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Football Oddities


Alan_R

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Any recommendation on movies, videos, books that are 'footballing oddities'

Similar to:

Up Pohnpei (book about 2 English guys trying to establish international football in micronesia)

Coach Zoran and his African tigers (The start of South Sudans international team, great viewing)

Next Goal Wins (Doc/movie about trying to change the fortunes of American Samoa)

The Other World Cup (video about tiny Montserrat travelling to Bhutan to play a match that would see the loser declared "worst in the world")

Any others? It could be Sunday/lower league or about establishing youth academies overseas etc.

Im not really into reading (insert super star A) biography. I prefer a good underdog story.

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The documentary of the young lads who tried to "busk" their way to Argentina to meet El Diego, by ball juggling etc was not bad. Can't mind the name of it though.

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The documentary of the young lads who tried to "busk" their way to Argentina to meet El Diego, by ball juggling etc was not bad. Can't mind the name of it though.

In the hands of the gods - seen it, good watch as well. thats the sort of thing im on about.

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Was there one about the Iranian? team, where they got their feet whipped after a defeat? Shocking.

Cathro take note

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The White Cockade

Got a paperback when I was about 10 called The Goalmaker by Jimmy Baker

Think I still have it somewhere

Story about a gypsy who is a top player and plays for teams then dies only

to be reincarnated and come back years later and plays again under a different name

Great book must read it again soon

 

goalmaker-jimmy-baker_360_33b4658b818d77

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Stupid Sexy Flanders

The documentary of the young lads who tried to "busk" their way to Argentina to meet El Diego, by ball juggling etc was not bad. Can't mind the name of it though.

Two of them formed a duo called the F2 and apparently make a fortune out of their juggling routines. You can see them on YouTube if you're interested.

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Clough - The Brian Clough story. The greatest English manager to never manage England. Hope his son keeps Burton up after rejecting (rightly so) forrest job.

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The unstoppable keeper by Lutz Pfannenstiel is a cracking read.

Is that the one who's played for like 60 clubs in about 30 countries?

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Say What Again

Haven't got round to it yet but always meant to read the Robin Friday book. Anyone read it?

I have. He's a colourful chap to say the least, and it's an interesting read, but you could probably read it in a day or two. Quite a bit of it is old newspaper articles etc.

 

As the title suggests (The Greatest Player You Never Saw), he sounded like he had some real ability, just struggled badly with off field issues.

Edited by Say What Again
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Riddley Walker

Have you read The Blizzard? It's a high-quality quarterly magazine with football stories and interviews from around the globe.

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  • 1 year later...

The story of Carlos Kaiser is one of the better known but most mental football stories. Some guys made a film about it last year and the Totally Football podcast did a wee bit on it back in the summer. Hope this link works

 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-totally-football-show-with-james-richardson/id1267958765?mt=2&i=1000416505917

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A favourite football book of mine is Tim Parks’ A Season With Verona.

Equally about Italian culture as it is about the trials of following Hellas Verona for a season and very well written.

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3 hours ago, GlasgoJambo said:

A favourite football book of mine is Tim Parks’ A Season With Verona.

Equally about Italian culture as it is about the trials of following Hellas Verona for a season and very well written.

Very good book, interesting how he was greeted with suspicion upon his arrival for bari away at the start to being an accepted son almost by the end.

 

another good one is the “Grobar” about Partizan Belgrade and similar to the Tim parks book follows them around the country. Sadly for me he tends to devote more than necessary political and national word counts, to the extent it was pages and pages unnecessarily overloading the point when paragraphs could suffice  

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28 minutes ago, BM1874 said:

Very good book, interesting how he was greeted with suspicion upon his arrival for bari away at the start to being an accepted son almost by the end.

 

 

The bit which always stuck out for me was the away game where the Ultras are trying to come up with something to really offend the opposition and someone comes up with the idea of chanting about an earthquake or volcano or the such which had tragically affected the town they were playing.

It bears relevance with regards our own internal quarrels concerning what is acceptable conduct at football games and I think puts focus on a point that is often overlooked - that sometimes the entire raison d’etre of certain chants and behaviour is to bam up the opposition rather than to promote one’s own politics. 

 

Funnily enough I seem to recall Hellas lost that game and Parks suggests it was down to the offended opposition fans retaliating in such voice that it inspired their team to victory.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Was mentioned on another thread but the documentary about Real Kashmir FC is on BBC iplayer. Well worth a watch.

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On 29/03/2017 at 11:45, Alan_R said:

Any recommendation on movies, videos, books that are 'footballing oddities'

Similar to:

Up Pohnpei (book about 2 English guys trying to establish international football in micronesia)

Coach Zoran and his African tigers (The start of South Sudans international team, great viewing)

Next Goal Wins (Doc/movie about trying to change the fortunes of American Samoa)

The Other World Cup (video about tiny Montserrat travelling to Bhutan to play a match that would see the loser declared "worst in the world")

Any others? It could be Sunday/lower league or about establishing youth academies overseas etc.

Im not really into reading (insert super star A) biography. I prefer a good underdog story.

There's a Netflix series called loser's. Torquay United and a dog feature on an episode. 

 

::facepaw:: 2017 thread.

Edited by ri Alban
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luckyBatistuta

Not an oddity as such, but Maradonas book is a great read. For me, the greatest player to ever set foot on a football pitch, but an absolute arsehole off of it. He’s like the human Calimero, it’s an injustice, always somebody else’s fault.

Edited by luckyBatistuta
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