GOT NOT GOT – The A-Z of lost football culture, treasures & pleasures by Derek Hammond & Gary Silke
That nice lad from the Fox Fanzine has got a new book out … surely a must for Christmas presents? …. Read on his preview below & look forward to a review as soon as my copy drops through the post!!!
GOT, NOT GOT focuses on British football’s apparent lost Utopia of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s – the fondly remembered ‘Golden Age’ of mudbaths and cloggers, of miniature, carpet-level games and imaginary, comic-fuelled worlds.
This big, beautiful book packs 1000 images into 224 pages, evoking the feel and smell of football past, its rituals and relics. But there’s more to the agreeably grumpy authors’ vision than a hilarious, heartstring-tugging celebration of everything we miss in modern football.
Here are hundreds of beautiful images of a lost football culture, pin-sharp observations and memories shared by generations of fans – in all, an ideal blueprint to help restore the game to its former glories!
GOT, NOT GOT centres around the very ‘stuff’ of all our football-mad childhoods, digging out old programmes and stickers (which weren’t always sticky), dusting off everything from vintage progress charts and league ladders to antique handheld games, petrol freebies and priceless clumps of turf.
Hundreds of items of fan ephemera and memorabilia are featured among the book’s 1000+ images, which help summon back the sky-high promise of the Admiral seconds box, and all the thrills of the Peter Barnes Football Trainer depositing your shorts in next door’s shrubbery.
Also much missed are those elements of our football culture which have been deemed surplus to requirement over the past 20 or 30 years – World Cup squad sing-alongs, dogs on the pitch; mud, the magic sponge and Melchester Rovers – all recaptured here in anecdotal form and in superb pictures from the Mirror Football archive.
Stories of long-lost football species, boiled burgers and floodlight pylons and are sure to trigger bittersweet memories in anyone who ever went to a proper football match. And so to the flipside of the authors’ rose-tinted vision of the past, and their bemused attitude to a game which has been taken over by its own self-appointed ‘authorities’ and a clutch of monomaniacal Bond villains, our untouchable heroes of old somehow replaced by freelance millionaire celebrities.
GOT, NOT GOT isn’t just packed with shared, feel-good memories. It also adds up to a heartfelt fans’ blueprint for the future of football – next stop, the FA and Premier
League
Matt’s final words …. buy on line from Amazon for a mere £13.99 via the following link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Got-Not–Z-Treasures-Pleasures/dp/1908051140/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318748528&sr=8-1