a pub and luxuriate in.
Saturday, 3pm is a book of love letters to football and a clarion call, helping us find the romance in the game all over again.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN-13
978-1-4729-2512-1 (9781472925121)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
10/2016
Bloomsbury Sport
€17.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Saturday, 3pm is Daniel Gray's third football book, and fifth book overall. His first, Homage to Caledonia was turned into a television miniseries when Gray was just 27, and he continues to present history on Scottish TV. His previous book, Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters: Travels through England's Football Provinces, won widespread acclaim across the football and literary press. He writes a travel column for The Leither magazine, and his work has appeared across various newspapers and on BBC radio.
Content
Preface: Or, finding some things to love
1 Seeing a ground from the train
2 Watching an away end erupt
3 Getting the fixture list
4 Club shops
5 Saturday, 3pm
6 Spotting a fellow supporter elsewhere
7 Listening to the results in a car
8 Ball hitting bar
9 Pre-match routines
10 The first day of the season
11 Slide tackles in mud
12 Watching youth games in the park
13 Carrying on regardless
14 Belonging
15 Fat players
16 Jeering Passes that go out of play
17 Catering vans
18 Going with Dad
19 Jimmy Armfield's voice
20 Headers
21 Floodlights
22 Talking to an old man about football
23 Visiting a ground for the first time
24 Physiotherapist 'races'
25 Local lads 'coming through'
26 Sunday score pages
27 Shirts on a line
28 Defensive walls and drop-balls
29 Club eccentrics
30 Losing
31 Watching in bad weather
32 My daughter listening at the window
33 Singing
34 Brackets in scorelines
35 Standing on a terrace
36 When the ball goes in the crowd
37 Knowing where you are
38 Footballese
39 Time-wasting
40 Being at a junction station on matchday
41 Collectors
42 Football towns
43 Striking up a football conversation on a social occasion
44 Solid fixtures
45 Club nicknames
46 The 'hectic Christmas schedules'
47 Outfield players in goal
48 Seeing a team bus
49 Watching people get player autographs
50 The last day of the season
Acknowledgements
1 Seeing a ground from the train
2 Watching an away end erupt
3 Getting the fixture list
4 Club shops
5 Saturday, 3pm
6 Spotting a fellow supporter elsewhere
7 Listening to the results in a car
8 Ball hitting bar
9 Pre-match routines
10 The first day of the season
11 Slide tackles in mud
12 Watching youth games in the park
13 Carrying on regardless
14 Belonging
15 Fat players
16 Jeering Passes that go out of play
17 Catering vans
18 Going with Dad
19 Jimmy Armfield's voice
20 Headers
21 Floodlights
22 Talking to an old man about football
23 Visiting a ground for the first time
24 Physiotherapist 'races'
25 Local lads 'coming through'
26 Sunday score pages
27 Shirts on a line
28 Defensive walls and drop-balls
29 Club eccentrics
30 Losing
31 Watching in bad weather
32 My daughter listening at the window
33 Singing
34 Brackets in scorelines
35 Standing on a terrace
36 When the ball goes in the crowd
37 Knowing where you are
38 Footballese
39 Time-wasting
40 Being at a junction station on matchday
41 Collectors
42 Football towns
43 Striking up a football conversation on a social occasion
44 Solid fixtures
45 Club nicknames
46 The 'hectic Christmas schedules'
47 Outfield players in goal
48 Seeing a team bus
49 Watching people get player autographs
50 The last day of the season
Acknowledgements
