A fascinating, funny and sometimes alarming tale of how a violent and chaotic folk game became modern football.
Richard Sanders is a writer and award-winning documentary maker. He is the author of If A Pirate I Must Be- The True Story of Bartholomew Roberts, King of the Caribbean.
Love it or hate it, football is one of the most successful
institutions ever spawned in these islands. The sheer speed with
which a random blend of mud, testosterone and Anglo-Saxon
eccentricity evolved into a world game, not to mention a
multi-billion-pound industry, still has the power to set the pulse
racing. It is a story that has been told many times, but Richard
Sanders not only retells it with scholarly zeal, but gives it a new
slant... His book is as much a social history as a sporting
history, and all the better for it... Beastly Fury can be warmly
recommended to anyone curious about the origins of the modern
game
*Mail on Sunday*
There is no shortage of football stories. It is one of the subtle
triumphs of Richard Sanders's book that he brings another tale
gently into the light. Beastly Fury is a bright, breezy account of
the beginnings of football. Sanders kicks off with a rush and his
pace rarely slackens but something of substance emerges. The author
has a keen eye for the personal anecdote whether it be the
eccentric goalkeeper or the club secretary who is consumed by
ambition. But the significance of Beastly Fury is that it lays bare
just how football was born, nurtured and grew on the back of class
movements... succint but acute... engaging but quietly serious
*Glasgow Herald*
Sanders's meticulous research is persuasive... [an] original
thesis, written with style, wit and authority
*Independent on Sunday*
Well written and thoughtful... extremely good indeed
*Sunday Times*
Smooth, pacey prose... fascinating
*Times Literary Supplement*
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