It is not often that a drunk man in red shorts and a blue blazer with white stars turns up at a book reading, and probably less often when he is thrown out for repeatedly standing up to interrupt the speakers while holding aloft a flag representing the Premier League club Crystal Palace. Then again, most book readings don’t double as podcast tapings, or take place in front of a boisterous crowd of admirers in a New York live music venue.
That was the setting last month when Michael Davies and Roger Bennett, known collectively as the Men in Blazers, kicked off an 11-city tour to promote their book, the “Encyclopedia Blazertannica: A Suboptimal Guide to Soccer, America’s Sport of the Future Since 1972.