Profound books that restore faith and belief are quite rare and only come around once in a great while. Mat Guy’s first book, Another Bloody Saturday, was just that: a beautiful tale about the beautiful game. We loved it and so did many other football purists worldwide.
We were excited to hear that Guy had penned another title, Minnows United: Adventures at the Fringes of the Beautiful Game, that was even more global in scope. It was a truly international effort that brought the far reaches of the game to the reader. Minnows United proved to be a series of enchanting accounts from every corner of the footballing world. We are talking about the likes of Luxembourg, Tibet, Iceland, Wales, and Palestine to name just a few.
Each story was incredibly inspiring and restoring, a lovely break from a world of billionaire owners, megastar footballers with endorsement deals, and luxury boxes and VIP treatment in massive city-sized stadiums. Guy brings out what is best about the beautiful game, the real reasons why we call it beautiful to start with.
Football can be a powerful force for good and we’re quite sure that this book amplifies that quality unlike any other. The books is a passport to locales where football in its purest form, in all its goodness, still exists. Guy’s ability to capture this is truly uncanny and he is among the best in the world when it comes to real football literature.
We appreciated the fact that he wrote about the often neglected, the often ignored places and people in the game. They deserve the attention. We love non-league football and the Welsh game so we found a number a stories that hit home for us, really brought us joy and excitement.
Lots of people write books about football, but Guy captures the true heart of the game, the game’s real essence, better than any other. He simply gets it; he understands the fact that football is the world’s most popular game for a reason. That reason is not super clubs and global brands like Manchester City, PSG, and Real Madrid, but rather football in its simplest form in places like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Sudan, and Gaza.
Minnows United from Luath Press is a magical title because Guy puts his heart and soul, and that of the game of football, into this book. That’s why it will always be remembered as one of our all-tine favorites.
