The best football book ever?

I spent a lot of years as the sports editor at The Morning Star, learning a number of lessons. While I might have been the editor – I decided what went on the pages, what we covered, commissioned where possible etc – I had a staff of, err, me, plus some willing volunteers who did reports and took photos at sporting events because they wanted to for the fun of it and I could get them access.

I like to think that I made a small impact: when I left, I received a £10 M&S gift token from one reader to thank me, so I can’t have been all bad. Note – I spent the token on a chunky, green sweater, which did me very good service for many years.

But before that, I used to pen a regular column at the end of each week – Kendal’s Korner– which was essentially a 1,500-word analysis of whatever big sports story had dominated the week just ending. I even got a commendation as best newcomer in the UK Sports Journalism Awards one year (the framed certificate is now so faded I can’t make out the date) for exactly these columns. Which given the lack of resources I had, is amazing.

 

Indeed, that led directly to freelance shifts at the Sunday Indpendent, inputting the football results on Saturdays, living off the Indy canteen’s chips and editor Simon Kellner telling me (occasionally) “she’s back!” when I'd call out the correct answer to one of his shouted sports questions to the room.

 

It also means that I was the first and, as far as I know, the most recent Morning Starjournalist to receive any accolade for writing. The Other Half won one for his football tips. We still have the glass trophy, and he still mourns not trusting himself enough to actual take a punt.

 

But one thing I got no shortage of in those times was sports books to review.

 

I interviewed 400m hurdles Olympic champion Sally Gunnell shortly after her 1994 autobiography, Running Tall, came out. She was rather grumpily offended that her views – not least on the drug testing regime in athletics – had been censored into utter blandness. She had more than a point.

 

But setting that aside, there was a widespread problem … blandness. Few sports books were allowed to shatterany sort of illusion. Most ‘autobiographies’ were ghosted and bland beyond belief (as well as not being very well written). Ghosted is not, of itself, bad, but combined with blandness … well, I’m sure you get the gist.

 

I haven’t voluntarily read a sports book in years.

 

And then, a few weeks ago, I picked up Pirates, Punks and Politics by Nick Davidson, from Stanchion Books, which now has a regular stall on my local Saturday market.

The book in question is about second-tier Bundesliga ‘kult’ club St Pauli. It’s part personal memoir of a disillusioned English fan rediscovering the ‘real’ football experience again in Hamburg, but it’s also a history of the club itself.

 

The history is fascinating. I already knew that St Pauli has a big following in Hamburg among the local sex workers; that it has a reputation for fans being anarchist in terms of political ideology, of being deeply anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-misogynist and pro-LGBT+ people.

 

Davidson is not a professional writer and, while I’d still recommend it as a read, it isn’t the best written book you’ll engage with.

 

However, it led me to Uli Hesse’s Tor: The Story of German Football. The fourth, fully revised edition, was released earlier this year.

Now, I’ve read Mike Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy (I still have my treasured copy of a book both sporting and intellectual) so I do quite like my sports books to be grown up.

 

But Tor! is absolutely superb. Written in English by a writer for whom that is not his first language, Hesse aimed absolutely at the English language market to tell a story not generally known over here.

 

Speaking to 'here' (Hackney, east London) – The Other Half is not really a fan of Association Football, but of Rugby League, but I found myself laughing out loud and then having to quote to him in explanation, usually, for him to then laugh out loud too.

 

In case you didn’t know, Germans really do have a sense of humour!

 

It is an extraordinary story – and told in an absolutely, pitch-perfect and wonderful way. I can’t think of a better book about football that I have ever read. I probably haven’t enjoyed one as much since reading Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. Such an informative read, combined with such fun.

 

Hesse never ducks the big questions – ie football in the Nazi and DDR eras – but so much else is just a hoot, often told in a wonderfully deadpan fashion.

 

Best football book in years? Absolutely!

Best sports book in years? Absolutely!

 

It’s worth noting that Davidson has waived all monies from Pirates, Punks and Politics to go to St Pauli fan projects.

 

So y’know what? Buy and read them both! And y’know what … do it from a tiny, indy bookseller like Stanchion.