Matchdays

Ronald Reng

ISBN 10: 1471136477 / ISBN 13: 9781471136474

Published by Simon & Schuster Ltd, United Kingdom, London, 2015

About this Item

The enormous success of German football is envied around the world. The national team won the 2014 World Cup in style, while the Bundesliga offers an alternative model through its fan-friendly set-up, terraces and low ticket prices. In Matchdays: The Hidden Story of the Bundesliga, award-winning author Ronald Reng takes a unique approach to explain the history and peculiarities of German football. He follows the tracks of a journeyman footballer, Heinz Hoher, who has been in the Bundesliga all his life, from the first day of its existence in 1963 until now, as a player, manager, sports director and youth coach. We see through Hoher's story the wider picture of how German football, and even German society, developed from the ruins of the Nazi era to become the football and economic powerhouse of today. Born in 1939, Hoher became the small-town hero of Bayer 04 Leverkusen, a stylish winger and the first to let his hair grow like the Beatles. He witnessed the big match-fixing affairs of the seventies, fought in vain the temptations of so many managers - alcohol and gambling - and realised that, even at 75, his real addiction is still the game. Matchdays does for German football what David Winner's Brilliant Orangedid for Dutch football. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # GOR006769412

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Matchdays
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, United Kingdom, London
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1471136477
• ISBN 13: 9781471136474
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 640 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Through the life story of Heinz Hoher, player, coach, manager, scout and sports director, Ronald Reng tells the dramatic story of the rise of the Bundesliga over the last fifty years since it was founded in 1963. During that period, football has grown from a game where a club's directors, puffing on cigars, would join the players in their dressing room at half time, to today's highly paid environment, where Red Bull are trying to break into one of the most successful sporting brands in the world.
From a country struggling to cope with the Nazi legacy in the 1960s, Germany has emerged as an economic and sporting powerhouse of Europe. Matchdays recreates the daily life of professional footballers from a different era, when match-fixing, doping and even guns all played their part in the training ground. Hoher himself spent two decades as a manager, once icing up the pitch at his ground to get a game cancelled, and making his living playing cards after he was sacked from the sport he loves.
Already a major bestseller and award-winning book in Germany, Matchdays reveals the truth behind the rise of German football and is sure to fascinate anyone interested in understanding a nation and its rise to the top of the sporting ladder.

About the Author

Ronald Reng is a leading sports writer in Germany. His first book published in the UK, A Life Too Short, won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize in 2011.