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Search: ' Martin Keown'

Stories

Ticket To The Moon: Aston Villa – The rise and fall of a European champion

384 Villa

by Richard Sydenham
DeCoubertin, £18.99
Reviewed by Damon Green
From WSC 384, March 2019
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Here We Go

357 HereWeGoEverton in the 1980s
by Simon Hart
De Coubertin Books, £18.99
Reviewed by Jamie Rainbow
From WSC 357 November 2016

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Simon Hart’s book consists of 13 in-depth interviews with many of the key figures that formed Everton’s great team of the 1980s. This period of footballing success for both Liverpool clubs coincided with a turbulent time when football provided a welcome release from the city’s acute economic and social problems. It’s a facile theory perhaps, but one grounded in reality and one the Everton players took at face value. It’s to Hart’s credit that he weaves a poignant narrative through these interviews without succumbing to undue sentimentality.

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So Good I Did It Twice

332 SheedyMy life from left field
by Kevin Sheedy
SportMedia, £14.99
Reviewed by Mark O’Brien
From WSC 332 October 2014

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Paul McGrath and Tony Cascarino’s autobiographies are renowned as two of the most caustic and revealing footballing books in recent times. Their former Republic of Ireland international team-mate Kevin Sheedy has written his life story now but anyone expecting soul searching in the same vein as Back From The Brink or Full Time is likely to be disappointed.

Sheedy’s story is told in a fashion that could most politely be described as “breezy”. From a youngster at Hereford to a bit-part player at Liverpool before becoming a key part in the all-conquering Everton side of the mid-1980s – then rounding off his playing career at Newcastle United and Blackpool – it’s all dealt with in the same cheery, almost 
matter-of-fact fashion.

It’s quite an old-school approach, even throwing in some “any other business” chapters near the end, where Sheedy gives his opinions on the perils of social media facing today’s young players and picks a best XI from his former Everton and Ireland team-mates. Among that throwaway page-filler then it’s a shock to come across a section which deals with his recent treatment for bowel cancer. A more modern style might have made that the touchstone for the whole book, reflecting on his career in the light of the grave news of his illness, but maintaining the light-hearted tone Sheedy concentrates instead on a nurse pulling back the sheets following his operation and declaring: “Oh my god, they’ve cut your cock off!”

He comes across as a thoroughly nice fella then, but it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. While Evertonians have probably read just about everything it’s possible to know about Rotterdam and the League wins under Howard Kendall, Sheedy was privy to the break-up of that great side and the start of the club’s decline and it would have been illuminating to know more about that process. He was in fact part of an infamous incident that is seen as emblematic of the chaos that reigned at Goodison during Kendall’s second spell in charge, when he had a fight with Martin Keown in a Chinese restaurant. He brushes it aside though, blaming his behaviour on the fact that he was unaware that the players had been buying him glasses of wine when normally he only drank it with soda. Seems plausible.

He tells his own collection of Jack Charlton anecdotes too – the Ireland manager left him out of a squad altogether for a match and then added insult to injury by trying to send him on as a sub – and the Italia 90 section is probably the best bit of the book.

The title, by the way, refers to an incident at Goodison in March 1985. Sheedy lashed a free-kick past Ipswich’s Paul Cooper and into the top-right corner. When ordered to be retaken he simply placed it in the top left. So good he did it twice. Unfortunately though, once is more than enough when it comes to reading his book.

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Crusaders 1 Fulham 3

It’s a big day for the home team as they unveil ground improvements against Premier League opposition. The Londoners face a stern test but everyone goes home smiling. Robbie Meredith reports

The last time I went to a Fulham game was on a dull and cold night in Hamburg last year, when a late extra-time goal from Diego Forlán denied them an unlikely European trophy. Watching the team at Seaview, the compact home of Irish League part-timers Crusaders, I wonder if any of the players involved against Atlético Madrid allow themselves to think that tonight’s game could be an early step to a similar occasion next May. Do they, in the words of their supporters’ song, still believe?

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Jobbing for José

After José Mourinho and his Real Madrid side received hefty criticism upon their Champions League elimination at the hands of Barcelona, just how special is “The Special one?”

It has been a great month for conspiracy theorists. The death of Osama bin Laden has offered more questions than answers, the timing of the AV vote so soon after the Royal Wedding was viewed by some as a cunning Conservative ploy and José Mourinho, football’s chief polemicist, has been ruminating and ranting about the injustices of the world.

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