From Stanley Matthews to Bobby Moore to Michael Owen, all the icons of the English game have worn the famous white shirt. It is those players and their achievements that make the shirt special and still make England the nation the rest of the world wants to beat.
Three Lions on the Shirt is a history of the England team throughout the last century. From back in the days when players received a match fee of 10/- for an international, and were selected from the likes of Wednesday Strollers, Clapham Rovers and Darwen, through the post-war humiliation at the hands of the USA and Hungary to England's finest moment in 1966; from the disappointment of the seventies and the eighties to the relative renaissance of the nineties, Dave Bowler chronicles the vicissitudes of a team lambasted and worshipped in equal measure.
Three Lions on the Shirt is the first critical biography of the national team: it features original interviews with over fifty plays and managers, past and present, including Tom Finney, Geoff Hurst, Gary Lineker, Rodney Marsh, Cyrille Regis, Les Ferdinand, the Neville brothers and Paul Merson.
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I don't know of one English player who would put financial reward before the honour of playing for his country ... once a footballer begins to think perpetually in terms of cash, instead of soccer, the time has come for him to hang up his boots.Whatever changes have taken place in the years since England captain Billy Wright said those words and his astonishment at the thought of £100 wage per match is beginning to look a trifle parochial, the national team still uniquely inspires today's millionaire football stars.
Dave Bowler chronicles over a century of three lions on a shirt: The pastoral days of the "home" championships, taking the national game abroad in 1908 and 91 years of trying to find out where they left it. It's a journey that takes in that triumph of 1966, but sadly for England fans this is mostly a tale of making mountains out of minnows and the exacting science of the penalty-kick.
There's some great photos--that man Billy Wright cradling the team cat, Tiddles, for one--and a fine sense of the absurd to balance the critical analysis. Quality writing, exclusive interviews with the main players and Bowler's intelligent investigations into what's been behind the results, will make this tragi-comedy a joy to endure. --Alex Hankin
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Book Description Soft cover. Condition: New. Three Lions on the Shirt: 100 Years of Playing for England.Dave Bowler.Condition:New does have slight storage wear.No Returns. Seller Inventory # 004520
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