First e-book edition of Soccer in Sun and Shadow published by Byliner

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First e-book edition of Soccer in Sun and Shadow published by Byliner

First e-book edition of Soccer in Sun and Shadow published by Byliner

“Is there any book more evocative of ‘the beautiful game’ than Eduardo Galeano’s slim but buoyant paean to the players, goals, joys, and heartbreaks of a lifetime of soccer fandom?”  —Vanity Fair

“It’s all here. Everything you should know about soccer, the world’s game.”

Los Angeles Times

Soccer in Sun and Shadows ,which retails at $9.99, is one of the greatest sports books written in our times, and we have the internationally celebrated journalist and author Eduardo Galeano to thank for it. Mark Fried has translated it into English, and it is now available as an e-book for the first time.

Packed full of charm and wit and carrying the kind of insight only a true fan could relay, The New Yorker has said that it “stands out like Pele on a field of second stringer”. It has also been named one of the all time top 100 sports books by Sports Illustrated.

Originally appearing in Spanish in 1995, now revised and thoroughly updated, Soccer in Sun and Shadow traces the sport from its roots in China to the Brazilian slums where the dance form capoeira reshaped it into a soccer “made of hip feints, undulations of the torso, and legs in flight,” and finally through the great moments of a century’s worth of competition in all corners of the globe.

These stories come addictively fast and furious, vignettes with the searing impact of great photographs. And as would be expected of one of our most accomplished historians, Galeano sets every one of them against a greater context: the wars being waged, the cultural shifts transforming societies, and what inflames him the most: the inexorable influences of money, sponsorship, television, and any form of cold, hard calculation that aims to place winning for its own sake above the beauty and glory of the game.

“[I am] a beggar for good soccer,” writes Galeano, who grew up in Uruguay hoping to become a professional soccer player. “I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’ ” The past century’s great players, from Di Stéfano to Cruyff to Maradona, reward him with such moves, and we are all the richer for it. At times hilarious, at others heartbreaking, one thing it never lacks is humanity. Soccer in Sun and Shadow is a fan’s book, and it’s much more. Featuring artwork designed by the author, it has been called by theSan Francisco Chronicle “a loving tribute to the game and its culture, and a celebration not only of soccer but also of life.”

 

The changing face of the so-called beautiful game

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The changing face of the so-called beautiful game Whilst the English Premier League has gone on to become a top class global brand it has, despite its huge television revenue, managed to create an underclass in football. The current model for footballers in Britain seems to be that they are getting rich at the expense of their fans.

Clubs such as Rangers, who have fallen from grace, will now have an increased struggle to keep pace with those clubs that are funded by cash from overseas, and there are truly turbulent times ahead.

Mihir Bose, Britain’s foremost football correspondent has followed every fascinating and gripping step in the Premier League roller coaster rise to international stardom. This mesmerizing journey involves high stakes, multi-million pounds deals, bungs, backhanders and the very future of the beautiful game.

Mihir specialises in the business of sport and was previously sports editor at BBC. He is a lead writer for, amongst others, The Daily Telegraph, insideworldsoccer.com and Evening Standard. The book, at times highly controversial, looks at how the Premier League needs to evolve to prosper in the face of the demands of top players, Euro crisis, recession, conflict with other governing bodies, racism and revolt from the terraces.

 

Vision release Book of Football Records 2012

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Vision release Book of Football Records 2012

Vision release Book of Football Records 2012

Vision release Book of Football Records 2012

By Clive Batty

Published by Vision Sports

Out Now! RRP £16.99 ISBN 9781 90763 7322

Football fans live being able to rattle off a whole list of facts and statistics, such as which premier league club has the noisiest fans, and who’s the only player to have won the Champion’s league with three different teams. If you know someone like this who you know wants to build up their football knowledge, then the perfect Christmas present for them is the Book Of Football Records 2012, published by vision sports.

Brothers, dads, Grandfathers, and of course all those female footie fans out there, will be overjoyed to get their hands on this book. This is the third edition of this book and its quirky and colourful format will no doubt ensure that it enjoys the success of its predecessors.

This great book is packed full of facts, records, amazing and facts from the beautiful game. There are entries on every league club in England, as well as the Scottish SPL teams. It also has features on all the top footballing nations, the major clubs dorm Europe and the rest of the world which encompasses every team from Boca Juniors to Barcelona, and also has a monster squad of footballing legends past and present.

In the 2012 edition you can find out..

• Which Brazilian star was sent off in 2011 after celebrating a goal by putting on a mask of himself?

• Why did an Indonesia player score an intentional own goal in a match against Thailand?

• Which player missed three penalties in the same international match?

• Which South American player became the first goalkeeper ever to score 100 goals?

• Which Premier League star has played 46 times for England without ever completing 90 minutes?

• Which 2011 match ended with the referee setting a new world record by sending off 36 players?

• Which club set a new Premier League record last season by failing to keep a clean sheet in 34 consecutive matches – but still managed to avoid relegation?

• In which country did a ref allow a goal ‘scored’ by a cheeky ball boy?

• Which Premier League manager has written three football novels?

• Who is the only player to have made more than 1,000 appearances for the same club?

• Which Dutch club signed an 18-month-old toddler this year after being impressed by his football skills in a YouTube video?

As if all that wasn’t enough……. there are a whole wealth of fun and quirky entries which celebrate the more bizarre footie facts and records like the referee who scored a goal with a blinding header and team that scored 149 own goals in one match!

This fact packed book of footy knowledge is available from bookshops now. See www.visionsp.co.ukfor more information.




The Andy Morrison story the good, the mad and the ugly

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The Andy Morrison story the good, the mad and the ugly

The Andy Morrison story the good, the mad and the ugly

By Andy Morrison

Foreword by England legend, Joe Royle

Publication date: 10th October 2011, RRP: £16.99, Hardback

Published by Fort Publishing Ltd, ISBN: 978-1-905769-27-8

A gritty, brutally honest and enlightening football autobiography

Andy Morrison was a hero for the fans of every team that he played for in his career, he was also regarded as possibly one of the most troubled players of the game in modern times. He has recently published an autobiography detailing his career and the struggles he faced. In his career he was the captain of Manchester City, Blackpool, Huddersfield Town, and Plymouth Argyle.

Morrison was known for his inspiring performance at City, where he brought the club from some of its darkest days to some of its brightest. Manager of the club at the time was Joe Royle, he commented, “I’ve been in football management for a serious amount of time, Andy Morrison was, no question, one of the best players that I ever took on.”

While Morrison’s life on the field was very successful he was struggling with his personal life, after being born in Scotland he moved to Plymouth. Here he was brought up in one of the cities worst council estates and his life was filled with adversity. By the time he reached his adult life he had seen violence, dealt with alcoholism, been in trouble with the police, and had also suffered significant personal loss.

Morrison’s autobiography is an honest and frank book. It is a book that looks at a man who has been in crisis, but a man who has fought his demons, however painful they may be, and has never given into the darker side of his character.

In this new book he makes no effort to hide his problems, he talks about his fights with his managers and his teammates. He talks of the bar brawls and the pursuit of the fans who shouted abuse at him. He details his court trial where he was tried for benefit fraud, and talks about the hell that it caused his family.

Morrison believes that many of his problems can be traced to a horrific incident in his youth, one that he has never spoken about. Until now.

Andy’s story is a gripping, no-holds-barred read, which will make you wince, may shock, and goes a long way to explaining what has made Andy Morrison the man he is today.




New Book Challenges Wenger’s Strategy and looks to Arsenals future

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New Book Challenges Wenger's Strategy and looks to Arsenals future

New Book Challenges Wenger's Strategy and looks to Arsenals future

ARSÈNAL – THE MAKING OF A MODERN SUPERCLUB

By Alex Fynn & Kevin Whitcher

Published by Vision Sports Publishing, Out Now!

RRP £8.99, ISBN 978 1 9076 3731 5

Which Way Now for Arsenal?……… This New Book Challenges Wenger’s Strategy and questions the future of Arsène AND the club

Due to the disappointing start that Arsenal have made to the new season, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for the release of this new book. Co-written by Alex Fynn and Kevin Witcher, this book asks questions regarding the future together of Arsène Wenger and the club. They also aim to ask and answer all those awkward questions that all gunner fans will want to know.

In the revised and fully update version of the book, these are just a few of the questions they have asked:

1)            Is Arsenal still a ‘big’ club?

2)            What needs to change to keep Arsenal at football’s top table? What’s stopping them attracting the type of world-class star that once graced the ‘Invincibles’ side of the 2003/2004 season?

3)            Is Arsène Wenger the right man to take Arsenal forward?

4)            Where does Wenger’s reliance on youth – which has consistently failed to deliver silverware over the last 6 years – stem from? Is it actually harming the club more than it is benefitting it?

5)            What does the club’s conspicuously reclusive Board really think of the current situation on the pitch?

6)            Who are the key figures lurking in the shadows at the Emirates? How much say do they have in Wenger’s transfer dealings?

7)            In light of recent departures, how much money does Arsenal really have at its disposal for strengthening the club’s current threadbare squad?

8)            What would it take for Wenger and Arsenal to ever part company?

9)            Despite their well-documented on-field problems, why is Arsenal still – potentially – in a better position than their great rivals, Manchester United?

Both of the authors are renowned experts on football and have an inside track on all the latest goings on at Arsenal, in a nutshell, what they don’t know about this club simply isn’t worth knowing.

This latest edition of the seminal biography of Arsenal, which was a bestseller, has 5 new chapters which take in all the events of the past 2 seasons, and is based on the unprecedented access which the author’s were granted. These include exclusive interviews with both current and former players, key members of the board and the man himself,  Arsène Wenger.

The book looks in great detail at the way that the club was transformed into a global super team under the leadership of Arsène Wenger, and challenges the French coach to change some of his tried and trusted methods in order that Arsenal keep their place amongst the elite both in the premiership and in Europe.

The Observer has described this book as “fascinating”, and the Guardian thinks it is “shrewd and well informed”. Arsènal: The Making of a Modern Superclub, has had positive comments from all who have reviewed it, and ‘When Saturday Comes’, the respected football magazine commented that “at last, there was a football book with reflected the age and the modern game”.