The Silence of the Stands - Finding the Joy in Football's Lost Season

The Durham City midfielder wore the resigned look of a man trying to find a jar of harissa in Farmfoods. Up front for Jarrow, a centre-forward darted around frenetically, as if chasing a kite during a hurricane... When football disappeared in March 2020, Daniel Gray used its absence to reflect on everything the game meant to him. That bred a pledge: whenever and wherever fans were allowed to return, he would be there. The result is this footballing travelogue from a time when boarding a train to Workington suddenly felt impossibly exotic.Gray''s 2020/21 season quickly became a year when crowd limits, closed doors and league annulments meant that attending football was something of a secretive, Prohibition pursuit. Grounds were speakeasies and Bovril moonshine. It made his travels from Kendal to Kirkcaldy all the more intriguing. Here were scenes that so few were witnessing; a remarkable, alarming and often darkly funny time in British and sporting culture. The Silence of the Stands is a poignant peek at a surreal age and a slab of social history from the two-metre distanced tea bar queue. It is the moving, heartfelt and surprisingly uplifting story of a unique season that no-one wishes to repeat.>

Product details

• Authors: Daniel Gray, Gray Daniel
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.11.2022
• EAN: 9781399404068
• ISBN: 978-1-399-40406-8
• No. of pages: 176
• Dimensions: 134 mm x 214 mm x 14 mm
• Subjects: Guides > Sport > Ball sport; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; TRAVEL / Essays & Travelogues, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, Humour, Travel writing, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Social and cultural history, Association football (Soccer), North West England, North and North East England, SPORTS & RECREATION / Cultural & Social Aspects