Overview

'I loved every page, and ended up admiring David Kynaston, our greatest social historian, even more than I already did' Nick Hornby Brimming with wisdom and humour, David Kynaston’s diaries written over one football season offer up his most personal take on social history to date. David Kynaston was seven and a half years old when he attended his first Aldershot match in the early months of 1959. So began a deep attachment to the game and a lifelong loyalty to an obscure, small-town football club. Though as he sits down to write his diaries almost sixty years on, he reflects that life might have been simpler if his father had never taken him to that first match at the Rec… Shots in the Dark is the diary David Kynaston kept in the football season of 2016/17, detailing the ups and downs of the ‘Shots’ in the year that saw a divisive referendum in the UK and the impending ascension of Donald Trump. Here Kynaston presents a social history of modern Britain with a difference – all through the prism of the beautiful game. A testament to the ways in which fandom gives solidity and security to our lives, particularly in these bewildering and rapidly changing times, Shots in the Dark gets to the heart of what it means to be a devoted follower of a sports team. This is a diary of the macro and the micro, as questions of loyalty, of identity, of liberalism and of nationalism all rub uncomfortably up against each other during nine charged months. ____________________ 'A master socioeconomic craftsman' Guardian '[A] delightful book … This is a book about football but, like all the best books, it is about a thousand other things as well … This thrilling, intimate, sometimes poignant, often wonderfully funny book shows the workings in real time of a deeply civilised, humane and tolerant mind in an age when those virtues are in short supply. Here is a man with whom you would want to go to a match, and even share a beer afterwards. David Kynaston is one of the good guys, and this is one of the very good books' Daily Mail 'A charming diary ... He’s the sort of fan I want to sit next to: partisan yet civil, eyes on the match but aware there are bigger things to worry about' Financial Times

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9781526623034

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[A] delightful book ... This is a book about football but, like all the best books, it is about a thousand other things as well ... This thrilling, intimate, sometimes poignant, often wonderfully funny book shows the workings in real time of a deeply civilised, humane and tolerant mind in an age when those virtues are in short supply. Here is a man with whom you would want to go to a match, and even share a beer afterwards. David Kynaston is one of the good guys, and this is one of the very good books -- Roger Alton * Daily Mail * Kynaston strikes a distinctive voice that is in turns warm and sharp and heavy-hearted and dismayed ... The pages are filled with entries like this: easily absorbed and entertaining but deceptively thought-provoking ... This fascinating book of opinion and reflection offers a wistful snapshot of the rewards of staying the course with the team -- Keith Duggan * Irish Times * A charming diary ... He's the sort of fan I want to sit next to: partisan yet civil, eyes on the match but aware there are bigger things to worry about -- Murad Ahmed * Financial Times * David Kynaston is one of the great chroniclers of our modern story * Sunday Times * A master socioeconomic craftsman * Guardian * A historian of peerless sensitivity and curiosity about the lives of individuals * Financial Times * A surprising book about life as a fan of a non-league club - surprising in that it finds room for HG Wells' argument with Henry James and the calamitous state of liberal democracy, as well as the 2016/17 National League playoffs. I loved every page, and ended up admiring David Kynaston, our greatest social historian, even more than I already did -- Nick Hornby

Author Information

David Kynaston was born in Aldershot in 1951 overlooking the football ground. A professional historian since 1973, he has written extensively on post-war Britain; on the City of London; on cricket; and on the private school question. Shots in the Dark is his first football book.

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