Ninety-Two

Ninety-Two Synopsis

'A brilliant book about what football and its stadiums mean to the English. I loved it' Kieron Dyer

'I've measured my life in football grounds. While my friends went clubbing I got my kicks from away days at Halifax and Rochdale' Oliver Holt

Oliver Holt has measured out his life with football grounds. Since going with his mum at six-years-old to his first game at Maine Road for the Manchester derby, Holt has had a lifelong passion for the game and visiting its theatres of conflict and cradles of devotion. While his mates were discovering music and clubbing, he was discovering Bootham Crescent and Gresty Road.

It took Holt more than 50 years, and a journey that led him from Maine Road to Wetherby Road in Harrogate, to fulfil his ambition of visiting each ground of the 92 clubs in the top four divisions of English football. It spanned the first flush of his fanaticism, as a teenage supporter, and extended into his career as a journalist in local and national newspapers. Along the way Holt charts the changes that have swept through the game in the last half a century, transforming it from a working-class pilgrimage into a corporate amusement.

Ninety-Two explores the beauty of the stadiums in which the game is played, and the sadness of the destruction of so many brings. At its heart are the family ties that drew us to football, sometimes without us realising it, and the compelling and life-affirming experience of visiting the places where it's played.