Above Head Height A FiveASide Life James Brown 9781786481764 Books
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'The Fever Pitch of five-a-side' TONY PARSONS
A must-have for anyone who has ever played and enjoyed amateur football.
James Brown has been playing football since growing up in the backstreets of Leeds. The sudden death of one his long-standing team mates made James ponder the unique bond between men who meet each other once a week for years, but don't know any personal details beyond pitch prowess.
Five-a-Side football is where you play the beautiful game for love, not money. You play it for life and you play it everywhere. Your kit is damp and your legs are a leopard's back of bruises. Shirts are often tight around the belly, with your hero's name plastered across your shoulder blades. The showers are too cold in winter and too hot in summer.
Your used sports bag stays unpacked in the hall, and your water bottles are under the kitchen sink. The post-match warm down takes place in the pub. As does the match analysis. By contrast the warm up is non-existent. Your performance is patchy and maybe not what it used to be. But we all still think we played great. Five-a-Side is sporting Karaoke - a time and place to live out our dreams.
This is a book for all of us - school mates, work colleagues, total strangers - bonded by the desire to blast one into the net from two feet away.
Above Head Height A FiveASide Life James Brown 9781786481764 Books
Anyone who's ever played football, at pretty much any level, will recognize elements of themselves in this book; they will also recognize their team mates, the good, the bad and the one's that just try really hard but will always be crap.That said, it's far from imperative that you have played the game to enjoy this book. This is an immensely enjoyable read, well written with plenty of humor and moments of reflection.I haven't played Five-a-Side football in around about 25 years, I doubt my body would take the twisting and turning, or that my knees would withstand the pounding. Reading Above Head Height makes me want to find a local league and seek out a team desperate enough to give someone who plays as poorly as I do, or did, a game. I can think of no higher praise for this book.
Give the latest Premier League prima donna's biography a miss for now, you've read one, you've pretty much read them all, and slum it a little with the unsung real stars of the game.
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Tags : Above Head Height: A Five-A-Side Life [James Brown] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>'The Fever Pitch </i>of five-a-side' TONY PARSONS</b> <b></b> <b>A must-have for anyone who has ever played and enjoyed amateur football.</b> <b></b> <b></b>James Brown has been playing football since growing up in the backstreets of Leeds. The sudden death of one his long-standing team mates made James ponder the unique bond between men who meet each other once a week for years,James Brown,Above Head Height: A Five-A-Side Life,Quercus Publishing,1786481766,GENERAL,General Adult,Great BritainBritish Isles,Non-Fiction,SPORTS & RECREATION Football,Sports
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Above Head Height A FiveASide Life James Brown 9781786481764 Books Reviews
If you've ever kicked a ball in anger, or for that matter, ever kicked an opponent in anger, this book is for you. James Brown, the original men's magazine writer/editor/raconteur, writes with verve of the ups and downs of five-a-side. This is a book that was poignant and funny in equal measure--with a dose of nostalgia that hits you like a badly-timed tackle from behind. A+
In England, organized 5v5 football is an established business, with leagues, tables, etc, and there's certainly no lack of people to get together with on a regular basis for 8v8 or 11v11 games on weekends, nights, etc... Brown is one of those guys who at just over 50 is still running around several days a week, chasing the perfect volley, chip, and through-ball, before his body gives out (not unlike myself). When one of his longtime playing mates died unexpectedly in 2015, Brown wrote a nice elegy to him and the odd fellowship of playing a game regularly with other guys you barely know. That article led to a book pitch, contract, and finally this book.
Unfortunately, that article is probably the best part of the book. Brown, who is a British media dude most famous for helping launch the "lad mag" sector in the late '90s with "loaded", and for being a legendary boozer and cocaine maniac, could have really benefited from a ghostwriter or editor in trying to tease this out into a book-length job, because he struggles to find any kind of framework for the book. It lurches from short loosely-themed chapter to short loosely-themed chapter (30 of them) without apparent structure.
Don't get me wrong, there are some very nice segments -- I particularly enjoyed one about when your kids get old enough to join in the games. There's a quite good one that tries to tease out the history of the organized game in England, and efforts to expand to the US market. That also felt like a solid magazine piece. But far too many of the chapters are loose assemblages of anecdotes from his own life or culled from responses on Twitter or Facebook to his call-outs for stories. And like most sports stories, they're pretty tedious on the page if you weren't there or don't know the people.
(Speaking of which -- a word of warning for the non-British reader. There's a heavy dose of nostalgia throughout the book, and while I more or less enjoyed the chapter where he describes the state and practice of childhood football in 1970s Leeds, the book is littered with references to players, comedians, foods, and pop culture elements that meant nothing to me as an American reader.)
Like Brown, I'm at the age where I'm one injury away from never kicking a ball again, and I can completely identify with the weird disconnect of getting together with guys every week for years, but knowing very little about their off-pitch lives. But I just couldn't connect with much of his sloppy writing and slapdash thinking, and I can't really say it's worth slogging through it all to find the very few decent nuggets.
It got me to start playing footy again in my 40's - so I guess you can say it's an inspirational read.
This fabulous read took me back to when I was blasting the ball into the top corner. Loved it! Anyone who's played sports of any kind will see a little of themselves in this excellent book.
Anyone who's ever played football, at pretty much any level, will recognize elements of themselves in this book; they will also recognize their team mates, the good, the bad and the one's that just try really hard but will always be crap.That said, it's far from imperative that you have played the game to enjoy this book. This is an immensely enjoyable read, well written with plenty of humor and moments of reflection.
I haven't played Five-a-Side football in around about 25 years, I doubt my body would take the twisting and turning, or that my knees would withstand the pounding. Reading Above Head Height makes me want to find a local league and seek out a team desperate enough to give someone who plays as poorly as I do, or did, a game. I can think of no higher praise for this book.
Give the latest Premier League prima donna's biography a miss for now, you've read one, you've pretty much read them all, and slum it a little with the unsung real stars of the game.
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