‘Fever Pitch’ by Nick Hornby — Book Review
Engineering second year. On our morning metro ride to college, as others diligently scanned through the notes before the impending exam, I was excitedly talking about a goal scored in yesterday’s match. That’s when an agitated friend remarked — ‘This football will ruin your life someday’. Whether true or not, that day I realised I wasn’t just a casual football watcher, I was a fanatic.
Fever Pitch, first published in 1992, dives into this world of football fanaticism. Nick Hornby takes us through his 25-year-long vivid but neurotic experience as a football-obsessed person. At 10, his father took him to watch Arsenal at Highbury Park. Unknowingly, it became the most definitive aspect of his life.
The author shares his journey from a shy kid to a lost youngster to a self-assured adult, with his obsession with attending Arsenal’s home games being the only constant. He talks about his dreams, failures, relationships, heartbreaks, insecurities and so on at an intimate level, with football somehow being integral to all of it.
The most captivating aspect of this book is its relatability. How do I explain this strange feeling when my team loses to people around me? Why does my team's defeat feel like a personal failure and vice versa? What has led to this fixation with watching every single game despite the inconvenience it causes in day-to-day life? These are some of the questions football fans often struggle with. Hornby delves deep into these eccentricities and anxieties, reminding us of our own experiences. For a 21st-century reader to find relevance in these emotions felt half a century ago makes it such a timeless piece of football literature.
“I may have had no ideas for myself, but I had big ideas for my football teams.”
The book also provides brilliant insights into the British football culture of the 70s and 80s. In a pre-Arsene Wenger era, we hear about an Arsenal that was known to be defensive and ‘boring boring’. Sides like Leeds, Nottingham Forrest and Everton were still among the top bunch. FA Cup matches were an integral part of the footballing calendar. Passing was an art honed by only the most skilful players. And then comes the hooliganism.
Today, hooliganism might sound like a thing from a distant past. But Hornby shares his first-hand experience traversing the problem throughout the 70s and 80s. Violence in football stadiums got so normalized that the outside world viewed football fans as a different species. Racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, the experience was anything but inclusive. As a grammar school kid who grew up far away from this world, except while attending football games, the author profoundly reflects on this evil. He wonders how easily he could have been part of disasters like Heysel or Hillsborough and what’s stopping the people in power from taking a decisive stand.
Reading Fever Pitch was such a gratifying and enriching experience that I wished I had done it sooner. It inspired me to introspect on my own relationship with this beautiful game that has obsessed me for over 12 years now. While it remains one of the most iconic books written against the backdrop of football, the subject is still niche. I hope it keeps reaching a wider audience, people who themselves might not watch the game but know someone around them who does. Because its passion, earnestness and sincerity truly represent the game of football and what it means to millions.
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Thank you for reading the article. You may also want to try my review of Eduardo Galeano’s excellent Football in Sun and Shadow.
