Showing results for "daniel" in Sports History

When the matchday many were treated as the hooligan few, football supporters didn't react with violence or vandalism, but with typewriters, staple guns and Tippex. The fanzine movement of the 1980s transformed a bleak time into a hopeful one, re-humanising spectators in the process. Producing DIY zines and selling them outside football grounds, supporters offered authenticity, humour and criticism written from the terraces and not the press box, with truths that their clubs and the footballing authorities found uncomfortable.

From minor league baseball exploitation to spectator hooliganism, Sailofsky shows the connections between the business of sports and violence, but also, more importantly, he imagines new forms of sport that are not places of harm.

Goalkeepers in trousers, proper division names, turf patterns, pixelated scoreboards and, of course, Saturday evening pink newspapers.... They were the gritty stardust that made football sparkle. Here, 50 such wonders are drawn together with evocative charm before they slip from memory forever. Dedicating a chapter to each wonder, Daniel Gray's pieces sound more like love letters than essays.