Manchester United Ruined My Wife

Manchester United Ruined My Wife, the hilarious tale of a life-long United supporter and the way his obsession affected his wife and daughters, one of whom grew up to be an international pop star, was first published in 2004 selling over 10,000 copies. This new, updated edition brings the tale from the tragedy of Munich up to the triumph of Moscow, including the protracted sale to American owners, the rise and rise of FC United of Manchester and finally the double whammy of United's 17th league title and the agony and ecstasy of Russian penalty roulette in Moscow. How can a man love one woman, when he is in love with eleven men? When people get married it is "Till death do us part," yet, for almost 40% of the population, marriage ends in divorce. But, when you fall truly, madly, deeply in love with your football team there is no divorce; you do not stray. Your team is the one constant, consistent, permanent, overwhelming obsession in your life. Rarely has a book been written that so painfully yet humorously conveys the all-consuming red-hot passion, joy and despair felt by the vast majority of football fans. With highs so intense it reduces sex to mere skin rubbing, David Blatt puts wives in their rightful place on the substitutes bench as he takes the reader on a journey through his United-watching adventures, from the Busby Babes via the 1968 European Cup final, relegation, promotion, the wilderness years of the 70s and 80s, a first Championship in 26 years and the glorious 1999 treble, which culminated in the unforgettable Champions League triumph in Barcelona. It is a tale that millions of so-called "ordinary" football fans can relate to. After all, how can kissing girls compete with getting up at 5am for a 400 mile round trip for home games?

Colin Shindler was dealt a cruel hand by Fate when he became a passionate Manchester City supporter. In this brilliant sporting autobiography he recalls the great characters of his youth, like his eccentric Uncle Laurence, as well as his professional heroes. Threaded through these sporting events is the author's own story, which touches on a universal nerve, growing up in a Jewish family, his childhodd destroyed by the sudden death of his mother and his slow emotional recovery through his love for Manchester City. It is a tale that reveals what it is like to be on the outside looking in, with his nose pressed up against the sweet shop window watching the United supporters take all the wine gums.

Colin Shindler has previously written of his deep love for Manchester City in the bestselling Manchester United Ruined My Life and three other previous books. Now he tells the story of his sorrowful disenchantment with his home town club as, on the instruction of its new foreign owners, it turns itself remorselessly into a global brand. Trophyless since 1976, in 2011 Manchester City won the FA Cup and set off on their quest for the Premiership and the Champions League. In their zeal to win every competition the new Manchester City has spent money with wild abandon, signing outstandingly talented players as well as a few ordinary ones but in almost every case at hugely inflated prices. From the nail-biting win over Gillingham in the League Two Play Off final at Wembley in 1999 to the climax of the 2011 season, Shindler watches his team get steadily more successful and, to his own bewilderment, feels steadily more alienated from it. This is the story of a frustrated romantic who finds in the glitz and glamour of the current media-obsessed game a helter-skelter of artificially fabricated excitement. As he details how football courses through his veins Shindler tells how it intersects with his own life, a life that has been marked by family tragedy, and how he finally found personal redemption even as his team lost its soul.

This is the first book to offer a rigorous, theoretically grounded treatment of the Manchester United phenomenon, with each chapter from a leading academic addressing a particular aspect of the central theme.

The development of sport in the twentieth century has been examined from a variety of angles. Rarely, though, has the work of the creative writer been considered in detail. This book directs its attention to this neglected area, examining a selection of novels in which the subject of sport has featured prominently. It highlights the ways in which novelists in the second half of the twentieth century have approached sport, explained its place in society, and through the sporting subject constructed a critique of the historical circumstances in which their narrative is set. The study therefore seeks to complement the increasing body of work on the representation of sport through such media as film, television, and autobiography. It also brings a fresh dimension to the use made by historians of literary sources, suggesting that creative fiction can be far more valuable as historical evidence than has customarily been acknowledged.

75 MILLION FANS. AN ANNUAL INCOME OF MORE THAN £500 MILLION. AND A STORY THAT HAS NEVER FULLY BEEN TOLD - UNTIL NOW. 'A wonderfully entertaining history' Sunday Telegraph 'When historians 1,000 years from now try to fathom the cult of Manchester United Football Club, White will be a good place to start' Financial Times MANCHESTER UNITED: THE BIOGRAPHY contains everything a football fan needs to know about the club, from its birth in the smog-bound mud of Newton Heath to the Theatre of Dreams. From the solid yeomanry of Lancelot Holliday Richardson, through the gilded days of Law, Best and Charlton, to the dazzling artistry of Cristiano Ronaldo and becoming 20-time English football champions. Award-winning journalist and lifelong red Jim White brings the history of this extraordinary club to life - unofficial and unbiased, it is written with the passion of a true fan.

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authorsùfrom first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others. Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.