‘A compelling, moving book’ THE TIMES

In the early 1980s, the pop charts were dominated by musicians tarted up in Day-Glo colours, who fought it out for coverage on our TV screens and magazine pages. Dexys Midnight Runners did things differently. They were surly. They were serious. They were ambitious, but success had to come on their terms. They were a disciplined outfit, a gang with a defined purpose: to make music so pure that it couldn’t fail to elicit a deep emotional response from anyone within earshot.

And they managed it. This motley crew – in woolly hats and donkey jackets for their first coming; all dungarees and copious body hair for the second – gate-crashed the charts, scoring number-one hits around the globe. But being in Dexys wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Many members came, many members went. Some returned unexpectedly as being part of this particular gang was a way of life; it was everything.

Nige Tassell, author of the Penderyn Prize-shortlisted Whatever Happened to the C86 Kids? employs his skills of detection to go off in search of the dozens of members who – for however brief a period, and to whatever level of success – have been a part of Dexys Midnight Runners. These are the people who gave the band its sound, its soul, its substance. But whatever happened to them?

On the 200th birthday of the world’s first passenger-carrying railway, Nige Tassell sets out to ride Britain’s railway network all the way to its lesser-travelled-to corners, its seldom-visited outposts. From Wick to Penzance and many points in between, he stays on until the end of the line. He is the last man sitting.

The sixteen final destinations he visits offer sixteen different stories. By delving into their histories, by speaking to their people and by having a good old-fashioned nose around, Tassell reveals much about places that rarely have light cast upon them – from ferry ports to abandoned resorts, from tiny hamlets to towns being reclaimed by the sea. It’s a journey that takes in Harry Potter, Muhammad Ali, goths, Alan Bennett, Vera Brittain, Viz comic, Alex Horne, Nigel Farage. Vikings, John Betjeman, Aneurin Bevan, Tyson Fury, Charlotte Rampling’s dad and the weepy judge from The Great Pottery Throwdown. All human life is here.

So grab yourself a window seat for an odyssey that tells us much about Britain today. All aboard, all aboard.

Hundreds of thousands of fans, 5,000 were on the pitch, and a horse called Billy. That was the scene for the inauspicious first football match to be played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium back in 1923, soon to be known as Wembley.  

More than a century later, Wembley remains the world’s most famous football stadium. Watching your team there is the highlight of a fan’s lifetime of support; playing on its hallowed turf the fulfilment of a childhood dream.

Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches that have shaped Wembley’s legacy – from England’s triumphs in World Cup and Euros tournaments to groundbreaking women’s matches and various non-league finals, by way of greyhounds, stunt motorcycles and the feet of 72,000 music fans at Live Aid – and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past century of football, and of Britain.  

Field of Dreams is  the story of how football found its home.  
 

The 1923 FA Cup final – aka the White Horse final – was the first football match played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium. Although best-remembered for non-playing reasons – notably its vast, well-beyond-capacity crowd, which had to be marshalled by a policeman atop a white horse – that afternoon marked the historic opening chapter of the stadium’s long and eventful history, of the stadium soon to be known simply as Wembley.
 
Over the 100 years since that overcrowded day, Wembley has established itself as the home of the beautiful game and, almost certainly, the world’s most famous football stadium.  Wembley occupies a special place in the hearts of players and punters alike. Watching your team at Wembley is the highlight of a fan’s lifetime of support; playing there the fulfilment of a childhood dream. Its sacred pitch has been the crucible of so many classic matches across the decades. World Cups have been won here, as have European Championships, FA Cups, European Cups, play-off finals, home internationals and more.

Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches – from the well known to the unusual – that have shaped Wembley’s legacy and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past 100 years of football, and of Britain.  We hear a ball boy’s perspective on the FA Cup Final when Bert Trautmann broke his neck, and from the other commentator of the 1966 World Cup Final.

Field of Dreams is  the story of how football found its home.