I Like To Watch - by Simon Wooldridge (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>I Like To Watch includes sports-watching adventures and experiences from across the globe: Football in Argentina, England, Scotland, Spain and Poland, cricket in India and Sri Lanka, running with the bulls in Pamplona, Aussie rules football and a quest to see a game at all Major League Baseball stadiums in North America all feature.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>In I Like To Watch, sports-mad Simon Wooldridge recounts a selection of memorable stories from four decades watching from stands and terraces across the world.</p><p>Football: The author encounters fanatics at games in Glasgow, Buenos Aires and Warsaw. He follows Arsenal for many years and later develops <em>more than a soft spot</em> for Brentford, Melbourne Heart and Deportivo La Coruna. In England he enjoys forays into the lower division at Hull, Accrington Stanley and Stockport. As a teenager he has a few <em>close calls</em> with fans of other clubs in London and endures a nervous wait by a roadside in Poland after an England World Cup qualifier. A visit to Skonto Riga proves surprisingly uninspiring.</p><p>Cricket: Wooldridge attends England Test matches in India and Sri Lanka, meeting locals and enjoying many of the quirks and peculiarities a visit to the subcontinent entails. He also recounts some of the many lows and one monumental high of five Ashes series in Australia between 2002 and 2018.</p><p>Aussie rules: Two years deciding which team to <em>barrack for</em> is followed by an on-off-on relationship with Australia's unique football code. It culminates with rivers of tears at the MCG and the Western Bulldogs' remarkable 2016 Premiership triumph.</p><p>Baseball: What starts as little more than wanting to experience some down-to-earth American culture leads to the author's one-item bucket-list (to see a game at every MLB stadium) and a close affinity with Oakland Athletics.</p><p>I Like To Watch also features running with the bulls in Pamplona, England vs Scotland in the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, watching Muy Thai in Bangkok and some ruminating on the greyhound racing industry.</p><p>This insightful, humorous, and very readable sporting travelogue takes the reader on a journey to the <em>periphery </em>of the action. It will delight and charm both obsessive and armchair sports fans.</p><p>I Like To Watch includes a touching tribute to Arsenal legend David Rocastle.</p><p>The author is the son of the late Ian Wooldridge, sports journalist and broadcaster. "Sport was always a major talking point at home when I was a kid," Simon Wooldridge says. "It was pretty much ingrained in us from an early age."</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><p>"You read <em>I Like to Watch </em>with considerable envy; not only because of where Simon Wooldridge has been and all he has seen, but also because of how well and descriptively he articulates the experience. You relate to the narrative and the characters within it. You wish you were there. You follow him willingly, from one place to the next, because of his abilities as perceptive observer, wit, discerning critic and travel writer." - Duncan Hamilton, three-time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of The Year award.</p><p>"From Accrington to Adelaide, Boston to Bangkok, Simon Wooldridge wanders the byways of world sport. The result is a quirky collection of affectionate jottings." - Patrick Collins, author of <em>Among The Fans</em></p><p>"Sporting memoirs tend to be dominated by vacuous cash-ins from rising stars or sniping tell-alls from jaded retired champs, so it's refreshing to read enjoyable anecdotes from the other side of the fence. But what gives Wooldridge's "stories from the stand" a point of difference is that the focus is not necessarily on the event. As he puts it, "This isn't a book full of match reports ... this book is about actually going". There's everything from bull-running in Pamplona to cricket at Lord's, baseball at Yankee Stadium and footy at the 'G. But soccer is his passion - his honeymoon was a trip to see Arsenal in Spain. You may wonder why he is so obsessive; some of the underlying menace would deter the most intrepid adventurers. But even the bleakest moments are laced with good humour, such as the time frightful conditions in his Bombay hotel reduced him to using vodka to brush his teeth. He has the admiration of this armchair sports fan." - Herald Sun, Melbourne</p><br>
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