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Obras de Anthony Clavane

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Compared to cricket, Association Football’s collective bibliographic output often fails to live up to much literary scrutiny. Last year, I compiled a bibliography on Leeds United and listed over 280 titles, though I could count on two hands books about the club that would interest people outside the definition of a fan or football historian. How thoroughly refreshing then it was to read Anthony Clavane’s Promised Land: The Reinvention of Leeds United. Clavane, a sports editor for the Sunday Mirror in the UK, was born and raised in Leeds and, like most supporters, has maintained a lifelong affinity with the club. Promised Land is his attempt to scrutinise both his club and the city he grew up in. He details Leeds United’s meteoric rise to the top in the 1960s and subsequent failures and flashes of brilliance that define the rollercoaster of emotion of following Leeds.

But this isn’t just a book about a team. It’s a journey though Clavane’s Jewish upbringing and his deep roots and questions about where he came from and how he himself fits into the fabric of the city. He questions how England’s third biggest city, and its football team that was once a powerhouse of domestic and European football, have both struggled with identity and attempts to take on football’s and Britain’s established order.

From Billy Liar to Billy Bremner throughout the book Clavane’s analysis is brilliantly observed with literary and cultural references that serve to illuminate the background of the city and the club. Naturally, a Leeds United supporter will appreciate Promised Land, but I also feel it has immense value to any sports fan as it examines the wider picture of how sport and society are intertwined immeasurably. Despite an often painful and troubled journey, Clavane has kept faith with Leeds United. Almost single-handedly, he has also restored my faith in football writing.
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LeedsLibrarian | otra reseña | Feb 13, 2023 |
This could well be the best book I have read ostensibly on sport and, believe me, I have read more than a few.

I say ostensibly because this is so much more than a simple rise and fall and rise and fall and rise..... of my beleagured soccer club. It is a social history and a sociological study of the city of Leeds and its environs; of its tribes and communities; of its poverty and affluence; of its passions and its ambivalences; of its incredible literary heritage.

The rise of the soccer club coincided with the emergence of the "kitchen sink" generation of angry young writers many of whom called Leeds or its district their home. Alan Bennett, David Storey, Keith Waterhouse, Tony Harrison and later Caryl Phillips are all liberally quoted from and their impact upon the success of the book is profound.

Leeds has always been a city of contrasts. On the one hand it is the vibrant business hub for the monied of Northern England; on the other its inner cities were akin to a post-industrial wasteland with no-go areas and more rubble than a war-torn archipelago. The club was the first to promote black players in the country and was run successfully by Jewish businessmen for decades but housed a vocal and disgusting racist element amonst its "supporters". The club were capable of the most sublime football and yet were seen as cynical, dirty and professional (when the adjective was a criticism). Despite that so called professionalism the club was wont to choke at the last and finished second more times than Poulidor in the Tour,

I am biased. I was born in and grew up in West Yorkshire at a time when my team was Mighty Leeds and everyone from outside hated us. I grew up with pride in my district and in my sporting heroes who so often tried and failed but did so gloriously. I grew up in a time of power cuts and three day weeks and stories at night instead of TV because there was no electricity. I grew up in a time when ladies were afeared of venturing out because of the Yorkshire ripper, a time of inflation, a time of unemployment, a time of industrial decay and dispute, a time of communities bereft of hope for the future as manufacturing and the mines were taken from them, a time when empire and "great" were expunged from the name of Britain. But it was also a time when race issues showed signs of being consigned to the sewer of history. I grew up in a post-holocaust Europe and have counted as my friends people of all race and creed as our generation hoped that lessons were learned.

All of this was beautifully captured in the book. More than a sports book. much, much more.
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PaulCranswick | otra reseña | Jan 11, 2013 |

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