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 titled 'Pompey The History Of Portsmouth Football Club' by Mike Neasom, Mick Cooper and Doug Robinson. It was published in 1984.
Mike Neasom of course was The Chief Sports Writer for The News, Mick Cooper and Doug Robinson two fans who had a shared interest in the history of the Club.
Between them they wrote what I consider to be one of the best and certainly one of my favourite books about Pompey, especially as it has been autographed by all the authors and former Pompey players Alan Biley and Neil Webb!
It is packed with old photographs, cartoons and statistics (on blue paper!), including the list of every match from 1899-00 to 1983-84, the scoreline at HT and FT, the attendance where known, the Pompey line-up and goalscorers.
It's the attention to statistical detail and in particular the easy-to-read layout which impressed me the most when I first read this book, and it's a template that I've seen used elsewhere. I'm not sure if this layout set the standard or followed a standard but either way it was obviously compiled with a lot of care and attention.
Of course a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since 1984 but whenever I need to look something up about Portsmouth FC this is invariably the place where I start.
Occasionally I see copies of this book in second hand book shops or charity shops - if you see one and a copy is not already sitting on your bookshelf then it's well worth getting hold of one.
You can read more about this book on Amazon here ==> Pompey The History Of Portsmouth Football Club
LAST YEAR'S HAT
Click on the following link to see the hat and video from one year ago ==> Hatvent Calendar 19th 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
