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In 1973-74, Britain was in meltdown. The Arab-Israeli War had sent
energy prices soaring. Petrol was scarce. Offices were limited to a
temperature of 17C and power cuts were frequent. A three-day
working week came in as inflation took hold and miners and other
workers went on strike. The northern mill town of Rochdale suffered
more than most. Its cotton industry was on shut-down in the face of
cheap imports, and the football team was a mirror image of the town
- tired, defeated, clinging to life. The Rochdale team of 1973-74
are considered the worst to play in the Football League. They
finished bottom of the third division, winning just twice in 46
league matches. They closed the season with a 22-game winless run
and played one home match in front of the lowest-ever post-war
crowd. That season 32 players played for the team, many of them
drafted in from amateur or Sunday league clubs. The Longest Winter
is as much a piece of forensic social history as it is a sports
book. It evokes the smells, textures and moods of the early 1970s.
'Believe in the Sign' is a 'sort of' memoir of a normal, average
boy who would have grown up happily average and normal but for a
dark and perverse passion: the seductive lure of masochistic
devotion to a no-hope, near-derelict football club.
After a record 36 years stuck in the bottom division of the
Football League, Rochdale AFC finally won promotion in 2009/10.
This is a wry look at that season by a lifelong fan and acclaimed
broadsheet journalist.
Mark Hodkinson grew up among the terrace houses of Rochdale in a
house with just one book. Today, Mark is an author, journalist and
publisher. He still lives in Rochdale but is now surrounded by
3,500 titles - at the last count. No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy
is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and
1980s. It's about the schools, the music, the people - but
pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors that led the way
and shaped his life. It's about a family who didn't see the point
of reading, and a troubled grandad who taught Mark the power of
stories. It's also a story of how writing and reading has changed
over the last five decades.
'The Last Mad Surge of Youth' focuses on John Barrett whose band,
Killings Stars, toured the world & enjoyed numerous hits while
holding on to an integrity they forged through the revolution of
punk & new wave. Inevitably, the hits dried up, his time ran
out. He's now a washed up alcoholic.
The story of two men who almost single-handedly saved their
football club from extinction. In the early 80s David Kilpatrick
and Graham Morris spied architects' plans to turn Spotland, the
home of their beloved, beleaguered Rochdale AFC, into a housing
estate. They set about saving the club but first had to take on the
alleged 'enemy within'. They worked tirelessly, persuading
companies to write off debts while securing loans and donations, a
tricky proposition when your club is bottom of the Football League.
Meanwhile, the town of Rochdale was on its knees, the last of the
cotton mills closing down. The limit of most fans' investment in
their club is routinely the price of a season ticket. Directors
often risk their houses and businesses, sometimes forfeiting
marriages, families and their health in the name of their club.
People such as Kilpatrick and Morris - moderately wealthy local
businessmen - who serve on football club boards are the unseen,
unsung heroes of football, even in the modern age.
Mark Hodkinson grew up among the terrace houses of Rochdale in a
house with just one book. His dad kept it on top of a wardrobe with
other items of great worth - wedding photographs and Mark's
National Cycling Proficiency certificate. If Mark wanted to read
it, he was warned not to crease the pages or slam shut the covers.
Today, Mark is an author, journalist and publisher. He still lives
in Rochdale, but is now snugly ensconced (or is that buried?) in a
'book cave' surrounded by 3,500 titles - at the last count. No One
Round Here Reads Tolstoy is his story of growing up a working-class
lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It's about schools (bad), music
(good) and the people (some mad, a few sane), and pre-eminently and
profoundly the books and authors (some bad, mostly good) that led
the way, and shaped his life. It's also about a family who just
didn't see the point of reading, and a troubled grandad who, in his
own way, taught Mark the power of stories. In recounting his own
life-long love affair with books, Mark also tells the story of how
writing and reading has changed over the last five decades,
starting with the wave of working-class writers in the 1950s and
60s, where he saw himself reflected in books for the first time.
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