A book of two halves

by Jerry Coe
December 16th, 2009

It falls to Britain (the supposed home of soccer hooliganism which, despite its apparent demise, remains a social and cultural albatross around the neck of a country that is the birthplace of football, rugby, cricket, netball (basketball), rounders (baseball), tennis, table tennis, rowing and it seems like every other sport to me) to have what must be the most culturally developed football (yes football) manager in the world.

In a brilliant article, the wonderful sports journalist Paul Hayward (whose career I have followed from The Independent through The Daily Telegraph and now with The Observer) describes how the Fulham manager, Roy Hodgson, is a great lover of literature. No doubt it helps take his mind off his day job!

How refreshing to find someone flying in the face of cultural stereotyping and getting close to the literary fingerwork of touch-typing after a long day surrounded by the dainty footwork of soccer types.

Apparently his favourite novels are:

A Fairly Tale of New York, JP Donleavy
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
The Sportswriter, Richard Ford
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
American Pastoral, Philip Roth
The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse
The Magus, John Fowles
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
The Visit of the Royal Physician, Per Olov Enquist
Speak the Culture: Britain, Andrew Whittaker

Actually, I lied about the last one. But seriously – an intellectually impressive list.

(And if his players all bought the Speak the Culture book, they might get selected to start every game, unless they did the book equivalent of ‘diving’ – i.e. buying a book and then not reading it. Perhaps too there is a sub-culture within football – of managers, players and fans disguising their cultural side – perhaps Waterstones should open a branch at Stamford Bridge…well maybe not just yet.)

Comments (1)

Before today Roy Hodgson was one of my favourite football managers, I don’t know why I just seem to be drawn to his Grandad-like charm, and honesty. But now I have elevated him to THE NO. 1 position on my league. Not only doing quite well with Fulham in the Premiership/league/whatever it chooses to be called this year, but he has the time to read some pretty good books. My favourite in the list would be Birdsong, with Speak the Culture a close second!
Waterstones at Stamford Bridge, why not, Mike Ashley’s opened one of his own shops at St James’ Park, though maybe Waterstones should try Craven Cottage first, it seems they’d have a captive (if not small) audience…

Posted by Kim • 16 December 2009, 11:11