The Glory Game: The New Edition of the British Football Classic (Mainstream Sport)

As a "fully paid up" member of the "Yid Army" this was a delight to read.I didn't start going to White Hart Lane" till 1981 but did follow Spurs as a young child as they were my fathers team due to Danny Blanchflower playing for them.As the popular refrain goes"And if you know your history" my recollections of the 71/72 Spurs are vague as I was only 8 and 9 years but obviously the names of the principle players of that Spurs side Jennings,Peters,Chivers,Gilzean are etched into my knowledge of the great Bill Nicholson sides he produced back then.A fabulous read and now it'll take it's place on the bookshelf next to my other Spurs books....C'mon You Spurs!!!!

A Spurs fan introduced me to the book. Part out of politeness and part knowing the authors quality of work from reading his Beattles bio, I read the book. I enjoyed it as it was an interesting snap-shot to 1970s England football and society. I'd recommend it to any fan of English football and any person who wants to capture a different view of England circa 1971.

A look at every aspect of a football club, from the organization of supporters to the rigors of travel. Though written in the 1970s, it gave me real insight to the workings of a club, and helped me better appreciate the game I've only recently fallen in love with. The wide array of anecdotes really brought the characters to life.

COYS

I like the book, and am definitely glad I got it, but it is not as well-written as I was expecting

It was a gift and the recipient liked it. I have not heard back from the readier yet, so wait.

The Glory Game paints a picture of the game of football in the seventies that is charming, nostalgic and diametrically different from how fans perceive it today. To me, as a spurs fan, this was a great read. The author writes of the season 1971/1972, where he keeps his focus mainly on the personalities in and around the team. My only drawback about this books is that the games of the season is merely the location of the story, where the involved persons and their destiny plays the major role. The season is such an exciting one, especially for us "young" (26) who did not know the details of it from the beginning. The author could have described the games with more details and with a more dramatic pen.

I enjoy reading biographies and this style of book suited me perfectly.It gave a really unique insight into how a football club (Spurs) was run in the 1970s.There isn't anything too shocking here. It's not that kind of book, possibly due to when it was written.But it's still really interesting to read.

I'm just old enough to remember this team. I'd been meaning to read this for years and it's so good; an insight into elite level sport and a window on a very different era.

Hunter Davies' book is based on the free access he was given to players and staff at Tottenham Hotspur in the early 1970's. There are no startling revelations - apart from one of the leading striker's devotion to the drink - but it is a fascinating insight into how a top team prepares for games and how it copes with the various triumphs and disasters of a league season - as it turned out a season that proved to be a particularly successful one for Spurs.Davies would never be given such freedom to roam these days but back in the day - before agents and Sky TV - your average footballer was much the same, which probably explains why people are still reading The Glory Game 40 years after its publication.Here is Davies' evocative description of the team after it lost a cup match against Chelsea: "They sat like shipwrecked hulks, naked, with their heads bowed, unable to move. (Cyril) Knowles seemed to be crying. His eyes were red and swollen. His arms were shaking, No one could look at anyone else."This was in the days when Division One players were on £5,000 a year and some of them went home on the bus and train after a game!There are a number of interesting pen portraits here, particularly of no nonsense manager Bill Nicholson, one of the most successful in the club's history.Finally, how about this description of a party for one of the players to show that some things have moved on. Haven't they? "All that was missing to have made it a really smart 1972 middle-class party would have been a few reefers, but footballers wouldn't touch such things. Some footballers might have moved into the middle classes but there are two things they won't have at their parties - drugs and homosexuals

Released in 1972 and one of the best-selling sports books ever. Says it all. For people interested in this book then I can thoroughly recommend another one - Superfan! The Amazing Life of Morris Keston. (Because I wrote it!)Morris Keston features in The Glory Game chapter titled 'The Hangers-On'. Hunter Davies was wrong about Morris, as it was the players who would hang around him! He became friends with many of the Spurs and England players of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, including Bobby Moore, Jimmy Greaves and Geoff Hurst to name a few. He also mixed in the company of Frank Sinatra ad Muhammad Ali. He's got some amazing untold stories to tell and you can read them all in SUPERFAN - THE AMAZING LIFE OF MORRIS KESTON.

Access used to be all. Now the clubs are their own PR, and Hunter Davies is in his eighties. Never out of print, The Glory Game gets inside the dressing room and captures a lost era of football. Cliff Jones is one of the few players still around from the best Spurs team ever.