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Search: ' Gerry Francis'

Stories

Focus on Lucas Radebe: Leeds United’s master of the last-ditch tackle

Henry Radebe 1 001126Csport 800px

The South African took time to adapt to the English game but went on to play a crucial role as Leeds regularly challenged in the Premier League and Europe under David O’Leary

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The Team That Dared To Do: Tottenham 1994-95

377 GerryFrancis

by Gerry Francis and Chris Slegg
Pitch Publishing, £16.99
Reviewed by Alan Fisher
From WSC 377, July/August 2018
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The Biography Of Tottenham Hotspur

314 Spursby Julie Welch
Vision Sports, £20
Reviewed by Alan Fisher
From WSC 314 April 2013

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The Twitter hashtag #againstmodernfootball is hardly a scientific dissection of the faults of the modern game but it has become an outpouring of genuine frustration and growing disenchantment: exorbitant ticket prices, alienated and marginalised fans, an obsession with the here and now and instant success. Julie Welch’s Biography Of Tottenham Hotspur is not only a revealing insight into the club, it could well restore your faith in football.

Welch traces the development of the club’s character and personality, showing there is more to a football club’s history than a list of players, matches and trophies. Her beloved Danny Blanchflower’s statement that it’s not just about winning, it’s about glory and doing things in style, articulates a culture and identity that dates back to the club’s formation in the 1880s, when three schoolboys met under a lamp-post 100 yards from the current ground.

Harry Redknapp and André Villas-Boas come from different schools of management but both talked of the need to play good football the Spurs way. Arthur Rowe’s pioneering “push and run” won a League title in 1951. He was influenced by another innovator, Peter McWilliam, Spurs boss in the 1920s, and in turn inspired the incomparable Bill Nicholson to bring unparalleled success in the 1960s and early 1970s. The familiar mixture of flamboyance and exasperation, the sublime and erratic, would be instantly recognisable to successive generations of Spurs fans.

We deny history at our peril. Alan Sugar saved the club but he understood the balance sheet better than his heritage, hence the crushing mediocrity of the 1990s with Christian Gross, Gerry Francis and George Graham. Then again, there’s nothing new under the sun. Financial crises, businessmen wanting to profit by moving the ground, an ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: any decade at Spurs, not just 
the last one.

Welch is an author and screenwriter, the first woman football reporter in Fleet Street to have her own byline. She is a beguiling storyteller who tells the tale with a curiosity and style that sweeps the reader along. The air of artistry and magic seduced her as a schoolgirl but it’s not quite right to suggest they entice fans these days. Peer pressure, family ties or blind accident are more common factors. However once committed it keeps us there, becoming part of who we are.

The nature of Spurs’ identity as a Jewish club is the only omission, perhaps because although it’s an independent publication, unusually the club have co-operated and are shy of potential controversy. The absence of statistics and tables may dismay lovers of detail, who will point to several 
proof-reading errors.

It’s a beautiful book, wonderfully written, that is essential for Spurs fans and deserves to be widely read because it is about perspective, culture and identity, precious to fans everywhere yet under attack. Read it and I defy you to tell me that finishing fourth in the Premier League is what truly matters.

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The Black Flash

306 Black Flash The Albert Johanneson story
by Paul Harrison
Vertical, £15.99
Reviewed by Ashley Clark
From WSC 306 August 2012

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Paul Harrison’s The Black Flash attempts, through a combination of autobiography, oral history and the author’s own observation, to unspool the tragic tale of Albert Johanneson. The South African-born Leeds United forward endured racism on and off the field, became the first black footballer to play in an FA Cup final (in 1965), and eventually succumbed to alcoholism and an early death in 1995.

The meat of this frequently depressing but compelling book is comprised of large chunks of unexpurgated testimony from Johanneson, framed by explanatory passages from Harrison. It is at its best when its subject’s voice is at the forefront.

Johanneson, looking back on his life following the collapse of his career, paints a vividly evocative picture of his youth in a divided South Africa, where racist violence was commonplace and police were viewed as little more than “paid killers”.

Johanneson was scouted and offered the opportunity to play in England but as soon as he stepped off the plane he was branded a “nigger” by a passerby at London Airport. Though team-mates Billy Bremner and Grenville Hair looked out for him, and he found a friend in fellow black South African Gerry Francis, the impression is of a lonely, shy soul thrown to the wolves.

It is harrowing to read about the constant abuse Johanneson received. It is not difficult to imagine how the deep psychological scars from this continued mistreatment might have contributed to his eventual fate.

Though Harrison is clearly reluctant to demonise his Leeds heroes – including Don Revie, who comes across as a cold bully – The Black Flash paints a grim picture of a wider footballing community who hadn’t the first idea how to engage seriously with the pressures faced by Johanneson.

Sadly, the book is beset by structural problems. Harrison is inclined to interject with his own largely irrelevant opinions on the state of modern football and subjects such as political correctness. Key elements of Johanneson’s experience (his marriage, divorce, descent into alcoholism and early death) are sprinted through in a matter of mere pages toward the book’s conclusion.

Though obtaining information must have been difficult – Johanneson was essentially a homeless drunk by the time of his death – and the man’s wishes not to discuss his family should be respected, the book feels as though it is missing a sizeable, vital element.

There is also a conspicuous lack of attention to detail. In one particularly flagrant case, a significant passage of Johanneson’s testimony is repeated twice within the space of 16 pages. The Black Flash feels like it has missed out on a final edit.

Despite its flaws, the books is a worthwhile, instructive and often shocking read, especially in the context of a challenging year for football, when racism has once again made headlines. Harrison’s decency and commitment shine through in a tale that adds flesh to the bones of the story of a key figure in British football history – a man who slipped through the cracks, but helped to pave the way for future black footballers.

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Queens Park Rangers 1975-76

Thirty years ago a west London club very nearly won the title – and it would have been a popular success, too. Graham Dunbar recalls QPR's finest 42 games

It is April 17, 2006, Easter Monday, and Queens Park Rangers lose 3-2 at Norwich in the definitive meaningless and mediocre end-of-season game. Two teams playing second-rate, second-tier football in what could be the worst five-goal affair anyone has seen; a match with no significance beyond reminding both clubs that the Premiership is a distant dream.

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