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Just to let Dale fans know that we're expecting copies of Mark's latest book to arrive with us tomorrow, ready for mail-out. It costs £11.50 from Pomona, plus £3.40 UK postage:
Copies will be also available at the club shop very soon.
The press release supplied by Pitch Publishing reads:
In 1973-74, Britain was in meltdown. The Arab-Israeli War had sent energy prices soaring. Petrol was scarce. Offices were limited to a temperature of 17C and power cuts were frequent. A three-day working week came in as inflation took hold and miners and other workers went on strike.
The northern mill town of Rochdale suffered more than most. Its cotton industry was on shut-down in the face of cheap imports, and the football team was a mirror image of the town — tired, defeated, clinging to life.
The Rochdale team of 1973-74 is considered the worst to play in the Football League. They finished bottom of the third division, winning just twice in 46 league matches. They closed the season with a 22-game winless run and played one home match in front of the lowest-ever post-war crowd. That season, 32 players turned out for the team, many of them drafted in from amateur or Sunday league clubs.
The Longest Winter is as much an intimate and forensic documentary in the Storyville mode as it is a sports book. It evokes the smells, textures and moods of the early 1970s.
Mark has done scores of interviews with ex-players, coaches and fans and put in hundreds of hours of research. He considers it his best football book.
Just to make you aware — Mark's major publisher debut, No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy, Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader is available soon on Canongate (and NOW via Pomona).
It’s basically his life story set against a love of reading and writing and how he ended up with a personal library of 3,500 books, after going to a run-down, madhouse school (in Rochdale!) where he wasn’t considered clever enough to sit O Levels.
He writes about his time in various bands (supporting The Stone Roses and Pulp etc), working as a journalist and running an independent publishing house . Also interwoven is the story of his grandad who, despite being mentally ill, was his best friend growing up.
It costs £16.99 in shops but is available for £12 (plus postage, I’m afraid) here: https://www.pomonauk.com/shop/store.php It will be on sale everywhere from early next year but if you order from Pomona smart-ish, we’ll try and get the books out before Christmas.
The very talented author, Benjamin Myers, kindly says this of the book:
‘Mark Hodkinson is one of the great unsung heroes of literature, and here he tackles perhaps the last taboo in publishing: class. With verve, insight and perfectly-captured period detail, he reminds us that not only are books sacred objects that should be available to everyone, but also that working class voices remain more marginalised and underrepresented than ever. No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy redresses this imbalance beautifully, and in a just world will kickstart a long-overdue working class literary renaissance’
Dale fans might be interested to know that we currently have an Xmas sale on at Pomona, including Mark Hodkinson's book, The Overcoat Men, the story behind the alleged 'sale' of Spotland back in the early-1980s. The RRP is £12.99 but it is available for £6 (plus p and p) from: https://www.pomonauk.com/shop/store.php. For the first time in many years, we have copies in stock of Rule of Night and Down the Figure 7 by Rochdale author (and Dale fan), Trevor Hoyle. Both Trevor's books are available for just a fiver each. Also in the sale are Mark's earlier books on Dale plus titles by Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne), Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) etc.. Lucy Duffy, Pomona.
Dale fans will be interested to know that the Overcoat Men - former chairman David Kilpatrick and financial director, Graham Morris - who feature in Mark Hodkinson's book of the same name, will be on BBC Radio Manchester on Wednesday.
Mark, David and Graham are the guests of Mike Sweeney on his programme, which runs from 9am until noon. They will discuss the book, of course, and all matters Dale.
The book focuses on two men who saved their football club from extinction.
Secret plans to turn Spotland, the home of Rochdale AFC, into a housing estate are spied. David Kilpatrick and Graham Morris set upon a desperate mission to save their beloved, beleaguered football club. The Spring King is toppled and his staunch but jaded boardroom acolytes (‘a mobile drinks party’) are moved on. They then have to take on what many fans consider to be the ‘enemy within’.
They work tirelessly, persuading companies to write off debts so they can buy back the land on which the club stands, a tricky proposition when you are skint and bottom of the Football League. Meanwhile, it’s the early 1980s and the town of Rochdale is deep in recession, the last of the cotton mills closing down.
The limit of most fans’ investment in their club is routinely the price of a season ticket. Directors risk their houses and businesses, sometimes forfeiting marriages, families and health in the name of their club. Even in the corporate age, these Overcoat Men — self-made local businessmen serving on club boards — are often the unseen, unsung heroes of football.
As many Rochdale fans know, the author, Mark Hodkinson, has written several well-received books about the club. While his new novel, That Summer Feeling, doesn't feature the Dale (or football), it is clearly set in and around the town and is a spiffing read.
The book is priced at £10 in shops but for a limited period is available from our website for just a fiver, which includes p & p. Just click here: http://www.pomonauk.com/shop/store.php
It might have summer in the title but is a great read whatever the season and an ideal Christmas present.
Rochdale fans may be interested in this video shot in and around the town, featuring lots of local people. It's been made by the documentary maker Ian Hawkins to accompany the single Love on Love by Black Sedan, which features long-term Dale fan and writer, Mark Hodkinson. Hope you enjoy. Lucy Duffy, Pomona Sounds.
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