WCB Team Member: Shawn Levy

Shawn Levy is film critic of The Oregonian, the author of four books about popular culture and a busy blogger.

None of which explains what he’s doing here.

So: Back when he was researching a book on Swinging London, he decided he would take up following footie seriously after several aborted attempts. As it happened, his local team, the Portland Timbers, were reviving themselves at around that time. It also happened that on his frequent trips to London he feel in love with two teams, both from southwest London, both of whom were big in the ’60s and ’70s, both of whom wear blue: Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea (before Abromavich, mind you!). These passions, coupled with the advent of the Fox Soccer Channel on US TV and the increasingly dreary quality of the NBA (never was much of a gridiron football fan) drew him to English soccer as his principal fall/winter sports obsession. And now he’s reached the point where he knows more about the English national team than either the US men or women.

And so here we are!