WHAT IS THE HATVENT CALENDAR?
This is the third year of PompeyChicken's Hatvent Calendar! It's a bit like an online Advent Calendar.
It's been inspired by the Innocent Drinks company who have been putting little woolen hats on their bottles of smoothies as part of The Big Knit, in aid of the charity Age UK.
You may have seen them on sale in Sainsbury's. PompeyChicken's family has been drinking a lot of smoothies again this year and each hat continues to be a perfect fit!
Two year's ago the Hatvent Calendar made connections between each hat and Pompey.
Last year underneath each hat PompeyChicken unveiled a favourite Pompey video clip.
This year he's been looking through the bookshelves to identify some of his favourite football books. Quite a few have a link to Pompey but not all.
You can read more about the Big Knit, which has been running since 2003, by clicking on the link at the end of this blog.
I hope you enjoy this year's Hatvent Calendar.
POMPEYCHICKEN'S HAT OF THE DAY
TODAY'S BOOK
This book is 'The Golden Age Of Football' by Peter Jeffs and was published in 1991.
As the dust jacket says: "...in this book Peter Jeffs takes us back to the time of...cumbersome football kit and heavy footballs..."
The book tells the story of football in England from 1945 through to the 1952-1953 season and includes some excellent pictures, league tables, information about managers and some of the key players of the day as well as the teams they played for.
It is of course a period of iconic players (e.g. Lofthouse, Finney, Matthews, Wright and Milburn), big attendances across all divisions, plenty of goals and of course a time when Pompey rubbed shoulders with 'the big boys' and won the League title in consecutive seasons (1948-49 and 1949-50).
For the record the League title winners in the other season covered by the book were: Liverpool (1946-47), Arsenal (1947-48 and 1952-53), Tottenham Hotspur (1950-51) and Manchester United (1951-52).
The FA Cup winners during the period covered by the book were: Derby County (1945-46), Charlton Athletic (1946-47), Manchester United (1947-48), Wolverhampton Wanderers (1948-49), Arsenal (1949-50), Newcastle United (1950-51 and 1951-52) and Blackpool (1952-53) in probably the most famous Cup Final of them all.
Just looking at the 'honours board' from this period and all the different teams tells you a lot about the times and what a contrast to today when only a handful of teams almost have a monopoly on the trophies.
As Peter Jeffs writes in the final paragraph of the book these really were '...the halcyon days of professional football...".
You can read more about this book on Amazon here ==> The Golden Age Of Football
LAST YEAR'S HAT
Click on the following link to see the hat and video from one year ago ==> Hatvent Calendar 12th December 2011
WHAT IS THE BIG KNIT?
To find out more about Innocent Smoothies and the Big Knit you can click on the following link ==> The Big Knit
BlueThruAndThru
