We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,900,271.68 | Books Available: 677,521 | Members Online: 240

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - In and out of the Lion's Den: poverty, war and football

In and out of the Lion's Den poverty war and football
Author: Julie Ryan

When 20 year old John Shepherd scored four goals on his debut for Millwall in a Third Division South league match against Leyton Orient in October 1952, he not only equalled the national record for an away match debut which has never been surpassed, he also launched a successful footballing career that saw him go on to score prolifically for Mil... more »lwall, Brighton and Gillingham. But this career almost never happened: he had spent much of 1951 in hospital, struck down by polio. The remarkable story of how John Shepherd overcame this debilitating setback, and how he launched and progressed his career in the £14 a week days of the 1950s professional footballer, is told with searching perception by his daughter Julie Ryan in 'In and Out of the Lion`s Den', which vividly evokes that post-war footballing era, when the players would be travelling to the ground on the same trains and buses as the fans, and where their wives and girlfriends waited for them afterwards outside the ground. The book also reveals a much deeper back- story to this footballer`s life. For once the aspiring young man from Notting Hill had met and fallen in love with Esther Gonzalez at the Seventh Feathers Youth Club in North Kensington, he was to marry into a family who had been refugees from the Spanish Civil War. The moving story of their survival from the Lion`s Den of Franco`s fascism - altogether more savage and devastating than Millwall`s footballing version - is a poignant counterpoint to the trials and tribulations which John`s own family had endured through the Depression of the 1930s and the dark days of the Blitz in the Second World War. This book is a wonderful evocation of football in the 1950s - the story of a `Roy of the Rovers` footballing hero who could not have been more different from the highly trained and paid professionals of today ; but it is also a richly detailed portrayal of working class life of that time and the war-torn decades which led up to it, both in England and in Spain. It is a `must read` for all true football fans - especially those in London and the south east of England. But it is also a tour de force for those interested in the wider social, economic and political forces which shaped that era, as an intimate account of the consequences and impact of those forces on this legendary `lion` and his family.

ISBN-13: 9781481081993
ISBN-10: 1481081993
Publication Date: 1/31/2013
Pages: 330
Edition: 1
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

Back to the Top ↑

Search - In and out of the Lion's Den: poverty, war and football

Loading...