- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Yellow Jersey (11 May 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0224075853
- ISBN-13: 978-0224075855
- Product Dimensions: 16.6 x 11.2 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 338,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
On The Corinthian Spirit: The Decline of Amateurism in Sport
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More About the Author
Product Description
Independent on Sunday
thoughtful, intelligent and sparely written
Observer Books
Kevin Mitchell picks the best football books
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This little book is genuinely pocket-sized. Comfortably fitting into my hand and having 131 pages, it whiles away a pleasant hour or two on the train. I can understand another reviewer's surprise that rugby is not featured strongly, but that is partly because Taylor centres on the contrast between the professional and the amateur, and for much of rugby union's history the option of being a professional did not exist. And, frankly, if you want a history of the rugby divide there are some good books out there, and you wouldn't turn to a novelist and literary critic to provide one.
Taylor has always written well, and there are some excellent snippets here. I particularly enjoyed hearing that most autobiography is an excuse to tell lies in public, a line that deserves to be anthologised. There are some diverting stories, some from his own experience, but others deserving to be better known. A section on the employment of "amateur" cricketers comes to mind. My special delight was in his ramble through the kinds of boys' books I was given to read as a child, mostly set in minor public schools and involving a square-jawed hero who, through fair play and solid pluck, contrives an unlikely victory for his house or school and who never fails to "play the game". If such places ever existed, I doubt very much that they were hotbeds of sportsmanship.
I have just opened my copy at random and see that in one paragraph Taylor ranges from the thoughts of Carlyle to late Victorian church attendance to the effects of the Factory Acts. A well-read author can do that.
Not, perhaps, a book for someone whose wall is covered in team posters, but a tasty morsel for a budding social historian.
Taylor has always written well, and there are some excellent snippets here. I particularly enjoyed hearing that most autobiography is an excuse to tell lies in public, a line that deserves to be anthologised. There are some diverting stories, some from his own experience, but others deserving to be better known. A section on the employment of "amateur" cricketers comes to mind. My special delight was in his ramble through the kinds of boys' books I was given to read as a child, mostly set in minor public schools and involving a square-jawed hero who, through fair play and solid pluck, contrives an unlikely victory for his house or school and who never fails to "play the game". If such places ever existed, I doubt very much that they were hotbeds of sportsmanship.
I have just opened my copy at random and see that in one paragraph Taylor ranges from the thoughts of Carlyle to late Victorian church attendance to the effects of the Factory Acts. A well-read author can do that.
Not, perhaps, a book for someone whose wall is covered in team posters, but a tasty morsel for a budding social historian.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A subject matter that deserves to be visited and promised so much. However, although focussing on the decline of the amateur ethos within football while drawing on similar developments within cricket and lawn tennis, I was mystified as to how such a discussion could be entered into and conclusions drawn without even a passing glance at rugby union - surely the last bastion of mainstream British sport to open the doors to professionalism. For me this 'howler' renders this particular discussion null and void - a real shame.
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