For most in London, the commute into work is a mixed bag of good and bad moments. The brilliance of having half an hour to read your book, getting a bit of a walk with some fresh air to help you wake up and the finding of a lost classic on your iPod can be undermined by overcrowded trains that make reading significantly less relaxing, torrential rain or the freezing cold and an iPod that runs out of battery the moment you leave the house. Today, rather unusually, it was getting both a free yakult and small cup of Starbucks gingerbread latte, the surprise and joy of which was spoilt by spilling the latte on my book, part of an effort to put on my scarf without upsetting my iPod headphones as I walked to the Biteback offices.
(Is my day that tragically fragile that a free yakult can sway the whole thing? Who cares, I got the yakult! It’s going to be a good day.)
The real tragedy is that, what with having put a gingerbready stain across many of the pages of John Nicholson’s We Ate All The Pies: How Football swallowed Britain whole, I can now no longer give it to my Dad for Christmas. Before the attack of the latte, giving the book as a present would have meant ignoring a few key factors; namely, a couple of torn and otherwise marked pages, as well as the fact that you shouldn’t really give presents that people know you got for free at work. But, the way I see it, if it’s the perfect selection for that person, then surely it’s about that person’s enjoyment of the ear-marked, dirty, stained and generally grubby book that counts.
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We Ate All The Pies is John Nicholson’s personal account of the evolution of football over the past 40 years, perfectly capturing the history and reasoning behind the English public’s fascination with the sport by looking at all aspects of the footballing culture, from food, to booze, to TV, to merchandise, and even stretching as far as issues of national identity and regional dialect. However, as much as I love this book, and tend to laugh quite loudly on the train whilst reading it I realised last week that I am actually reading my Dad’s favourite book.
For anyone who grew up in the 1970s and 80s, who has seen the progression from Shoot magazine to football365.com, and from Sportsnight with Coleman to the cinematic trailers for Premiership clashes on Sky TV, this is the perfect book. We Ate All The Pies tells a brilliant story of the nation’s love of football from a man who has had every reason to hate the sport, being a Middlesbrough fan.
It’s disappointing that my Dad, who is also a Middlesbrough fan (I know, the coincidence is creepy), would like this book more than me, but I have enjoyed it so much that I don’t think my read on the train has been tainted too much.
For the ideal Dad Gift this Christmas, click here to buy John Nicholson’s book for £9.99. I’m going to, as that was my only free copy.