 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Playing for Uncle Sam: The Brits' Story of the North American Soccer League for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Daily Mirror
Soccer365
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The rise and fall of the NASL,
By
This review is from: Playing for Uncle Sam: The Brits' Story of the North American Soccer League (Paperback)
A book like this has been over due for years. It charts the rise and fall of the world game in the USA in the mid 70s to early 80s and lays the foundations for its recovery in 94 with the World Cup and the creation of the MSL in 96. In 75/77/79 I was lucky enough to visit the US from the UK for the first times to visit family. It was a thrill a minute adventure to what seemed to be a technicolour land, compared to the relative drab of the UK at the time. The NASL reflected that vividness. Bright shirts, "uniforms", exotically named teams (Tulsa Roughnecks, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Vancouver Whitecaps) and some world class players (Cruyff, Pele, Best). The NASL really was a carnival like experience and where the quality of play was far higher than many people assumed it would be. Sadly it all ended too soon with too many clubs ("franchises" in reality) over stretching themselves by paying too high wages to what, in many cases, were moderate players in cities with no historical roots or love of the game. But the NASL sowed a seed that helped lead to millions of Americans of both sexes playing the sport, a league in the shape of the MSL where profitability and having a core of local US players is a key factor and a national side that, in the 2002 World Cup in Japan, that really was a quality side and a surprise package with significant major future potential. This book is very well written and David Tossell clearly did his homework with extensive interviews with a great many of the players and coaches of the NASL years, both the big names and the unknowns. The result is an excellent read for anyone interested in the NASL and the growth of the game in the US.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The rise and fall of the NASL,
By Martin Percival - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Playing for Uncle Sam: The Brits' Story of the North American Soccer League (Paperback)
A book like this has been over due for years. It charts the rise and fall of the world game in the USA in the mid 70s to early 80s and lays the foundations for its recovery in 94 with the World Cup and the creation of the MSL in 96. In 1975/77/79 I was lucky enough to visit the US from the UK for the first times to visit family. It was a thrill a minute adventure to what seemed to be a technicolour land, compared to the relative drab of the UK at the time. The NASL reflected that vividness. Bright shirts, "uniforms", exotically named teams (Tulsa Roughnecks, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Vancouver Whitecaps) and some world class players (Cruyff, Pele, Best). The NASL really was a carnival like experience and where the quality of play was far higher than many people assumed it would be. Sadly it all ended too soon with too many clubs ("franchises" in reality, not clubs in the European sense) over stretching themselves by paying too high wages to what, in many cases, were moderate players in cities with no historical roots or love of the game. But the NASL sowed a seed that helped lead to millions of Americans, of both sexes, playing the sport, a league in the shape of the MSL where profitability and having a core of local US players is a key factor and a national side that, in the 2002 World Cup in Japan, really was a quality side and a surprise package with significant major future potential. This book is very well written and David Tossell clearly did his homework with extensive interviews with a great many of the players and coaches of the NASL years, both the big names and the unknowns. The result is an excellent read for anyone interested in the NASL and the growth of the game in the US.
5.0 out of 5 stars
absolutely great!,
By Brian Maitland - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Playing for Uncle Sam: The Brits' Story of the North American Soccer League (Paperback)
It's as close to definitive given the limitations (i.e., the focus on Brits because after all this is a book aimed at the British market). So much in here is new and fresh despite it being now over 20 years since the NASL folded. Learned such nuggets as the fact the Vancouver Whitecaps had a near mutiny on the eve of Soccer Bowl '79 over bonuses or that Brits actually came over to make more money than they could make in the English League. Seems so bizarre given the money flowing into the game in England now.Also, did not forget the Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup or the 1976 Bicentennial Cup in covering the NASL years so that is to be lauded as they were important tournaments over here. Did seem a bit too obsessed with "division titles" which are really irrelevant as fans care more about how deep teams went in the playoffs. One comment about Rodney Marsh mentioned his "winning two division championships" but of greater relevance are his two all-star selections. Don't get hung up about the Brit angle as the author does cover the impact of other imports such as Pele, Eusebio and Johan Cruyff as well as NASL greats like Paul Child, Mike Flanagan, Alan Willey, Laurie Abrahams, etc. Also, he got the fact that Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Minnesota, Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale were important places where soccer grew and thrived and gave them their due. I was disappointed to not learn much about the Chicago Sting (note--one huge editing miss as they are referred to as the Blitz [actually Chicago's USFL team] in Chapter 21). Maybe that's because many of their star players were German (Karl-Heinz Granitza, Arno Steffenhagen) or Dutch (Ingo Peter, Wim van Hanegam, Peter Ressel) but that's nitpicking. Any soccer fan really will love this but for all NASL fans, this is an absolute must-have in your own libraries. |
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Britain
- Books > Biography > Historical > United States
- Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Football
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
