Long Distance Love

Since he was a young adult, Grant Farred has wandered the world. Born in South Africa, his own personal growth was fuelled by dreams of English football, as a player, and then, when age and reality set in, as a fan. Coming to the United States at a still young age, Farred still loved football - especially Liverpool - and watched it from afar. Writing about his experience, Farred shares with the reader his experience growing up coloured in South Africa, moving to England, and finally to the US, and how his passion for football kept company with his many moves. Along the way, he talks about the contradictions of football; how race and class politics mix on and off the pitch; how Farred's own ideas about what it means to be a colonial subject is both reinforced and liberated by the idea of football, and how players can serve as gods and monsters. And he offers the most entertaining description of soccer and why it is the world's most popular sport. Fellow expatriates will rejoice in Grant's writing about their beloved teams, and the novice to the sport will find in "Long Distance Love" an intoxicating introduction to the Beautiful Game. Grant Farred is the author, most recently, of "What's My Name? Black Vernacular Intellectuals". He is a life-long fan of Liverpool Football Club, the greatest and most successful club in the history of English football (although some will argue with Farred's contention).