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Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?, by Anthony Clavane: exclusive launch event at Wivenhoe village bookshop


Anthony Clavane, award-winning author of Promised Land: A Northern Love Story, is to make a personal appearance at the independent Wivenhoe Bookshop in the Essex village of the same name next Tuesday to talk about his new book, Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?

 One of the themes of Promised Land was the development of the Jewish community in Leeds and their involvement with Leeds United.

In Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here? Clavane expands on that theme to investigate the Jewish influence on English football on a much wider scale, from the earliest Jewish footballers to the businessmen who helped transform the sport from a working class diversion to the status it now enjoys as a multi-million pound branch of the entertainment industry.

Football has a long association with the Jewish business world and current club owners Roman Abramovich (Chelsea), Randy Lerner (Aston Villa) and the Glazer family (Manchester United) are only its latest high profile representatives.

But there is a myth that Jewish people do not play football, one that through meticulous research and many interviews Anthony Clavane sought to dismantle.   In doing so he uncovered something of a secret history.

Clavane was born in Leeds but began his journalistic career on the East Anglian Daily Times and progressed to be chief sports writer of the Sunday Mirror.  The picturesque village of Wivenhoe, on the banks of the River Colne, six miles downstream from Colchester, is where he now lives.

The Wivenhoe Bookshop's exclusive launch event for Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here? takes place on Tuesday (October 2nd) from 6.30pm at their premises in High Street, Wivenhoe.

Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here? The Story of English Football's Forgotten Tribe is published by Quercus.

Promised Land: A Northern Love Story (Yellow Jersey) was Football Book of the Year and Sports Book of the Year at the 2011 British Sports Book Awards, as well as being named Radio 2 Book Club's sports book of the year and the 2011 Sunday Times Football Book of the Year.

Buy Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here? The Story of English Football's Forgotten Tribe direct from Amazon.

Read more about Promised Land: A Northern Love Story...

Blend of football and social history is a triumph
Promised Land named Best Football Book 
Clavane's tale your choice as Sports Book of the Year

Browse more football books at The Sports Bookshelf Shop

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