I Am Zlatan Ibrahimovic is different. The Manchester United striker revels in his role as pantomime anti-hero, but goes deeper than mere Marmite pastiche. The searing honesty of how his relationship with Pep Guardiola disintegrated at Barcelona– which notably details how fragile that seemingly unshakable ego can actually be – is refreshing, as is how an unforgiving upbringing spending time between an overworked cleaner mother and indifferent alcoholic father shaped everything that followed. Hunter Davies' book is based on the free access he was given to players and staff at Tottenham Hotspur in the early 1970's. There are no startling revelations - apart from one of the leading striker's devotion to the drink - but it is a fascinating insight into how a top team prepares for games and how it copes with the various triumphs and disasters of a league season - as it turned out a season that proved to be a particularly successful one for Spurs. In addition to these weighty topics, Davies also writes about the lighter side of the players' lives. He describes the camaraderie and banter that existed within the team, as well as their hobbies and interests outside of football. For example, he writes about how goalkeeper Pat Jennings was an accomplished painter, and how forward Martin Chivers was a keen fisherman. The lament for football’s lost golden age and the belief that commercial interests have sullied the game are nothing new – Willy Meisl’s 1960 book Soccer Revolution argues that the liberalisation of the offside law in 1925, which played to the popular demand for more goals, was the beginning of the end. However, Conn’s 2004 book is a heartfelt account of the increasingly rapid changes of the previous couple of decades. “It is deeply frustrating,” he writes, “seeing the national game revel in a boom, which could take it so far, yet drive itself so needlessly into dysfunction and failure.”

Another key factor in Tottenham's success during the late 1970s was the quality of its players. The team was blessed with a number of talented individuals, including the likes of Glenn Hoddle, Steve Perryman, and Ossie Ardiles. Davies provides an in-depth look at each of these players, describing their strengths and weaknesses, and how they contributed to the team's success. I was hoping for a bit more on his time with the Beatles and the 1960s more generally. Hunter touches on these areas but as he has written so many books, and newspaper columns, and done many other interesting things, he doesn't dwell on anything for long. The only subject that gets extensively covered is his life with Margaret. The Glory Game is a book that has stood the test of time. More than four decades after its initial release, it is still considered a classic of sports literature and is widely read by fans of football and lovers of great writing alike. Books on the business of football can be unreadably dry, but The Beautiful Game? is passionate and bleakly humorous. Quite aside from the depth of the research, what sets Conn’s book above Tom Bower’s Broken Dreams, a mystifying winner of the William Hill’s Sports Book of the Year Award in 2003, is the sense that he really cares. Broken Dreams was riddled with errors, both of fact and of spirit; Conn, simply by noting, for instance, that fans know intuitively why Notts County matter, taps into a depth of tradition of which Bower has no grasp. Bower just says football is in a very bad way; Conn tells us why it is worth putting right. Jonathan Wilson Ken Loach might have turned all this into a powerful social film, but the avuncular Davies sprinkles in so many cheery anecdotes that the book bounces along enjoyably ' ( Sunday Times ) - Praise for VOLUME 1: THE CO-OP'S GOT BANANAS!

Hunter Davies, author of the only authorized biography of The Beatles, wrote in his introduction to the 2011 edition of T he Glory Game about a concern he had when the book first appeared in 1973. He hoped that it would appeal to an audience larger than Tottenham Hotspur fans. Through the unprecedented access Mr. Davies was granted by Tottenham, he was able to examine the club from all sides, to give a complete look at the inner workings of a top division team, and write a story that transcends the lines of fandom, and the hands of time. The pictures. Especially the ones of Alan Gilzean who was indeed as odd looking for a footballer - surely an undertaker in his forties or a seedy bank manager - as I remembered.** SPENCER LEIGH is the author of 25 books, most of them connected with The Beatles or popular music. He writes music obituaries for the Independent and for 25 years has had his own music programme on BBC Radio Merseyside. There are a number of interesting pen portraits here, particularly of no nonsense manager Bill Nicholson, one of the most successful in the club's history. First released four months before the 1966 World Cup, John Moynihan’s The Soccer Syndrome is more a personal ode to post-war football, Brylcreem and all, rather than any kind of assessment of England’s chances at the upcoming tournament. And it’s all the better for it.

Journalist Davies spent an entire season with the team, training with them, visiting the players’ homes and witnessing the dressing-room confrontations – a luxury that seems so alien in modern-day football’s PR-managed world.

The Glory Game: A Timeless Sports Masterpiece

The 1970s were a tumultuous time for Tottenham Hotspur. The club had won the FA Cup in 1967, but had struggled to maintain its success in the years that followed. However, this all changed in the late 1970s, when the team was revitalized under the leadership of manager Keith Burkinshaw. Davies was there to witness it all, and his book provides a fascinating insight into the inner workings of a successful football team. In the 1971/72 season, Davies was granted unprecedented access to Tottenham boss Bill Nicholson and his 19-man first-team pool. With no official contract behind him, he admits to “worming my way in” at White Hart Lane, and convincing all those concerned that an “inside story” book charting Spurs’ season would be a worthwhile project. One of the things that sets Tottenham Hotspur apart from other football clubs is its rich history and culture. The team has always had a strong connection with its fans, and this is something that Davies captures brilliantly in his book. He describes the passion and dedication of the supporters, and how they form an integral part of the club's success. The format. A season makes for a good story. The opportunity to explore different aspects of the club and the characters therein. You get to know people and care a little about them in human terms. I've enjoyed a few books that have taken this approach and this challenges my favourite which up until now has been I Lost My Heart to the Belles by Pete Davies where Davies once again showed himself to be a generation ahead of his time.

And to celebrate the 50th anniversary since The Glory Game came out, Well Offside photographer Mark Leech delves into the Offside Sports Photography Archive to dig out the pictures taken for the book. Davies explores the personal struggles and triumphs of football players both on and off the field in The Glory Game. There is no way that a writer these days could possibly do what I did in The Glory Game,” explains Hunter Davies. “He or she wouldn’t be able to get past the minefield of agents, lawyers and officials.” When the first edition of The Glory Game was published in 1972, it was instantly hailed as the most insightful book about the life of a football club ever published. Hunter Davies was, and still is, the only author ever to be allowed into the inner sanctum of a top-level football team (Tottenham Hotspur) and his pen spared nothing and no one. 'His accuracy is sufficiently uncanny to be embarrassing, ' wrote Bob Wilson in the New Statesman. 'Brilliant, vicious, unmerciful, ' wrote The Sun.

When the first edition of The Glory Game was published in 1972, it was instantly hailed as the most insightful book about the life of a football club ever published. Hunter Davies was, and still is, the only author ever to be allowed into the inner sanctum of a top-level football team (Tottenham Hotspur) and his pen spared nothing and no one. 'His accuracy is sufficiently uncanny to be embarrassing,' wrote Bob Wilson in the New Statesman. 'Brilliant, vicious, unmerciful,' wrote The Sun. Each chapter takes us to a specific place beginning of course with the swimming ponds. We meet some of the characters on the heath from the dog walkers to the rich and famous and the hippies that are using the space for their own particular ends. There are several visits to the pubs, he wanders along the pergola, a generally unknown spot as well as visits to the sheep that are making an appearance now. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of The Glory Game, however, is the insight it provides into the day-to-day workings of a football club. Davies spent a season with Tottenham Hotspur, attending training sessions, team meetings, and matches. He was able to witness firsthand how the team prepared for games, how they analyzed their opponents, and how they dealt with both success and failure. When I talk about the soul, I mean the part of football that is more than business,” he continues. “The soul is the passion and the loyalty of fans, but it is also the joy to be found in playing the game. As other collective institutions disappear, football clubs are becoming an increasingly central part of people’s identity, and that’s why we see these heroic struggles to save clubs when they are threatened.” One review on here complains that it should be about a team that was very successful and suggests Manchester United. Apart from the historical facts being against this, (United were in a dreadful slump during this period) the glory in the title is glory that is aspired to not necessarily enjoyed. Tottenham seem to me to have been an excellent choice if the aim was to capture the essence of early seventies English football. But, this was fortuitous. Hunter Davies was looking to the present for his readership and was as surprised as anyone when the book kept selling. It is still very much worth the read if you can remember the players. I think it is probably worth the read if you don't.