Bloody Confused! - by Chuck Culpepper (Paperback)

About the Book

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the world's most devoted sports fans, a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee explores the vibrant landscape of English soccer with piercing wit and penetrating insight.

Book Synopsis

Chuck Culpepper was a veteran sports journalist edging toward burnout . . . then he went to London and discovered the high-octane, fanatical (and bloody confusing!) world of English soccer.

After covering the American sports scene for fifteen years, Chuck Culpepper suffered from a profound case of Common Sportswriter Malaise. He was fed up with self-righteous proclamations, steroid scandals, and the deluge of in-your-face PR that saturated the NFL, the NBA, and MLB. Then in 2006, he moved to London and discovered a new and baffling world--the renowned Premiership soccer league. Culpepper pledged his loyalty to Portsmouth, a gutsy, small-market team at the bottom of the standings. As he puts it, "It was like childhood, with beer."

Writing in the vein of perennial bestsellers such as Fever Pitch and Among the Thugs, Chuck Culpepper brings penetrating insight to the vibrant landscape of English soccer--visiting such storied franchises as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool . . . and an equally celebrated assortment of pubs. Bloody Confused! will put a smile on the face of any sports fan who has ever questioned what makes us love sports in the first place.

Review Quotes

"A bracing (and funny) antidote to the cynicism infecting modern sports, Chuck Culpepper's Bloody Confused is a love letter to fandom."
--Jeffrey Toobin

"The American sporting landscape is littered with bad trades; consider this the latest: We get Beckham, but they get Culpepper. Thankfully, with Bloody Confused! we get our man back on loan, if only for a couple hundred of the most splendid pages you'll have the pleasure of reading all year."
--Mike Vaccaro, author of 1941: The Greatest Year in Sports

"Chuck Culpepper is the best, most perceptive sportswriter on two continents."
--Sally Jenkins

"What a joy this book is. Chuck Culpepper's wonderful touch brings every page alive with laughter and the delight of discovery."
--Dave Kindred, author of Sound and Fury

"I'm still not sure I love soccer, but I love this book."
-Pat Forde, ESPN

About the Author

CHUCK CULPEPPER writes for the Los Angeles Times and has written for Newsday and ESPN Books, among other publications.