Book reviews

My Life and Crimes as a Football Hatchet Man
by Peter Storey
Mainstream Publishing, £16.99
Reviewed by Jon Spurling
From WSC 287 January 2011

Buy this book

Arsenal's Double triumph in the 1970–71 season garnered few of the plaudits which Tottenham had received ten years earlier after winning both the Championship and the FA Cup. Critics insisted that Charlie George (who was injured for much of the season) and George Graham aside, the team was overly functional and, to put it bluntly, dull.  No player appeared to typify the Gunners' distinctly blue-collar, often attritional approach better than midfield enforcer Peter Storey. Granted assorted nicknames during his career, including "Cold Eyes" and "Snouty" (due to his ability to "sniff" out weaknesses in the opposition's midfield), former Chelsea skipper and fellow 1970s hatchet man Ron "Chopper" Harris recently labelled Storey "the bastard's bastard".

Read more…

The Autobiography
by Rick Holden
DB Publishing, £16.99
Reviewed by Dan Turner
From WSC 288 February 2011

Buy this book

A touchline-hugging, slaloming winger of the old school, Rick Holden brought a swagger to the teams he played for and a left peg capable of laser-guided crosses. Fans also loved his unusual reputation as both a footballing intellectual and all-purpose off-field loon. Read his autobiography and you'll quickly realise that this image is entirely based on fact.

Read more…

Captain of the North
by Stan Anderson & Mark Metcalf
Sportsbooks, £17.99
Reviewed by Joe Boyle
From WSC 292 June 2011

Buy this book

The urge to revisit football's once firmly embedded localism strengthens the more global the Premier League becomes. As local heroes go, Stan Anderson is hard to beat. Born in County Durham in 1933, Anderson is the only man to captain all three major north-east clubs. The bulk of his career was spent at Sunderland, playing at wing-half, a now defunct defensive midfield position. Anderson's instincts, however, were to push on, resulting in 46 goals in just over 500 appearances.

Read more…

A Life of Two Halves
by Paul Lake
Century, £14.99
Reviewed by Tony Curran
From WSC 295 September 2011

Buy this book

Despite his prodigious talent and popularity as a player at Manchester City, I seem to recall that Paul Lake had a slight image problem with the wider public. Rather like Glenn Hoddle at Tottenham, Lake's languid, easy style and comfortable technique were revered by home fans but occasionally perceived as being rather too effortless by some less enlightened outsiders who preferred their heroes to demonstrate more tangible evidence of commitment.

Read more…

My autobiography
by Chris Sutton with Mark Guidi
Black & White, £18.99
Reviewed by Jonathan O'Brien
From WSC 302 April 2012

Buy this book

No one who remembers Chris Sutton needlessly humiliating David Tanner of Sky Sports during one of Celtic's on-pitch title celebrations in the early 2000s – "Chris, just what is it that has made Celtic champions this year?" "We got more points than anyone else" – would describe him as an easy character to like. If Sutton has never come across an amiable type, that is because he has never made the slightest attempt to present himself that way.

Read more…