The Weekender: A Big Liverpool Book Special

The Anfield Wrap

Music, Sports, Soccer

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2020

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Neil Atkinson speaks to several writers, from the Merseyside patch and beyond, about books on Liverpool, Everton and more that have been released recently. Featuring Melissa Reddy on her book 'Believe Us', Simon Hughes on The Athletic's 'At The End Of The Storm', the Magic Spongers on 'From The Jaws Of Victory', David Prentice on 'A Grand Old Team To Report' and Dan Gray on 'Extra Time'. Believe Us: How Jürgen Klopp Transformed Liverpool Into Title Winners Journalist Melissa Reddy reveals the inside story of Jürgen Klopp’s astonishing revival of Liverpool, culminating in the club’s first domestic league trophy in 30 years. Featuring incisive and insightful reporting, and the thoughts of players, management and club hierarchy, 'Believe Us' paints a vivid picture of this titanic sporting success. Reddy’s unparalleled access to the club brings interviews with everyone from fans and key backroom staff to players including talismanic captain Jordan Henderson, and of course Klopp himself. At The End Of The Storm - Stories From Liverpool's Historic Title Win This is the story of Liverpool's title win in the longest season, as told by the writers of The Athletic, with their blend of inside access and expert analysis; great ideas and beautiful writing. Articles include profiles of each of Liverpool's title winners by their former youth team coaches; Oliver Kay watches Sadio Mane score against Manchester City in the company of the striker's family, in his hometown in Senegal; James Pearce spends 90 minutes analysing Virgil van Dijk; plus there are exclusive interviews with Jürgen Klopp, and the club's US owners. Read the stories behind a unique and historical season from a team of writers every bit as good as the footballers they were following. From The Jaws Of Victory: A History Of Football's Nearly Men Through the eyes of the UK's finest sports writers, 'From the Jaws of Victory' pays homage to club and international sides who captivated, inspired and astounded in equal measure, only to fall short of football’s biggest prizes. The destination of these stories may be the same, but the journeys are equally glorious. The three best teams never to have won the World Cup can be found here - Hungary’s Golden Squad of 1954, the Netherlands’ Total Football exponents of 1974 and Brazil’s celebrated 1982 vintage - along with brilliant club sides through the ages, from Bolton Wanderers, humbled in the Matthews final of 1953, to Liverpool, devastated as the Premier League slipped from their grasp in 2014. This comprehensive history ensures that though these teams might not have their names on the trophies, their influence on the game remains undimmed. A Grand Old Team To Report: 45 Years Of Following Everton Football David Prentice is the Sport Editor of the Liverpool Echo, the city's famous newspaper. His fascinating book charts almost half-a-century of Everton Football Club's history - from a unique insider. It is a fan-fare and a news report. A travelogue and a social comment - and a poignant reflection of how football and journalism has changed forever. Extra Time: 50 Further Delights of Modern Football Despite its flaws and excesses, modern football is still sprinkled with simple yet beguiling delights. In his previous book Saturday, 3pm, Daniel Gray captured many of them. Now he is back with a further 50 short essays of prose poetry dedicated to the game's charming, technicolour minutiae. From club lottos to undeserved wins, and from pitch-invading animals to the roar after a minute's silence, Extra Time is another romantic celebration of football fandom and its shared joys, habits, eccentricities and peculiarities. It is a salute to keepers going forward for corners, match balls landing on stand roofs and goals scored in quick succession. These chapters offer a gleeful antidote to disillusionment with modern football, VAR and all. They are reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. Each warmly evokes this sport's blessed capacity to offer escape and diversion. Let us share the delight once more. For more reaction to all the news and events that matter to you, including interviews with special guests and documentaries about players and staff past and present, subscribe to TAW Player… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.
0:05.0	Hello and welcome to the weekend and this week it's Neil Atkinson and coming up.
0:08.0	We've got five books we're going to be speaking to you about.
0:11.0	We've got Saike Hughes to talk about the athletics book. We have got
0:14.8	Magic Sponge as a book I've actually contributed to with 4,500 words that is to come as well.
0:19.4	Daniel Grey on is excellent extra time. And the Blues our Blue brethren we've got
0:24.1	Dave Apprentice but we are going to start with Melissa Reddy who's written a book
0:28.0	called Believers how Yergen Club transform Liverpool into title winners and it is a massive relief Mel to say that the
0:35.2	book is tremendous it would have been awful for both of us and for our friendship if
0:38.3	it had been a bit rubbish but it's not it's genuinely brilliant and I want to
0:41.6	talk to you a bit about the process and what's actually within the book.
0:44.0	You've used, I think the interviews you've done over many a year with Yergen, your own observations,
0:49.1	but you've also done six or seven quite intensive long interviews with people very close to what
0:54.7	Yergan's done at Liverpool. This isn't something that you've just sort of
0:57.8	thrown together in no time at all, despite the fact that it is obviously close to
1:01.5	the title win. You've really gone out and spoken to a number of people,
1:04.9	not least the captain who comes out of the book brilliantly, but speaks so well and so intelligently.
1:11.0	Yeah, and you know, you say I've taken a lot of time with it, but I had the shortest deadline
1:17.0	a month to do all the interviews and stuff and to do the writing the research amidst COVID where it's so much more difficult to
1:28.6	arrange stuff and also remember that this was when project restart was in full swing so the players had
1:36.3	games and then they had two weeks off with the last thing they wanted to do.
1:41.0	Chat about football so yeah it was quite taxing but I wanted to do it justice because when you've followed
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