{"product_id":"saturday-3pm-9781472925114","title":"Saturday 3pm","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOverpaid players. Sunday lunchtime kick-offs. Absurd ticket prices. Non-black boots. Football's menu of ills is long. Where has the joy gone? Why do we bother? \u003ci\u003eSaturday, 3pm\u003c\/i\u003e offers a glorious antidote. It is here to remind you that football can still sing to your heart. \u003c\/b\u003e Warm, heartfelt and witty, here are fifty short essays of prose poetry dedicated to what is good in the game. These are not wallowing nostalgia; they are things that \u003ci\u003eremain\u003c\/i\u003e sweet and right: seeing a ground from the train, brackets on vidiprinters, ball hitting bar, Jimmy Armfield's voice, listening to the results in a traffic jam, football towns and autograph-hunters. This is fan culture at its finest, words to transport you somewhere else and identify with, words to hide away in a pub and luxuriate in. \u003ci\u003eSaturday, 3pm\u003c\/i\u003e is a book of love letters to football and a clarion call, helping us find the romance in the game all over again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach is a precision-tooled delight… even apparently obvious subjects are described with such lyricism that the everyday is routinely transformed into the sublime… here is a book that contains nothing but pure, unadulterated joy * When Saturday Comes magazine *\u003cbr\u003eDelightfully written…countless little gems of recognition and satisfaction, many of them very funny… a lovely little thing * The Daily Telegraph *\u003cbr\u003eLovingly crafted prose-poetry…a wonderful antidote to the money-sodden excesses of the modern game * Late Tackle magazine *\u003cbr\u003eI love this book, I had enormous fun reading it…a great book -- Matt Williams * Simon Mayo Drivetime show, BBC Radio 2 *\u003cbr\u003eReally nicely written. A brilliant book. Romantic, very recognisable things. -- James Brown * TalkSport *\u003cbr\u003eThe author has compiled some wonderful things about our national game…I love this book. Wonderful. A delightful book. * BBC Manchester *\u003cbr\u003eA loveletter to nice things about football…fifty perfect little essays. A beautiful book. * BBC Tees *\u003cbr\u003eA wonderful book. * Off the Ball, BBC Scotland *\u003cbr\u003eI commend this book. Two pages are worth ten cliché-ridden football books. It evokes the nodal points of football memory. -- Archie McPherson * BBC Scotland *\u003cbr\u003eFull of eternal delight. I loved it to pieces. Hymns that evoke the essence of the game. A fantastic book. * The Anfield Wrap *\u003cbr\u003eIf you've ever wondered why people love football, the answers lie within...a damn good read. -- Val McDermid\u003cbr\u003eA warm, smiling celebration of football’s quirks, and of ours. Never mind how good a writer Daniel Gray is: what an eye he’s got. You’ll never watch a game again without liking some daft little moment and wishing you could share it with him. -- Michael Grant * The Times *\u003cbr\u003eA sonnet to football, whimsical and deeply rewarding. -- Stuart Roy Clarke * Homes of Football *\u003cbr\u003eA real midget gem of a book that fits perfectly into a jacket pocket for reading on the way to the match, or indeed during it if you're an England fan. -- Harry Pearson * author The Far Corner *\u003cbr\u003eGray beautifully articulates the pleasure offered by such pursuits as jeering passes that go out of play, listening to the results in the car, and spying a ground from the train window...his prose is exquisite...a physically slim but spiritually hefty treat. * Pitch \u0026amp; Page Books of the Year 2016 *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePreface: Or, finding some things to love\u003c\/i\u003e  1 Seeing a ground from the train 2 Watching an away end erupt 3 Getting the fixture list 4 Club shops 5 Saturday, 3pm 6 Spotting a fellow supporter elsewhere 7 Listening to the results in a car 8 Ball hitting bar 9 Pre-match routines 10 The first day of the season 11 Slide tackles in mud 12 Watching youth games in the park 13 Carrying on regardless 14 Belonging 15 Fat players 16 Jeering Passes that go out of play 17 Catering vans 18 Going with Dad 19 Jimmy Armfield's voice 20 Headers 21 Floodlights 22 Talking to an old man about football 23 Visiting a ground for the first time 24 Physiotherapist 'races' 25 Local lads 'coming through' 26 Sunday score pages 27 Shirts on a line 28 Defensive walls and drop-balls 29 Club eccentrics 30 Losing 31 Watching in bad weather 32 My daughter listening at the window 33 Singing 34 Brackets in scorelines 35 Standing on a terrace 36 When the ball goes in the crowd 37 Knowing where you are 38 Footballese 39 Time-wasting 40 Being at a junction station on matchday 41 Collectors 42 Football towns 43 Striking up a football conversation on a social occasion 44 Solid fixtures 45 Club nicknames 46 The 'hectic Christmas schedules' 47 Outfield players in goal 48 Seeing a team bus 49 Watching people get player autographs 50 The last day of the season   \u003ci\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49408777126231,"sku":"9781472925114","price":11.69,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781472925114.jpg?v=1730504172","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/saturday-3pm-9781472925114","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}