The Footballer Who Could Fly

by Duncan Hamilton

'Without football, we were strangers under a shared roof. With it, we were father and son.’

Inspired by his father’s devotion to Newcastle United and the heroes of yesteryear, Duncan Hamilton brings to life a bygone age telling the story of British football from the hardscrabble 1940s and the ‘never-had-it-so-good’ ’50s right through to the dowdy First Division of the ’70s and ’80s, and today’s slick Premiership. Hamilton recalls some of football’s most sublime players, managers and characters, from Bill Shankly and Jackie Milburn to George Best and Lionel Messi.

But at the heart of The Footballer Who could Fly is Hamilton’s relationship with his own father. Here he tells how football became the only real connection between two people who, apart from their love of the beautiful game, were wholly different from one another.

Genres: Football, Nonfiction, History

343 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jordan Florit]

I was by the pool in Higuerote, Venezuela, taking a rare weekend off from football; from watching, covering it, working within it, or – frankly – caring for it. But this was my holiday reading in the rare moments both my young children were occupied without my involvement. Still, I had to snatch a look at the Saints score. We’d surely be losing. We’re bottom of the table with a caretaker manager and playing away to Chelsea.

Google says we’re 0-1 up thanks to yet another Ward-Prowse freekick. The game is an hour in. I’m immediately sucked back into caring, despite finding it increasingly hard to feel connected to Southampton Football Club since life meant I could no longer commit to a season ticket, Claude Puel drained the enjoyment out of watching, years of slow decay and players who came and went without feeling for the shirt followed, and the 2022/23 season looked finally like the one that would sedate us into the Championship.

I check my phone every ten minutes for the next half an hour. At 90+4, we’re still 0-1 up and I wait for the “FT” to appear next to the scoreline. It doesn’t. My internet signal is so weak, I can’t access information about the game in any other way. It gets to 90+11 and the game is still showing as in play. From Venezuela back to Southampton, I call my dad. I know he’ll be watching.

“What’s going on?! Have we won?! Google says 90+12!”

“It’s just ended, son. We won. There was a serious injury, but it’s over. We played so well.”

Football kept the relationship with my father going when little else was. For a while in my midteens, when we barely spoke, we still shared a pitch for 90 minutes. It could be the only time I spent with him all week, the only time we’d talk, but it tied together my early teens of accustoming to his departure from the family and repeated fallings out to my early 20s where we began a friendship and mutual respect that has become far more functional than our father-son relationship (in the conventional sense) ever was.

It’s one of many reasons I can’t entertain football as just a game or a pick-up entertainment. It was the anchor in a stormy time of my life and the ever present bedrock to one of the most important relationships I have.

This book is an ode to that, written by an ultimately devoted son who struggled to find a connection and understand his father without football, full of admiration for someone who seemed inaccessible to a small boy, growing teenager, and then distant as an adult in his own right.

It would standalone as a vignette of football and it’s history in the north east but it would love a powerfully personal narrative if it were to do so, and it’s the narrative, like the week around the 90 minutes, that makes this book and football itself special.

Beginning with stories his father told him of football before the author was born and ending with the Manchester United-Barcelona Champions League Final long after his father passed, Hamilton weaves a basic biography of his father with an introspective autobiography of his younger self with the football greats he and his father encountered, as fans, in chance meetings, and then in Hamilton’s own professional life.

This resonated with me, which will always result in me rating a book higher, but it is rich in quality, imagery, and prose regardless. A faultless book, for me.

[Simon]

I'm a year younger than Duncan Hamilton and my dad was a year or two older than his dad so that makes us about even. My dad came from the North East too - Middlesboro rather than Newcastle - and moved away without ever quite leaving it behind. He idolised Raich Carter and Wilf Mannion rather than Jackie Milburn and Len Shackleton. He shared a huge admiration for Bobby Charlton, Bobby Robson and Brian Clough (a Middlesboro lad) and like Hamilton's father he declined from a well informed and witty man to the darkness of Alzheimers. If I ever had a desire to write about my memories of sports then the book would (in a world where I could write well) be very like this one. It gets better the further you go into it. He never writes in poetic prose; the quality of the writing is in the richness of what he knows and what he has seen. He expresses it in the way you'd talk to your dad. And, as it deepens, so does the revelation of the untold love between the sports loving father and son.

The last chapter was especially poignant. I find I miss my own dad even more. I'm glad we shared so many sporting memories. They become more and more special as time goes on.

[Mahlon]

Normally I don't like books that are composed of vignettes, this is because The stories are usually only loosely tied together. Thankfully this is not the case in "The Footballer who Could Fly" This book is Duncan Hamilton's tribute to a father he didn't feel close to unless they were discussing their shared passion for football(particularly Newcastle United) he chooses to remember his father by recounting the stories of the great matches and players that his father told him about. Jackie Milburn was his father's hero so naturally, the Newcastle Cup finals of the 50s form the centerpiece of this book. Also included are the stories of footballers of the next-generation, Charlton, Best, and hometown favorite Ray Kennedy are featured, among others. A lovingly crafted and poignant tribute to a father's love that he was unable to express, except on Saturday afternoons.

This book is a must read for anyone nostalgic for 50s-70s era football, or anyone who ever connected with their father through sports.

[Rob Powell]

The author's touchingly-told account of his relationship with his late father - interestingly never referred to as Dad - and how it only really existed through the prism of football.

There's much here to tug the heartstrings, the distance within their relationship not being of Duncan's making or choice with the baring of his soul near to the end bringing tears to my eyes. Anyone nostalgic for the days when even the top players were little removed from their supporters will love this, especially those with a love for The Toon.

Full of wistfulness and longing for something that never quite was this is for anyone but, perhaps, especially for lads and dads.

[Peter]

The day is raining, cold and windy; the cliché has yet to be struck about cold days in Stoke, but here we are on a cold day in Stoke, and it's make or break time. A slide back into the relegation zone after a tough February after a hard winter's battle away from the peril we had been in has to be arrested, and like the first slump of the season it has to be arrested against Stoke City. They've just appointed a new manager - none other than, unbelievably, Chris Kamara. They've signed a new striker, in these days before transfer windows. You'll not have heard of Kyle Lightbourne unless you're a Walsall fan, but it is on he whom Stoke have pinned their own hopes of survival.

The car park is slightly further away from the ground than the distance we've just travelled down the M6; one long, winding exposed hillside road to the stadium which is traversed over what, to my eight-year-old brain, is about three hours. Getting to the ground is a chore. Playing on the televisions underneath, Leeds are beating Wolves in a cup fifth round clash - something sure to put a dampener on any high spirits before kick-off; we know why we're there, and a grim mood has to prevail, it seems.

Then, after a quarter of an hour of play, something special happens.

The build up is scrappy. Town try to play it through Stoke, but Stoke are dogged. But Stoke are also clumsy; they fail to clear their lines. A bouncing ball comes to the one and only Marcus Stewart on the edge of the area, his left shoulder in line with the right-hand post, a shot near-impossible. He lifts a pass to the number eight wide on the right, twelve yards from the touchline but at an impossible angle even as he strides onto the ball on the volley. The best he can hope to do - surely - is hoist the ball into the danger area for someone else to try to apply the finishing touch. Instead, he doesn't break stride, striking a dipping, curving volley from an angle and range he should stand no chance from. Neville Southall - by now a portly, ageing custodian heavy on his feet and a far cry from the man who had been the best goalkeeper in the world a decade prior, in his Everton days - is left clutching thin air.

Paul Barnes - future father of Newcastle winger Harvey - finally had his first goal for Huddersfield Town.

Three minutes later, it was two. Barnes was again heavily involved as an attack seemed to peter out. With his back to goal, he made way for the onrushing Marcus Stewart to do what Marcus Stewart did: score for Huddersfield Town. 2-0. Delirium.

We made heavy weather of it. We always do. Stoke threw everything at us and pulled a late goal back when Steve Harper, still a young promising keeper yet to be consigned to Newcastle's bench, was beaten by a deflected Danny Tiatto free-kick. But eventually the final whistle went. Fists clenched, the players saluted the travelling fans. In and among them, my father and I made our way out of the ground and back down that previously ever-so-long road.

The abiding memory of that day - memories strong as only an eight-year-old's can be, untinted by the worries of the world, simply caught up in the joy of victory, the excitement of a relegation scrap with a team fighting for it all - isn't the football. It is of that run back down the road with my dad, flush with the thrill of victory. That road was jammed with Stoke fans, long-faced and staring at the reality of relegation. Dad and I cut a pair of strangely energetic figures, one very tall, one small for his age, as we ran along the road to get back to the car. Sitting in the car, Dad grabbed my shoulder and we celebrated.

The radio went on; we'd missed the start of Sports Report, but we still got the gist of the day. Manchester United had slipped up at Sheffield Wednesday, handing Arsenal the initiative in the title race. Results in our division had gone our way, meaning we had hoisted ourselves out of the relegation zone at Stoke's expense. It's the first time I remember discussing permutations of what could happen. It was formative. It is something I will never forget.

Fast-forward 27 years. This time, it is a balmy early autumn day. I have had the same seat at the new stadium since it opened, 31 years before, but this time I have moved up a seat to make room, into my uncle's old seat, finally returning to the family after 20 years. That's because my daughter is at her first game. We miss the game's opening goal - a deflected free-kick from old play-off foes Peterborough United - because she's decided just after half-time is the time to declare she needs a wee. We return to see a mob of Posh players celebrating and my dad with a 'typical' look on his face. But soon that look is replaced. Town foray down the right, and Will Alves is on hand to turn in the equaliser. I pick up my daughter, and for the first time we celebrate a goal in the stadium together. A few minutes later, Herbie Kane unleashes a 30-yard thunderbolt, via the aid of a small deflection. I'm up almost without thinking, celebrating a bolt from the blue, before I look down. And there she is, her own arms in the air, celebrating because I am, a look of joy on her face.

This is football. The joy of a passion passed on. I have had it passed on and shared over three decades of memories as a - very technically - third generation supporter of an underachieving football club with my own father, who shared two and a half decades with his own. Now I'm passing the baton on to the next generation. Hopefully of two more decades with my own father by my side, amassing memories like those above. Hopefully of many, many more years after that with my children at my side, having indelibly inked those memories together of triumph and disaster. It's Town; mostly disaster.

That isn't quite what this book is, but it is what this book has evoked. Memories of father and son, of shared passion, of vignettes being passed on; Frank Worthington, Steve Kindon, Tony Leighton, Trevor Cherry, Dave Cowling, and the ubiquitous Malcolm Brown have been passed to me, while we have shared Andy Booth, Marcus Stewart, Aaron Mooy and Jordan Rhodes. What my daughters will have passed on to them is this. One day they will read this book too, smile, and nod at what football really is: shared memory, a social bond between both families and communities, and that sensation of living.

Wonderful.

[Peter]

Captures beautifully the special and slightly awkward relationship so many sons have with their fathers, through a succession of shared footballing incidents, experiences and anecdotes. Lovely that not all the features players are the household superstars you would expect.

Heart warming and affectionate, this extract from the concluding chapter really spoke personally to me:

(My father) .. could be awkward, irascible, incredibly stubborn and, on occasions, generally impossible. But he was never authoritarian, overbearing or mocking and he seldom interfered. He allowed me to find my own path and he taught me things without making a fuss about themselves: obligation, patience and self-reliance.

[Nick Rennie]

This is much more than a book for football fans. In telling the personal stories of famous post-war footballers the author gives us a lesson in social history and we learn about the changes in British life since the 1940s.
It's also an account of human relationships and specifically how a father and son interact as they get older. It becomes clear that football is the only bond which allows Hamilton to get close to his father, a damaged product of the mines and the subsequent fall-out from the industry's demise.
The author gives a fascinating account of famous footballers and offers a new dimension in the understanding of why they captivated fans so much.

[Pete daPixie]

I could relate very much to this 'father and son' football memoir from Duncan Hamilton. It comes as no surprise to learn that the author has twice won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. 'The Footballer Who Could Fly' is written in a unique way in comparison with most 'footie' books.
I also find that I can relate very strongly with Hamilton's time line, being just some half dozen years older and sharing match days with my own father and grandfather. Some people say that nostalgia isn't what it used to be...but this book has it in abundance. The highly descriptive and personal aspects of the writing make this a well recommended read.

[David Stabler]

I loved this. My wife picked it up in a charity shop, and it was almost as an afterthought that I started to read it. And lo and behold, the book started to hook me in with a series of very pertinent and strong parallels. The major theme is his relationship to his father, through Newcastle United and football. His father took him to St James Park in the late 60s, - as did mine. My copy oddly does not have the explanatory front cover photograph, in which it is shown that the "Footballer Who Could Fly" was Wyn Davies - one of my childhood heroes . The book covers a range of footballers, some seen through his father's tales, some through his own, - but returns again and again to Newcastle United.
The author is a couple of years my senior, but his first Sticker Book is described in detail - for the 1968-69 season - and is almost certainly (after a check on Google) - also the first Sticker Book I had. His instant familiarity with the images in his book, matches mine .
But enough about me - This is about players, and football myths, and the players who have lit up the sport in the 20th century. There is George Best, Duncan Edwards, Bobby Charlton. Here is Jim Baxter, propping up a bar in Nottingham, just a year after his 1967 Wembley keepy-up but already a fading talent, or Brian Clough , or Danny Blanchflower , and sadly the tragic Ray Kennedy. Wyn Davies could fly, Jackie Milburn could run, and Bobby Moore had extra sensory perception. We have Danny Blanchflower, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough. We have the FA Cup Final, and its slow decline. It's a marvellous romp through the twentieth century.
And through the middle, runs his relationship with his father - a man he knows through football, and yet otherwise not at all. The last chapter is very moving.
In short - haha - I give this 5 !

[Keith Hamilton]

The issue that I had with this book by the revered and award-winning football writer, Duncan Hamilton, is that it can't quite make up it's mind what it is. Is it a nostalgic look back at footballers and managers of yesteryear, placing them in the social context that contributed to their greatness, their tough lives growing up in places like the north-east of England, working down the pits, experiencing hard times etc? Or is it an attempt to address the difficult relationship that the author had with his father, the only thing that connected them being their life long love of football in general and Newcastle United in particular?

I guess the answer is an uneasy mix of both, so that chapters talking about footballing giants such as Jackie Milburn, Bobby Charlton, Tommy Lawton, Jim Baxter, Lionel Messi (a lurch forward from past to present) and famous managers such as Bill Shankly and Bobby Robson suddenly take a detour into reminiscences about the authors difficult and taciturn father.

I started the book wishing it was more about football and footballers, and ended it wishing I'd learnt more about the author's father. The brief after-word at the end of the book in which the author seeks to address his life-long issues with his father and finally move on are the most sensitive and best writing in the book.

You can only read sepia-tinged pen portraits of footballers from the 1950s and 1960s so many times before you say it's time to move on and celebrate the present, and not endlessly look backwards to some (perhaps) golden age illuminated by the Real Madrid team of the 1960s and other legends.

For an excellent review of this book, I'd recommend https://footballbookreviews.com/revie...

[Steve]

For anyone, like me, whose love of football was inspired and nurtured by their father then this book is an absolutely marvellous read. I had far too few years with my dad before his untimely death but, even so, he left me with a love for the beautiful game in general and one team in particular (my beloved Spurs) that has remained with me for over 50 years. Apart from the wonderful vignettes of great players past and present, there are passages in which the author reflects on his relationship with his father that are almost heart-breaking in their poignancy. A book to be treasured and reread many times.

[Peter P.]

Duncan Hamilton's book is beautifully written. He juxtaposes his relationship with his father and his childhood home through his poignant stories about the giants of football (real football, that is...) through the decades. From Jackie Milburn and Duncan Edwards to George Best and Lionel Messi and the great managers like Bill Shankly, Brian Clough and Bobby Robson, Hamilton's narrative is both deeply personal and belonging to all of us who loved the great game and found in it, our own stories with our own fathers.

[Paul Crump]

This book took me back to a time and place before media saturation, before the diving, before replica shirts advertising mercenary idols. A time of football cards and marble’s; of wooden racquets and white tennis balls; of holes in the knees of my school trousers and butterflies in jars. A place where I was happy and still visit most days. Thank you Duncan Hamilton for letting me know that I’m not the only one.

[Ian Stabler]

Wyn Davies was the first footballer I knew the name of. As a four year old living in Newcastle I would as my Dad of any footballer in stripes "Is that Wyn Davies dad?"
The relationship and the way football spliced it together is superbly described, and while not exactly like my own, the feelings for the decline of football, a home town that isn't actually home and a relationship that is built on slim foundations resonates with me.
The Newcastle united link helps.

[Margaret Quirke]

Very much enjoyed this book, was patchy in parts but the relationship between father and son brilliantly portrayed. Very similar to my (daughter) relationship with my dad and our mutual love of Everton. Past players and their lives so different from the current crop...

[Stephen Hughes]

Nostalgic reflections on the authors father, Newcastle United and football that successfully triggered my own reminiscences.

[Alexander Lean]

Damn that afterword is harrowing yet beautiful. Special special book.

[Bill Cripps]

Warm and emotional, great read!

[Steve Chilton]

An interesting read. I enjoyed it but it was a very anecdotal journey of a football journalist who also reminiscences on his father. It seemed disjointed and often unrelated until towards the end, when the author analysed his relationship with his father, which helped tied up some loose ends and was actually very poignant.

[Venky]

An elegiac homage to a father fused with an eclectic range of footballing vignettes. This work surely places Duncan Hamilton on top of the pile of all round sports writers plying their wares today. As one footballing great after another make a lasting impression on the reader's mind via a glorious pastiche weaved by the author, what stands out remarkably, is the beautiful, albeit understated father-son relationship at whose core is a circular object vying for the attention of 22 adults on a playing field!

[Stephen]

enjoyable read looking back at the bygone years of football through the eyes of the author and his grandfather/father and also some of the authors conversations with famous players and managers