You know that old turn of phrase “You should never judge a book by it’s cover?” I really hope it doesn’t apply to Brian Kennedy’s book “Just Follow the Floodlights,” being launched in Dalymount Park’s Phoenix Bar after the Bohs vs UCD game on Saturday October 8th. Why? Quite simply because the front cover of the book is stunning.
The picture, taken by Peter O’Doherty sums up Bohs, and the league for me. A far cry from super stadiums in the wilderness of suburbia, the picture depicts Connaught Street and the Dalymount Park floodlights. Its always something I love on the trip up to Dalyer when the evenings start getting darker toward season’s close; walking up the NCR, Peters Church in front of you and the floodlights blazing to your right; I don’t know how to explain it- theres a sense of personal smugness to be honest, a certain sense of pride.
Experiences like the above are all too sadly rarely catalogued in this League, as there is an absolute dearth of material published on the League itself. In saying this though, there are some around covering individual teams, a notable nod to “There’s Only One Red Army” by Eamonn Sweeney, a great read that goes some distance towards summing up the madness (or some might say empirical reasoning) that drives us to follow this League of ours.
- A beautiful cover for whats sure to be a very interesting book!
Kennedy’s book promises to be the first to catalogue the history of all 47 clubs that have played top flight football in the 110 year history of our League. Alongside “numerous nostalgic photographs, amusing anecdotes and larger-than-life characters” the book doubles as “… a supporters guide as I travelled 2856 miles to all 21 clubs over four months to write about things like admission prices, record attendances, rivals, quality of programme and the all important taste of a hot coffee and price of a burger…”
- Back of the book….
Launch night details: http://www.thebohs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16964
Click on the book for more.
Firstly, yes it’s a superb picture on the front cover; you don’t need any text to go along with that one. Looking forward to the book.
You mentioned Eamon Sweeney’s book; he generally writes well on LOI, unlike that clown Michael Walker in the Irish Times who stuck his oar in on Rovers having to play domestic fixture the same week as a Europa game without bothering to find out that they brought the situation on themselves [not that that necessarily makes it right]. You can have too many intellectuals writing about football sometimes.
Anyway back to the LOI – there is another book well worth picking up; WHO STOLE OUR GAME? by Daire Whelan. It’s out a few years now so may not be in the shops but you’ll get it on Amazon.
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