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Fever Pitch
 
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Fever Pitch (Hardcover)
by Nick Hornby (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars 4 customer reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details
  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz (17 Sep 1992)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0575053151
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575053151
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 142,507 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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Product Description
Book Jacket
"Funny, wise and true." --Roddy Doyle

"A brilliant book by one of the best writers around--not just a book about football, but a book about love, death and the feather-cut." --Julie Burchill

"A lovely book, by turns vivid, wise, sad, jubilant, enraged and very, very funny. I read it in one sitting." --Pete Davies I have measured out my life in Arsenal Fixtures, and any event of any significance has a footballing shadow. When did my first real love affair end? The day after a disappointing 2-2 draw at home to Coventry. For a man to chronicle his life in match reports may be a mark of his ingenuity. It is certainly a measure of his obsession.
Nick Hornby's affliction first took hold in 1968 when, as a sombre eleven-year-old, he saw Arsenal beat Stoke City (1-0 from a penalty rebound). From that first momentous afternoon, and for the next twenty-four years, the swings and shifts of his own life became inextricably linked with the changing fortunes of his team. The blind faith of childhood, adolescent alienation, adult neuroses--all were played out on the terraces at Highbury. A brilliant blend of personal insight and reportage, Fever Pitch is not just about goals and rain and semi-final replays. It's also about suburbia, death, sex and ambition. It is the most memorable picture ever produced of what is to be a fan. Fellow sufferers, and those who have to live with them, will recognise the symptoms, no matter what the team, or what the obsession.

Synopsis
This book, chronicled from the perspective of a fanatical ten-year-old soccer fan, through disillusioned adolescence, to an adult "who should know better", examines the absurdities, idiosyncrasies and traumas of everyday life and football. While Chelsea were undoubtedly the football team at the heart of fashionable London in the late 1960s, it proved to be the quiet backstreets around Highbury and Finsbury Park which led a sombre schoolboy from Maidenhead into a 20-year obsession with football, and Arsenal FC in particular. Nick Hornby became hooked after seeing Arsenal beat Stoke City (1-0 from a penalty rebound) in 1968. 24 years later this book is an attempt to understand football as an obsession. Interweaving his personal and familial upheavals with the varied fortunes of Arsenal over two decades, Nick Hornby has produced a genuine insight into what it is like to be a fan. Combining anecdote with a wider commentary on the state of the game, the book touches upon many issues; from pre-match entertainment to the availability of FA Cup tickets, hooliganism, the tragedies at Heysel and Hillsborough, non-league and school football, and Arsenal's reputation as the most boring team in the Football League.

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Customer Reviews
4 Reviews
5 star: 75%  (3)
4 star: 25%  (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4.0 out of 5 stars Entertrainingly about footbal obsession, 21 Aug 2005
By Faith (Finland) - See all my reviews
Fever Pitch is indeed different Hornby. Kinda his autobiography, but excluding a lot of things. Hornby is definitely obcessed with footbal. "Get a life", I would like to say at some points of the book.

Footbal-fans like Hornby are definitely crazy. Still Hornby manages to write in an entertraining way about the theme. I don't care a thing for footbal and still i was rather entertrained by the book. I don't really know anything about footbal. The only games I sometimes watch are world/European cup games where my fave teams (Sweden and England (Finland is worthless on footbal) play. Ok, I do of cource wish that "my team" winns, but it can sertaninly not make or destroy my day.

But all in all it was nice to get the fans point of view footbal. The Swedich subtitle "En i laget" is indeed quite correct. Wonder why Hornby himself didn't think of it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and funny!, 4 Jul 2000
By A Customer
This book is a must! Even though I'm a girl and not too found of footy, I loved this book!
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5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and insightful., 11 May 2000
By kevin_monahan@amat.com (San Francisco California USA) - See all my reviews
I recommend this book strongly to any sports fan. Fever Pitch is a brilliant insight to an affliction suffered by men the world over: unwavering devotion to a team despite the many crushing heartbreaks it delivers between victories. As a Yank with little knowledge of English Football, I could still empathize with Hornby as he chronicled 20 years of his life in relation to the ups and downs of Arsenal football. Fanatacism for sports teams has common threads despite the country or sport and reading Fever Pitch is often like looking into a mirror and noticing something about oneself for the first time. I have followed the English Premier League quite closely in the few years since I read the book and often respond to a Gunners loss by muttering " Sorry about the Arse, Nick". Ihave also purchased Hornby's About A Boy and High Fidelity and recommend them highly as well.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Best football book ever written.
Hornsby's Fever Pitch is a rarity: a bio-documentary, written by an insider, which manages to find universal themes within a specialized topic. Read more
Published on 1 April 1999

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