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‘A powerful chronicle of the transformation of English football and society through the prism of two very different characters’ Irish Times
Jack was open, charismatic, selfish and pig-headed; Bobby was guarded, shy, polite and reserved to the point of reclusiveness. Jack was a gangling central defender who developed a profound tactical intelligence; Bobby an athletic attacking midfielder who disdained systems. Yet the Charlton brothers both enjoyed great success as football players and together, for England, they won the World Cup.
Two Brothers is both the story of the most famous football players of their generation and an account of late-twentieth-century English football: the tensions between flair and industry, between individuality and the collective, between right and left, between middle- and working-classes, between exile and home.
‘Wilson is meticulous in providing all manner of nuggets’ Sports Books of the Year, The Times
‘Gripping’ Daily Mail
‘Moving… chronicles two remarkable lives’ Guardian
Jack was open, charismatic, selfish and pig-headed; Bobby was guarded, shy, polite and reserved to the point of reclusiveness. Jack was a gangling central defender who developed a profound tactical intelligence; Bobby an athletic attacking midfielder who disdained systems. Yet the Charlton brothers both enjoyed great success as football players and together, for England, they won the World Cup.
Two Brothers is both the story of the most famous football players of their generation and an account of late-twentieth-century English football: the tensions between flair and industry, between individuality and the collective, between right and left, between middle- and working-classes, between exile and home.
‘Wilson is meticulous in providing all manner of nuggets’ Sports Books of the Year, The Times
‘Gripping’ Daily Mail
‘Moving… chronicles two remarkable lives’ Guardian
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Reviews
Compelling... gets to the heart of Bobby and Jackie
Wilson is a fine, nuanced writer
A book that Jonathan Wilson was born to write... He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game... There is much poignancy in their stories
Razor-sharp tactical analysis and an intriguing angle of its own
Gripping
A powerful chronicle of the transformation of English soccer and society through the prism of two very different characters
Tells a familar, yet extraordinary, tale exceptionally well, illuminated and refreshed by Wilson's particular perspectives and insights
Wilson skilfully interweaves the stories of brothers with polar opposite personalities who also happened to be two of the most iconic footballing figures in the last century, using their respective career trajectories to tell a broader story of what it said about English and (sometimes) Irish society of the time of their heydays
This is a social history, yet surprisingly moving as it chronicles two remarkable lives
Explores the careers and personalities of Bobby and Jack Charlton, who we discover could not have been more different, and Wilson is meticulous in providing all manner of nuggets