Pray
Notes on the 2011/2012 Football Season
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
Pray is bestselling author Nick Hornby's extraordinary account of an astonishing season
'That is why there is NOTHING better than sport' Kevin Pietersen
The 2011-12 Premier League season finished on an afternoon so extraordinary that it prompted Kevin Pietersen's tweet. Yet this was just the climax of an incredible season. By May fans of most clubs had been enthralled, appalled, depressed, elated, shocked and enraged. Along the way football had somehow managed to encompass politics, high finance, the law and matters of life and death.
Beginning with the weekend of 28 August when the Man Utd demolition of Arsenal 8-2 and the Man City demolition of Spurs 5-1 showed what was to come, he concentrates on a number of games whose significance went beyond the immediate result: the October games with alleged rascist incidents, the fairy-tale return of Thierry Henry, the collapse of Fabrice Muamba, the Carling Cup Final where Liverpool's victory only served to point up the club's problems, the unusual (but increasingly more common) 4-4 draw between Man Utd and Everton...
It was a season of tumultuous incident and enormous entertainment, a season more glorious than most. Read all about it, and relive it, here, from the award-winning author of the football classic Fever Pitch.
Customer Reviews
Wonderful!
This is a supremely well written essay on the incredible 2011-12 season. Hornby has a lovely turn of phrase and deploys it well when looking at the highs and lows. I particularly liked his description of the cup competitions and the CL. He has a terrific understanding of what the average fan thinks. This despite supporting a team which, whilst having fallen from a lofty perch, still provide entertainment beyond that seen by the vast majority of match goers. He summarises the last day brilliantly (and I say this as a Man Utd supporter) reminding me that sport is a "marvellous irrelevance" yet is so intoxicating that surely no illicit drug can compare. Well worth £2