I am currently reading a book by the writer Nick Hornby called Fever Pitch. It is probably the best Football book I have ever read and the style in which all footballing books should be written. I am into the final few pages of it now and am not looking forward to it coming to an end.

The book is basically an autobiography of Hornby’s life based around his memories of Arsenal games — the team is supports to an obsessive level — through the late-sixties, seventies and eighties all the way to Arsenal’s dramatic league win over Liverpool in May ‘89 thanks to Michael Thomas. Even as a Liverpool fan I find the book a brilliant read and any football fan will relate to the vast majority of stories within the book. Even non-fans of the game will gain a greater respect of what kind of animal the footballing fan is. The great thing about the book though is that it is more about the observing of the game rather than just talking about various matches. It is the kind of style you get now-a-days from various sports bloggers when they write about their own personal viewing of games rather than objective reports which you get in mainstream media. No doubt Hornby was ahead of his time. Go buy it.

As the cover says: In America, it is soccer. But in Great Britain, it is the real football. No pads, no prayers, no prisoners. And that is before the players even take the field.

One of the best sections of the book is from the chapter ‘No Apology Necessary’ were Hornby talks about what makes football great and what separates the game from nearly every other sport. The following is an extract from that section…

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