'A thought-provoking, funny and ultimately heartbreaking book about how football fandom can evoke our most painful emotions.' —Dr Gwen Adshead, The Sunday Times bestselling author of The Devil You Know
Description
Inside the ecstasy, anguish and unshakeable loyalty that make football more than a game
'A book for anyone who has ever screamed at a television and wondered, briefly, why.' Adam Alter, author of Drunk Tank Pink
Dr Damien Pearse is a level-headed man. A psychologist, he spends his days encouraging patients to adopt a calmer, more grounded approach to life. And yet on match days all this unravels. He becomes anxious, panicked, sometimes belligerent, and if things go well for Wolves, manically ecstatic. And he is not alone – wander through any British town centre on a Saturday night and watch as the aftershocks of wins and losses spill out into the real world. Football means so much to so many.
Pearse meets with superfans, scientists, players and trolls, uncovering what drives our unwavering obsession with football. Examining ideas of identity, belonging, shame, modern masculinity and the most extreme acts of football fanaticism, Till I Die offers a poignant reappraisal of an enduring national pastime and passion.
'A thought-provoking, funny and ultimately heartbreaking book about how football fandom can evoke our most painful emotions' Dr Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know
Reviews
'Whether you're a football fan or a student of human behavior – or both – Damien Pearse is funny about his own obsession and serious about what it reveals. In Till I Die, he traces his quest to understand why we surrender to a game so stingy with its goals and so generous with its capacity to ruin a season, a year, a decade. A book for anyone who has ever screamed at a television and wondered, briefly, why.' —Adam Alter, New York Times bestselling author of Drunk Tank Pink
'A unique, sharply written and highly engaging exploration of why we love the game as we do. Pearse is a fine storyteller with an eye for compelling human stories and interesting characters, all of them united through this obsession of ours.’ —Daniel Gray, author of Saturday, 3pm
'Nothing matches the brutality and viciousness of tribal violence. If you want insight into how tribal psychology and conflict, from religions to politics to sport, can lead us to lose our humanity and compassion, this is a brilliantly observed map of the dark side of the mind. A must-read.' —Professor Paul Gilbert OBE, author of The Compassionate Mind
