Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement as manager of Manchester United in May 2013 brought about a seismic change in the landscape of European football. Manchester United languishes in eighth position in the Premier League, while its bitter rival Liverpool finds itself sitting at the top of the table - momentarily. What Ferguson's retirement has also done - though it could simply be a coincidence - is bring about a deluge of football books in the Indian market.
It was always a paradox. Even as European football - mainly English, Spanish, German and Italian - had been making steady inroads into the minds of Indian football fans over the last decade or so, books on football or footballers somehow struggled to find a place in the bookshops. When Ferguson's first book, Managing My Life, was published in 1999, I remember pleading with friends and family living overseas to either ship the book or bring it along when they came visiting on their annual vacations. Four years later, things had improved, but not much. David Beckham's autobiography, My Side, was available in India three months after its worldwide launch.
Of course, if you were lucky, you could chance upon the odd find, as I did in 2005 when I came across Paul Gascoigne's candid memoir, Gazza: My Story, in a bookshop in New Delhi. But such instances were rare. I still remember how difficult it was to get a copy of football writer Jonathan Wilson's definitive book on football tactics, Inverting the Pyramid. It required some concentrated pestering of bookshop owners to order one solitary copy, mainly because they didn't expect to sell many copies. Once it arrived, it was like getting a gift from Santa Claus. But even these instances were few and far between. But that was back then. Fortunately, things have changed, and not just because these books can be bought online.
Look at the football books that have hit Indian bookshops in just last 12 months, and you'll get an idea of how the market is expanding. Apart from Ferguson's new book, My Autobiography, there was Fear and Loathing in La Liga, Sid Lowe's exceptional book on the rivalry between Spanish powerhouses Real Madrid and Barcelona. Mr Lowe delves into the history of both the clubs and narrates a story that is about more than just two football clubs; it's a story about how the two clubs cannot exist without each other.
Jim White's Premier League: A History in 10 Matches casts an eye on 10 of the most riveting clashes between English clubs in the Premier League since 1992. Mr White picks 10 unforgettable classics of the Premier League and describes in detail how these matches played a crucial role in making the League a worldwide phenomenon. These aren't your classic edge-of-the-seat encounters. For example, he talks about a routine 2-0 Chelsea win over Bolton. Now, the significance of this particular game was that it crowned Chelsea as champions of English football for the first time since 1955. It also marked Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich's multi-million pound spending spree that finally resulted in a league title, and which, in turn, encouraged foreign owners to buy English clubs. Like Dubai-based billionaire Sheikh Al-Mansour did with Manchester City in 2009 or Boston Red Sox owner John W Henry did with Liverpool in 2010.
Mike Carson, a management consultant, also wrote a book on football, The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders, but his book is more about management principles and how football managers are not very different in their approaches from leaders in other walks of society. Dutch striker and former Arsenal player Dennis Bergkamp's book Stillness and Speed: My Story was released this year, although it has been hard to find in bookstores. Bergkamp was one of the most exquisite footballers to have graced the field and his story, written by David Winner, is certainly an intriguing one. Another book that was re-released in the aftermath of Ferguson's retirement was Life with Sir Alex, Will Tidey's account of being a Manchester United fan during the Ferguson era. What's surprising is that the book has been released again but it isn't an updated version - it was first released in 2011. The author tells a unique story of a club from a fan's point of view, and only United fans will appreciate this book. It is certainly not in the league of Nick Hornby's cult book, Fever Pitch, which is about one man's obsession with a football club.
Luca Caioli, an Italian sports journalist who has written biographies of several footballers including Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernando Torres, churned out yet another book this year. His book on Lionel Messi has a very Harry Potter-esque title: Messi: The Inside Story of the Boy Who Became a Legend. That is one book I have come across in almost every reputed bookstore in Delhi as well as in Mumbai. I guess it shows the popularity of Messi in the country. Moreover, it's heartening to see good, mediocre and bad books on football reaching the Indian shores. It is true that the internet means that these books can be bought at the click of a mouse, but this does not necessarily give you an idea of what's in the market as efficiently as a well-stocked bookshop does.
Ad Lib is an occasional column on books and book publishing
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