The Football Fan's Manifesto (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Fantasy football fans that don't read Michael Tunison's book and recognize it as the gospel truth aren't real football fans." (Gregg Rosenthal, Rotoworld.com )

"The Football Fan's Manifesto is the throbbing id of the NFL, a throwdown in the name of football supremacy, the type of book you just know Roger Goodell wishes he could write. If you think football is the only thing that matters on earth, this is your book ." (Will Leitch, author of God Save The Fan and founder of Deadspin )

Product Description

The Football Fan's Ten Commandments

1. You Must Choose Your Team by the Age of Eight.
2. Value That Team Above All Else, Even Yourself.
3. Under No Circumstances Can You Switch Teams (And Expect to Live).
4. There is a Limit to the Amount of Merchandise You Can Own (But It's Very Generous).
5. Sportsmanship is for the Athletes. Fans Can Gloat Endlessly.
6. A Self-Induced Coma to Skip the Off-season is a Practical Solution to an Annoying Problem.
7. An Inoffensive Fantasy Football Name is a Lame Fantasy Football Name.
8. Wealth Doesn't Matter So Long As You Don't Have to Work Weekends.
9. Respect Superstitions. If Your Team Lost, It's Because You Jinxed Them.
10. In Life, the Order of Importance: Football First, Football Second, Football Third, Family . . . uh, I Don't Know, twelfth?

These are just the basics if you wish to be a True Football Fan. The full picture is much more complex and boozy. Thankfully, The Football Fan's Manifesto is your very own playbook to the strict rules and bylaws that must be scrupulously observed. After all, trash-talking is an intricate science and running onto the field a dangerous but irresistible pursuit. There are many lessons to be learned, especially that choosing a favorite team to live and die with is not a choice made easily: It's the most important decision of your life!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: It Books (August 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061735140
• ISBN-13: 978-0061735141
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,211 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Should be issued to every American citizen at birth, September 2, 2009

By	Mahlon Christensen (Monterey, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Football Fan's Manifesto is a humorous take on Football fandom in America, written by one of the co-founders of the irreverent, and therefore absolutely essential Football blog Kissing Suzy Kolber.

Though humorous, the book is a near perfect encapsulation of what it means to be a Football fan, much like Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch was for soccer. This makes it the perfect gift for not only hardcore fans themselves, but also for Football widows seeking to understand their disturbed partner's psyche. Also great for newcomers to the game(where have you been?) and foreign visitors seeking a better understanding of American culture.

One of the best books written on Football in the past 30 years, your football season won't be complete unless you buy a copy!

2.0 out of 5 stars Makes a Better Blog Than Book, November 3, 2009

By	Shawn M. Ritchie "History Dude" (Chicago, IL, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I keep falling into the same trap: funny bloggers rarely make funny authors. "The Football Fan's Manifesto" by Kissing Suzy Kolber stalwart Mike Tunison is a case in point.

A snarky (what, a blogger who cops a snarky attitude? Get out) take on how to be a fan of an NFL team, Tunison hits the expected notes (pick a team to root for young, never change allegiance ever, hit fans of other teams in the balls with bricks, etc.) and makes sure to shoehorn in the occasional commentary snidely referencing the fact that NFL owners and players give two tugs of a dead dog's dick about their fans so it's all pretty much a waste of time, money and emotional investment anyways.

The book follows the lifetime of an average fan, starting with picking out a favorite team as a child, progressing through learning how to insult fans of other teams, arranging college life around football, how to pick a spouse that won't interfere with being a fan, etc and so on through death (even though, as Al Davis aptly proves, death is no reason to stop being involved with football).

Sections on each team's city and respective fanbases, larded with insults tailored to each are chuckle-worthy, even if the insults are mostly of the "take a word for some genitalia and combine with a meaningless noun to form New Insult #487" stripe. I particularly giggled at the expected gibes against terrible franchises like the Redskins or Raiders. I certainly chuckled out loud a few times here and there.

The problem is, this style of writing makes for an excellent blog post, but not so much for an excellent book. Blog posts tends towards the timely, so taking three minutes to read a complete website post full of sharp jibes about yesterday's game is going to have an impact that reading 300 pages of not-timely slams about an entire league and lifestyle just can't match.

I'd probably have enjoyed this book more if I were the sort of reader who reads multiple books at a time, cherry-picking chapters here and there based on mood. But I'm not; I read one book at a time to make sure I'm as immersed as possible in whatever the author's trying to make me care about. So, by about a third of the way through the book, when the jokes about how bad the Raiders are begin to repeat and Tunison's struggling to find a seventh funny way to describe your average football fan as a drunken, emotionally-stunted manchild with commitment issues towards everything BUT his favorite pigskin squad, well... it grew tiresome.

I'd recommend any of the websites Tunison writes for unreservedly; he's a sharp, funny blogger, at his best when dishing out a few minutes' worth of scathing commentary on current sports happenings. As an author, he needs to find a way to liberate his humor from the specifics of a given football season and go for a more universal theme; after all, calling somebody a "pussybasket" has applications FAR beyond just insulting Packers fans.

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Entertaining, September 30, 2009

By	K. Wilcock - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Quite a funny book, with the same quality humor expected from Deadspin/KSK. Must have for any true football fan.