Description
Book SynopsisShortlisted for Football Book of the Year (Sports Book Awards)
''Gripping'' Daily Mail
''Moving... chronicles two remarkable lives'' Guardian
''Razor-sharp tactical analysis'' Irish Independent
''Wilson is a fine, nuanced writer'' Times Literary Supplement
The story of Jack and Bobby Charlton, and a family that characterised English football for decades
In later life Jack and Bobby didn''t get on and barely spoke but the lives of these very different brothers from the coalfield tell the story of late twentieth-century English football: the tensions between flair and industry, between individuality and the collective, between right and left, between middle- and working-classes, between exile and home.
Jack was open, charismatic, selfish and pig-headed; Bobby was guarded, shy, polite and reserved to the point of reclusiveness. They were very different
Trade Review
Razor-sharp tactical analysis and an intriguing angle of its own * Irish Independent *
Gripping * Daily Mail *
Wilson is a fine, nuanced writer * TLS *
Compelling... gets to the heart of Bobby and Jackie * Late Tackle Magazine *
This is a social history, yet surprisingly moving as it chronicles two remarkable lives * Guardian *
A powerful chronicle of the transformation of English soccer and society through the prism of two very different characters * Irish Times *
Tells a familar, yet extraordinary, tale exceptionally well, illuminated and refreshed by Wilson's particular perspectives and insights * When Saturday Comes Magazine *
A book that Jonathan Wilson was born to write... He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game... There is much poignancy in their stories -- Books of the Year * Irish Examiner *
Explores the careers and personalities of Bobby and Jack Charlton, who we discover could not have been more different, and Wilson is meticulous in providing all manner of nuggets -- Sports Books of the Year * The Times *
Wilson skilfully interweaves the stories of brothers with polar opposite personalities who also happened to be two of the most iconic footballing figures in the last century, using their respective career trajectories to tell a broader story of what it said about English and (sometimes) Irish society of the time of their heydays * The 42 *
