Hello everybody and welcome back. Today, I have something new for you on Joyful Antidotes – an autobiography. It is in an area you may never have thought I would read – football. Wow, two uses of the dash there. A very dramatic opener for a lovely book.
My Life in Football by Ted Buxton is a chronicle of Buxton’s career as a professional football coach and football scout. It follows him from his younger days playing as a footballer before being drafted to serve in Malay, right through his various professional positions in the UK, the US and China.
I have to start with what I have already been telling people, and yes, I have been talking up this book long before this post – this story is more than a story about football. Naturally, it is 3/4 about football, but it is blended well with stories about Buxton’s own life as he discusses personal relationships, his childhood and his time in the army. When he does write about football, it isn’t always technical or even about the game itself. He tells stories about his relationship with the players and offers funny antidotes of things that happened him and his various teams throughout the years. This means the book is not just interesting for football fans, but people who are more fans of the players, the celebrity side of the game.
I have to praise Buxton on how wonderfully written My Life in Football is. I usually tend to stay away from autobiographies as they can tend to be quite boring and drawn out. This book is approximately 216 pages long and I flew through it. I don’t know Buxton personally but I imagine he has a wicked sense of humour, which was very apparent in the story. I also really felt his love for the game and the kindness he showed to his colleagues, footballers or not. But, what was best for me was that a Cockney accent read the prose in my head. That was really a sign that he had sucked me in!
I am going to pass this book to my mother next as she is a massive football fan and will really enjoy this. If you have any fans in your life, I would suggest that you pick them up a copy as a gift. Likewise, if you or another is as nosy as I am about other people’s lives, this one will go down a treat!
I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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