Fever Pitch

by NickHornby (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $28.24

  This book, chronicled from the perspective of a fanatical ten-year-old soccer fan, through disillusioned adolescence, to an adult who should know better , examines the absurdities, idiosyncrasies and traumas of everyday life and football. While Chelsea were undoubtedly the football team at the heart of fashionable London in the late 1960s, it proved to be the quiet backstreets around Highbury and Finsbury Park which led a sombre schoolboy from Maidenhead into a 20-year obsession with football, and Arsenal FC in particular. Nick Hornby became hooked after seeing Arsenal beat Stoke City (1-0 from a penalty rebound) in 1968. 24 years later this book is an attempt to understand football as an obsession. Interweaving his personal and familial upheavals with the varied fortunes of Arsenal over two decades, Nick Hornby has produced a genuine insight into what it is like to be a fan. Combining anecdote with a wider commentary on the state of the game, the book touches upon many issues; from pre-match entertainment to the availability of FA Cup tickets, hooliganism, the tragedies at Heysel and Hillsborough, non-league and school football, and Arsenal's reputation as the most boring team in the Football League.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $22.32

  Fever Pitch is the bitter-sweet autobiography which vividly recounts the elation and utter despair of a love affair with a particular soccer team. It captures the truth and absurdities of an obsessed fan's mind, and whether you are interested in soccer or not, this is a sophisticated study of obsession, masculinity, class, identity and loyalty.