Description
Book SynopsisSince he was a young adult, Grant Farred has wandered the world. Born in South Africa, his own personal growth was fueled by dreams of English football, as a player, and then, when age and reality set in, as a fan. Coming to the United States at a still young age, Farred still loved football -- especially Liverpool -- and watched it from afar. Writing about his experience, Farred shares with the reader his experience growing up colored in South Africa, moving to England, and finally to the US, and how his passion for football kept company with his many moves. Along the way, he talks about the contradictions of football; how race and class politics mix on and off the pitch; how Farred's own ideas about what it means to be a colonial subject is both reinforced and liberated by the idea of football, and how players can serve as gods and mosnters.
Trade Review"A fascinating exploration of a sporting obsession conducted across continents and political divides. Grant Farred's narrative shows how sport both transcends and embodies politics, how close you can get and how far away you will always remain from your sporting heroes. Just as American businessmen have started to buy into English soccer in order to profit from its global appeal, this book provides a powerful explanation of the breadth and depth of the passion that the game can evoke." Stefan Szymanski, Cass Business School, London "That Farred writes well about football is beyond debate. He brings a distinctive passion to the topic along with a wealth of analytic insights that will please readers versed in the rich lore of the sport and alert to its growing status as an exemplary vehicle of globalization." Andrew Ross, New York University "More than a love letter to his beloved Liverpool Football Club, this is a journey into the present, from Farred's early years as an outcast in apartheid South Africa through Videla's Argentina and Franco's Spain to the docklands of Liverpool. It is a journey as much spiritual as temporal by a long-distance fan who reads like a latter-day Bill Shankly, albeit with the style and sophistication of a scholar." Bill Murray, author of The World's game: A History of Soccer and The Old Firm: Sectarianism, sport and society in Scotland "Remarkable...In delightfully exuberant prose, Farred recounts a passion that, for him, borders on religion... Long Distance Love is a playful -- yet no less brilliant -- work of political theory; its contribution to political thought comes from making such hopeful statements without compromising the immoderate passions that sports fandom indulge." Centre Daily Times
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
A Talk, Drinks, and Dinner with God
Chapter 1
Long Distance Love: Growing Up a Liverpool Football Club Fan
Chapter 2
Som més que un club, però menys que una nació.
“More than a Club but Less than a Nation.
Chapter 3
Careless Whispers: The Doubleness of Spanish Love
Chapter 4:
At Home, Out of Place
Chapter 5:
God's Team: The Painful Pleasure of the Miracle on the Bosphorus
Chapter 6:
The Gerrard Final
