-- Purchasing Information
| Paperback | Hardback |
| Publication Date: | 13 January 2016 | 1 August 2008 |
ISBN:
ISBN 13: | 0-993337-14-7
978-0-993337-14-7 | 1-906358-18-4
978-1-906358-18-1 |
| Page Extent: | 312 | 212 |
| Book Size: | 210x148mm | 216x138mm |
| Price: | £8.99 | £9.99 |
| P & P (UK): | | £1.80 |
| P & P (Europe): | | £3.20 |
| P & P (World): | | £5.00 |
UK: | | |
| Purchase from Amazon: |  | |
Purchase from Waterstone's
(or check stock at a branch near you): | |  |
| Purchase from Play.com: |  | |
| Purchase from WH Smith: |  | |
| Purchase from ASDA: | |  |
| Purchase from Tesco: |  | |
USA: | | |
| Price (USD): | $12.99 | $19.95 |
| Purchase from Amazon: |  | |
| Purchase from Borders: |  | |
| Purchase from Barnes & Noble: |  | |
| Purchase from Powell's Books: |  | |
Downloads: | | |
| Publication Date: | 13 January 2016 |
| Digital eBook ISBN 13: | 978-1-908548-69-6 |
| Digital pdf ISBN 13: | 978-1-907792-66-3 |
| eBook Price (UK): | £7.49 |
| eBook Price (USA): | $12.08 |
| Based on Amazon's Kindle Store |
| Kindle UK: |  |
| Kindle USA: | |
| |
-- Reviews by the Famous and well Known
When I was asked to write the foreword for this book, I thought I was introducing a simple story of an ordinary guy supporting a football team. But this is much more than that. It is a story, but one written with passion and comedy, not only about the Hearts, but growing up in the housing schemes of Edinburgh too. This story is an affectionate account of the highs and lows of following Edinburgh’s oldest and greatest football club, but in a way I’ve never read before. There is real life in this book; real sadness and real laughter. I’ve known the author’s brother, Bobby for years and you’ll laugh out loud when you read about these two brothers being forced into sharing the same post code! I grew up not far from Tynecastle, and I recognised the places and streets, as well as some of the people that Andrew writes about in his book. Those of us who know and love Heart of Midlothian FC; and what the club means to the supporters; and who have lived their lives in the outlying areas from Gorgie will be in for a real treat. But no matter where you’re from, and no matter what team you support, if any at all; you’ll find this book to be a moving and humorous journey through life in the 80s, 90s and beyond. This is a story of an ordinary Hearts supporter, but whose talent for telling his story is anything but ordinary.
Gary Mackay, Heart of Midlothian Football Club (1980-1997)
~
-- Newspaper and Website Reviews
BOOKS: Two Miles to Tynecastle by Andrew-Henry Bowie
THE premise of this book is simple enough; the autobiography of an ordinary Hearts fan who grew up, as the title suggests, close to the ground.
Its simplicity is its strength, and Bowie tells his tale with remarkable candour and a good deal of humour. A tough upbringing in Edinburgh's Saughton Mains Bank had a huge influence on the author but it was the calamities in his personal life that shaped him.
His parents' acrimonious split saw him dividing his childhood years between his mum in Edinburgh and weekends at his dad's new home in Livingston. His relationship with his father is fraught and he never really forgives him for failing to take him to Dens Park on May 3, 1986, to see Hearts' title-defining match with Dundee.
That the author escaped seeing Hearts lose the game (and the league) in such a gut-wrenching manner doesn't seem to get Bowie senior off the hook, and Albert Kidd's late double continues to haunt the author through his adolescence and early adult years until he finally finds closure with Hearts' Scottish Cup win 12 years later.
It's a tale with which thousands of Jambos will identify and Bowie's powers of recall are mightily impressive as he gives highly personal accounts of matches that defined his early life.
His memories of the pre-Hillsborough days on the terraces are particularly evocative as he recalls the bedlam in "The Shed" at Tynecastle during the 1980s when a gifted young Hearts side flirted with success but fell agonisingly short.
Like many young men, football played a disproportionately important part in Bowie's life, with watching Hearts offering him an escape from the drudgery of his everyday existence working nightshifts in a filling station.
His teenage years are strewn with crushing disappointments and he's forced to endure the disintegration of his relationship with his eldest brother whom he idolised as a kid. The older boy goes off the rails in a big way and is in and out of penal institutes, with the nadir coming when he returns to the family home and steals from the young Bowie.
Amid the dark times there is plenty of humour as the author finds calamitous new ways of coming to grief in his job in the petrol station and a stint as a van driver.
Salvation comes in the form of Lesley, who he meets in the local pub and marries. Also a Jambo, but you suspect she's broadminded enough to appreciate there is more to life than Hearts and is perhaps even able to convince Bowie of the same.
This type of football confessional has become a well-worn genre, but Bowie's effort succeeds with its rough-hewn charm and the wit in his writing. He's no Nick Hornby but for a first-time effort this book packs plenty of excitement and charm, particularly for Hearts supporters.
Apex Publishing £9.99.
Scotland on Sunday
 |
|
~
TWO MILES TO TYNECASTLE
The Scotsman
~
TWO MILES TO TYNECASTLE
Winger Magazine
~
TWO MILES TO TYNECASTLE
Four Four Two Magazine
~
TWO MILES TO TYNECASTLE
The Brit (Madeira Newspaper)
~
TWO MILES TO TYNECASTLE
Programme Monthly & Football Collectable
~
BEAUTIFUL GAME HAS HEARTS FAN BOOKED
IT was legendary Liverpool boss Bill Shankly who summed it all up with a famous quote. "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death...I can assure you it is much, much more important than that'."
Lifelong Jambo Andrew-Henry Bowie must agree – he reckons his whole life bears more than a passing similarity to the turbulent fortunes of his favourite team. And now he's hoping the upswing in his own luck can rub off on the Tynecastle squad, after publishing his first book – a unique portrait of Hearts' recent history intertwined with his own tale of growing up in Saughton Mains.
He couldn't have dreamed of such a success as he stood on the terracing in 1982, enthralled by what he admits was possibly the "worst Hearts side ever".
"We were really rubbish but that didn't really matter because from that day on I sort of fell in love. Hearts became an obsession."
These days he's a self-confessed "stats man" with an uncanny ability for total recall. But it's the unique impact of football which he believes moulded his character.
"Well, after that day I suppose I had 11 father figures and they all wore maroon shirts," he says. "In fact, the whole Hearts connection – the good and the bad – is a metaphor for my own life."
He was just four when his parents split up. His father moved to Livingston to start a new family and his mother, Rosemary, did her best to cope with three boisterous sons, Andrew and his brothers Bobby and 'Tommy'.
"I don't suppose there's any such thing as a perfect nuclear family and I don't suppose mine was really much more dysfunctional than any other," shrugs Andrew-Henry. "My older brother was forever in trouble with the law and Bobby spent most of his time mentally torturing me.
"I remember a football match that had been organised between the lads from Saughton Mains and Broomhouse. The football was secondary because it was basically a game of incredible violence with about 50 kids in each team. I got a penalty but I missed it. That was bad enough, but it was my own brother Bobby who kicked my backside so hard that I bit my tongue as he did it."
Quirky childhood memories litter the book, interspersed with the best – and worst – the Tynecastle side had to offer. Such as Andrew-Henry's first job delivering incontinence pads for a local chemist on a bike incapable of turning corners because of its outsized wheels. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was later shot in the buttocks with an air pellet by, he believes, the lad who he pipped to get the job.
Running parallel are his memories of a string of equally emotive episodes that every Hearts supporter will empathise with. Perhaps the worst moment came when he was an impressionable 12-year-old. "Hearts were on the verge of winning the league. They were playing Dundee in the last game of the season when, with seven minutes to go, Albert Kidd came on as a sub. He went on to score twice for Dundee and Celtic won the league," he recalls.
"Everyone who supports Hearts was absolutely broken. There were people on the pitch crying, it was like a massive, tragic event."
These days Andrew-Henry, 34, of Corstorphine, has left behind the "lows" of his working career – at one point he was a petrol station cleaner – and is studying English at university. The moment his wife Lesley announced she was pregnant and then the birth of their daughter Jude-Lauren, now 17 months, surpassed even the cathartic highs of watching Hearts lift the Scottish Cup in 1998 and in 2006.
"Everything shifted with the birth of my daughter and I realised what was really important," he says.
Still, old habits die hard. And once a Jambo, always a Jambo. "Got to go," he says, checking his watch. "I'm off to the pub to meet some mates and then we're going to the match."
Two Miles to Tynecastle is published by Apex Publishing, price £9.99.
Edinburgh Evening News
 |
|
~
TEN QUESTIONS: ANDREW-HENRY BOWIE
ANDREW-HENRY BOWIE, 35, lives in Corstorphine and is the author of Two Miles to Tynecastle
1. What is your earliest memory of Edinburgh? Going to lots of jumbles sales with my mum and my brother, Bobby. They were always on Saturday mornings in church halls at Saughton Mains, Stenhouse and Carrick Knowe. At one point I had a space helmet, a Ouija board and a wig! I wish I'd held on to the wig.
2. What are your memories of school? I went to Stenhouse Primary and Tynecastle High. I remember school more for terrible fashions and merciless peer pressure than I did for education and strikes. Sadly, I was totally lacking in motivation and self esteem and, in the end, I just sort of drifted away aged 15. I was clueless, absolutely clueless, back then.
3. Where is your favourite place in Edinburgh and why? The Hermitage and Braidburn Valley. I just love walking along there as it gives me a chance to clear my mind and spend some nice time with my wife Lesley and my daughter, Jude. It's got to be one of Edinburgh's best kept secrets. A beautiful place with a pub at either end!
4. What are the best things about Edinburgh? I think Edinburgh folk have a great sense of humour without being too loud and overbearing – unlike those from another city I could mention!
5. What would you change about the city? I would have the No 1 bus turn up when they say it will.
6. Describe a perfect Edinburgh day/night out. I'd spend some quality time with my family before heading out to see Hearts win a big match at Tynecastle before spending the rest of the night celebrating in The Diggers. Am I allowed a kebab on the way home?
7. Which sports interest you? I love watching my beloved Heart of Midlothian and I also like to play football. I swim twice a week and I enjoy playing pitch and putt at the little course near the airport.
8. What was your most embarrassing moment? I accidentally set the fire alarm off at work a few years ago which resulted in over a thousand people being evacuated from our head office.
9. What is your greatest achievement? Seeing my book at number one in the Waterstone's chart and becoming a father to my gorgeous little girl.
10. Sum up Edinburgh in three words. Hearts against Hibs.
The Scotsman
~
-- Readers Comments
-- Book Signings and Events
Andrew-Henry Bowie signed copies of his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle' at Waterstone's, Princes Street (East End), Edinburgh.
Waterstone's, Princes Street (East End), Edinburgh
~
Andrew-Henry Bowie signed copies of his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle' at Waterstone's, Princes Street (East End), Edinburgh.
Waterstone's, Princes Street (East End), Edinburgh
~
Andrew-Henry Bowie signed copies of his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle' at his official book launch at Hearts FC (The Gorgie Suite, Tynecastle Stadium).
Hearts FC (The Gorgie Suite, Tynecastle Stadium)
~
Andrew-Henry Bowie signed copies of his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle' at Waterstone's, Cameron Toll Centre, Edinburgh.
Waterstone's, Cameron Toll Centre, Edinburgh
~
Andrew-Henry Bowie signed copies of his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle' at Waterstone's, Cameron Toll Centre, Edinburgh.
Waterstone's, Cameron Toll Centre, Edinburgh
~
Andrew-Henry Bowie talked about and signed copies of his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle' at The Leith Book Festival. (Photos: Left: Andrew-Henry Bowie on stage with his book 'Two Miles to Tynecastle'. Right: Author Andrew-Henry Bowie with Hearts legend Alex Young).
The Leith Book Festival
~
-- Libraries that stock this book
The Bodleian Library, Oxford
~
The Library of Trinity College, Dublin
~
The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
~
The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
~
The University Library, Cambridge
~
The British Library, Boston Spa
~