Search: 'Alan Gilzean'

The Lost Legacy of a Dundee and Spurs Legend
by James Morgan
Back Page Press, £9.99
Reviewed by Ken Gall
From WSC 286 December 2010

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Your reviewer approached this book with what can be fairly described as some scepticism. After all, can anything be more wearying than another "Where did it all go wrong, George?"/birds 'n' booze/study of a legend of the 1960s and 70s? Happily, however, while there are elements of the above, James Morgan's study of Alan Gilzean offers something else again; combining the career of a great player with an exploration of a personality at odds with our expectations of the great names of the past.

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Cameron Carter thought he was just sitting down at his computer, but instead found himself sucked into a whirlpool of bizarre and arcane football clips – plus the odd grilling labrador. That’s YouTube for you

If, for any reason, you were thinking of removing all structure from your life and severing ties with humanity, your first step might be to log in to YouTube and use football as a search theme. I embarked upon this experiment on a recent Friday afternoon with the beautiful phrase “Alan Sunderland 1979” and came up for air when it was dark outside – I think it was Sunday – having weakly tapped in “Monkey Football” and sifted through 599 related titles. YouTube is a separate reality, a democratic film utopia with the implied promise that in the future every image will be captured, nothing will be overlooked and, while you watch, food will be transferred directly into your stomach from a national grid.

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Ken Gall explains why fans are fuming at the press response to the recently proposed merger of the two Dundee clubs 

When Peter Marr – nightclub owner and chairman of Dundee FC – raised the possibility of his club mer­ging with neighbours Dundee United, there was, un­sur­prisingly, uproar among the fans of both clubs. Slightly more surprisingly, there was also a flurry of fav­ourable comment in the Scottish press.

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Matt Nation explains why his name can be added to the list of people who have had life-changing experiences involving Norman Hunter and a cinder pitch

Norman Hunter was one of the few players who would have induced me to wade bleeding and naked through an open sewer for a chance to see him, such was the esteem in which I held him. Although in the twilight of his career when he arrived at Bristol City, he was still famous, still a cut above the rest and still capable of turning the flow of a game by scything down the opponents’ playmaker in full flight. If there was one man who definitively captured and held my interest in football, that man was Norman Hunter.

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