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    Football Book Review Thread

    So Turf Wars then.
    A great idea for a book but ultimately I think there's just too many clubs involved. Anyone attempting to write this book must first figure out their format and the authors opted for various eras as chapters IE between the wars, pre FL, the PL era etc etc.
    Even doing this there's way too much jumping around to cram everyone in. A coherent narrative is nigh on impossible although the author does his best. It's not his fault that once he gets in his stride he has too change horses midstream to include another clubs goings on in that era. It'd been even harder if Watford were included.
    Some great reminders included: Fergie shaking hands on the Spurs job, Dein wanting Sugar excluded from the PL vote, Noades shenanigans, Gregory wanting to buy out and amalgamate QPR with Fulham and Brentford etc etc.

    To sum up: As good a book on the unwieldy subject that can be written I suppose. Well done.

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      Football Book Review Thread

      So my well-meaning wife got me Jonathan Wilson's "Angels with Dirty Faces", his history of Argentinian football for my birthday recently. As you might expect it's interesting and well written but extraordinarily long and over-detailed. I'm 7,000 pages in and we're up to 1483AD.

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        Just finished Johan Cruyff’s autobiography. Borracho gave it a slating in the magazine a few months since, which is an entirely fair review. His playing and managerial career are done by midway through the book, and the remaining content may be of interest to dedicated Cruyff observers but, given everything he’s seen and done, it feels like the surface is merely scratched at. If you’re wanting to know why he didn’t sign for Leicester City in 1981 then you won’t find it mentioned. There’s plenty on modern day politics at Ajax though, if that’s your thing.

        To give him his due, Cruyff does acknowledge the structure of the book in the opening sentence, when he states "the past is not something I think about too much", which is not really something you want to read in an autobiography. He continues "Details of the matches I have played in have been written about better by other people elsewhere; what I am interested in is the idea of football." You kind of see where David Winner gets it from.

        Unintentionally amusing moment comes when he sells Marco van Basten to Milan and proposes replacing him with …. Cyrille Regis.

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          "The Mixer", Michael Cox - tactical developments over the history of the Premier League, one chapter per season. It's much lighter than Jonathan Wilson, occasionally skimming the surface a bit, and there are a couple of obvious mistakes, but it's an enjoyable and accessible read. I found it interesting remembering the games and players he describes.

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            I did read Wilson's book, and I know it was good, but I find reading about tactics something of a chore, and instantly forgettable once I've put the book down. It feels like homework.

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              Currently enjoying The Mixer. I find the relative lightness of touch allows a nostalgic trip through recent history, as Crusoe mentions, with that little bit of tactical analysis to set the tone. Michael Cox is always good on GFW too.
              Last edited by Sits; 19-07-2017, 21:38.

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                Deep into Adrian Tempany's "And the Sun Shines Now - How Hillsborough and the Premier League changed Britain". I'd kind of put myself off reading it, partly because, seeing the age and outlook of the author, I thought it would be too lazy of me to read my own opinions and experiences regurgitated back at me, on themes and issues that almost seemed too close to my heart, but it's really good nonetheless, with some interesting and thought-provoking stuff on the nature of childhood, child-adult socialisation, and how communities function, as well as the stuff that might be expected about TV deals and greed and incompetent authorities.

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                  Originally posted by longeared View Post
                  Just finished Johan Cruyff’s autobiography. Borracho gave it a slating in the magazine a few months since, which is an entirely fair review. His playing and managerial career are done by midway through the book, and the remaining content may be of interest to dedicated Cruyff observers but, given everything he’s seen and done, it feels like the surface is merely scratched at. If you’re wanting to know why he didn’t sign for Leicester City in 1981 then you won’t find it mentioned. There’s plenty on modern day politics at Ajax though, if that’s your thing.

                  To give him his due, Cruyff does acknowledge the structure of the book in the opening sentence, when he states "the past is not something I think about too much", which is not really something you want to read in an autobiography. He continues "Details of the matches I have played in have been written about better by other people elsewhere; what I am interested in is the idea of football." You kind of see where David Winner gets it from.

                  Unintentionally amusing moment comes when he sells Marco van Basten to Milan and proposes replacing him with …. Cyrille Regis.
                  For anyone interested, It's on Amazon Kindle for GBP1.19 (don't have a pound sign).

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                    Started reading The Three Degrees by Paul Rees, I've only read two chapters but it's excellent.

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                      Started reading Bob Wilson's autobiography today and got 80 pages in without realising it. It's terrific.

                      I picked it up for 20p in a charity shop. I've got a small collection of books by/about goalkeepers. I also bought Peter Shilton's autobiography as well. Same shop, same price.

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                        Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                        Started reading Bob Wilson's autobiography today and got 80 pages in without realising it. It's terrific.
                        I'm not being facetious when I say that's quite a revelation. What's so good about it?

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                          Originally posted by Antepli Ejderha View Post
                          Started reading The Three Degrees by Paul Rees, I've only read two chapters but it's excellent.
                          Just finished it. An easy but excellent read that tries to link the rise of three great players with the social positions and attitudes of the time. Cunningham, Regis and Batson suffered so much just for the colour of their skin and received virtually no support from anyone connected to football.

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                            Originally posted by imp View Post
                            I'm not being facetious when I say that's quite a revelation. What's so good about it?
                            He starts by talking about his older brothers who he never knew because they were killed in the war. He reconstructs their service and how they went missing and we're confirmed killed much later. He was only a few months old when his oldest brother was killed.

                            Then not long after he's at Manchester United with the Busby Babes. In-between he talks about how Bert Trautmann was his hero and how difficult that was in the postwar period. When he went with England schoolboys to play Germany his Dad gripped his arm tight and told him to "Win!" and that revealed how much his father was still grieving his brothers.

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                              I didn't know that about his brothers. He was one of the first players I remember ever being aware of because my parents talked about him playing for Scotland despite being mainly English, and Arsenal were high-profile in the early 70s. We were all (relatively) shocked when we turned on the 1972 Cup Final and both he and Gary Sprake had been replaced by Geoff Barnett and David Harvey respectively. Can't remember now if those were decisions prompted by injury or poor form. Funnily enough, the first ever piece I wrote for WSC (I think around 1991 or 92) was about Bob Wilson. Something to do with him being a bland TV front presenter and then suddenly trying to change his image overnight by becoming deliberately controversial.

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                                If I was on some Millionaire-type quiz show and the question was "Who played in goal for Arsenal in the 1972 FA Cup Final?" I wouldn't even bother to phone a friend. I know it was Bob Wilson, the question is insulting.

                                Live and learn ... or live and forget, these days.

                                And to tie in with the other book mentioned, the double-or-quits question would be about Lawrie Cunningham playing in the Cup Final, and I'd struggle with that one as well. This isn't going to be the easy money I imagined.

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                                  And spelling his name wrong too ...

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                                    Bob Wilson was injured for the 1972 final. I remember him appearing on the BBC panel that day with his leg in plaster.

                                    Geoff Barnett is my mother's cousin.

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                                      I met Geoff Barnett when I interviewed him for Rock n Roll Soccer - top bloke. He drove 70 miles through the Minnesota winter to meet me (and then back). He also delivered one of my favourite stories in the book, about the day he didn't sign for the Cosmos.

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                                        That's Nice. He is a good bloke. I haven't actually seen him for a few years now since he retired from the pub he used to run in Cheshire not far from us.

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                                          Two for me recently. Ruud Gullit's "How to Watch Football", which is easily one of the worst-edited books I've ever read. Really all over the place. Much of it is not very good, but there are some bits around tactics that I thought were quite interesting (but would have been better if he'd had a better editor). Most against-type revelation: he liked Wimbledon's long-ball tactics. Not aesthetically or anything, but just "tactics are about doing what you have to do to compensate for a lack of talent" (that;s not actually a quote, more my summation of his thoughts).

                                          Also, David Conn's the Fall of FIFA. Not a bad summary of several related stories (and actually, he's done everyone a service by disentangling he various FIFA scandals - they all tend to blur into one after awhile) but it felt a bit cold. Someone had to write this book, but in some ways I'm sad it was David Conn. It lacks the passion which really animates his other books. I know we should all care about corruption in the game, but FIFA's corruption is in some ways kind of removed and abstract. It's not the local club, it;s not the South Yorkshire police, it's not your incompetent national FA (all previous targets of Conn's), and so it just never clicks the way his books usually do, despite some fine reporting.

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                                            For reasons I can't adequately explain, I just read Football's Secret Trade: How the Player Transfer Market was Infiltrated. It's not a book about transfers so much as it is a book about fractional ownership of players. There is some interesting stuff in there - the role played by a couple of Uruguayan second-divisions teams, the way that fractional ownership of players was a major factor in the rise of FC Twente and the downfall of Sporting Lisbon, etc. But overall it rivals that Gullit book for terrible editing. It reads more like a bunch of unrelated articles; a strong overall narrative is completely MIA.

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                                              Read The Mixer. It's billed as a tactical history of the Premiership (25 years in 25 chapters), but since as the first ten years or so didn't involve a lot of tactical innovation it's a weirdly lopsided book. The last ten chapters or so are pretty interesting, though. But for the first half, I kept thinking: "who's the audience for this book? English-speaking football anoraks who *don't* remember the Premiership before 2008? How many of those can there be?" As I say it got better, but first half was a slog.

                                              Cox's manner of describing tactics is kind of interesting - not quite like Wilson's. He often focusses on the issue of how teams get the most out of their best player(s) or how the best players used space. So Manchester from say 2002 to 2009 is not so much about the team as it is about van Nistelrooy's and Ronaldo's contrasting styles forced their own and opposing teams to play differently. More of a "how stars play" than "how teams play". Which may be of more interest to non-anoraks than the Wilson style, I guess.

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                                                Currently going through On The Brink: A Journey Through English Football's North West by Simon Hughes which has so far been entertaining, but drills a little too deeply in the economics of towns for my liking.

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                                                  So I finished the Bob Wilson book. It got a bit dull after a good start (see above) but then picked up when he started working in TV. Considering he was part if the Arsenal 71 double winning side the football career bit was a bit dull.

                                                  I got a sense that he both respected/admired and sort of hated Des Lynam. Reading between the lines there seems to be a difference between smiley Bob on camera and angry Bob backstage but he is willing to admit he has a temper and can be proud.

                                                  The last chapter, about his daughter's death from cancer was very moving. I felt moist-eyed a couple of times reading it.

                                                  One thing about books like this are the predictions of which players will go on to do well. In 2004, he felt Graham Stack and Stuart Taylor would go on to great things. It's not as glaring as Neville Southall predicting Nikita Jelavic would become an Everton great, but it's close.

                                                  There are some odd choices in the way the book is written. He breaks off from stories about celebrating success to talk about attendances, which feels like an odd way of assessing a game. There are also throwaway comments like being disappointed with how Alex Manninger turned out at Arsenal but not saying why he was disappointed.

                                                  So, all in all, a bit different to some other biographies. The early life stuff was very good. The TV stuff was interesting. The chapter about his daughter very moving. I'd give it a solid 7/10.

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                                                    Here's my list of 'goalkeeper books' I've read

                                                    Trautmann's Journey - Catrine Clay
                                                    More Than Somewhat - Bruce Grobbelaar
                                                    An Autobiography - Pat Jennings
                                                    the Boy Who Wanted to Fly - Don Mullan
                                                    the Incredible Adventures of the Unstoppable Keeper - Lutz Pfannenstiel
                                                    The Keeper of Dreams - Ronald Reng
                                                    A Life too Short - Ronald Reng
                                                    The Binman Chronicles - Neville Southall
                                                    Lost in France - Spencer Vignes
                                                    Behind the Network - Bob Wilson
                                                    The Outsider- A History of the Goalkeeper - Jonathan Wilson

                                                    Recommendations welcome. Also if anyone wants to rehome books by or about goalkeepers to a loving bookshelf then I'm happy to take them.

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