Book reviews

Sectarian chanting in Glasgow is in decline, but new unpleasantries have emerged. Now, the target for some at Rangers is Jock Stein. Alex Anderson is ashamed of what some of his fellow fans sing

Initially, I thought the jaunty new chant I heard at Ibrox last winter was “Red, White, Blue! Red, White, Blue!”. It was only when it reached my section of the ground that I realised those three syllables were actually “Big Jock Knew”. The “Big Jock” is Jock Stein, arguably the greatest manager Britain has produced and the nemesis of Rangers’ post-war domination in Scotland. He is slanderously and ridiculously accused of “knowing” of and failing to report the instances of child abuse that occurred in the late Sixties and early Seventies at Celtic Boys Club – a feeder club established in 1966 which coaches boys from under-tens to late teens. A former coach, Jim Torbert, was eventually jailed in 1998 for having molested several boys over a seven-year period.

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Al Needham has met a fair few footballers in Nottingham but the experience has been far from rewarding

Whenever a friend of mine gets into a pub argument about Manchester United (which is often), he relates the following story: when he worked in one of Nottingham’s trendier clothes shops in the early Nineties, the only place that had Timberland boots in stock, Roy Keane came in. After a nod from his manager, my friend mentioned the obligatory 25 per cent discount. “And he didn’t say thank you or anything, he just walked out the shop with the boots under his arm,” my friend says, his face screwed up in a righteous sneer, as he prepares to unleash the killer line. “And he had his fucking jumper tucked into his jeans, the… the twat.”

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Phil Ball has had some dodgy encounters from Grimsby to Spain

My encounters with footballers got off to a bad start. Back in the Jurassic period, when players were still awarded testimonials for ten years’ service (they would now simply be accused of being unambitious), Grimsby’s goalkeeper Harry Wainman was fortunate enough to count on the presence of one Frank Worthington for his particular bash, invited to play because his less famous brother, Dave, was Grimsby’s full-back at the time. I was 15, and had just bagged Worthington’s sister (Julie) as my girlfriend. It still remains my only achievement in life.

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Manchester United proclaim their finances to be in excellent good health. Yet, as Ashley Shaw reports, with the Glazers’ debt and a stuttering global economy the figures simply don’t add up

Manchester United’s recent announcement of record profits fooled few in the media and has only reignited anti-Glazer feeling among supporters. Timed to capitalise on the feel-good factor at the club in the wake of a successful 18 months during which they regained the title and discovered they had within their ranks a genuinely world-class player, the press conference only succeeded in throwing up more questions than it answered.

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Joyce Woolridge examines the events and publications marking the 50th anniversary of the tragic incident

As the 50th anniversary of the 1958 plane crash that killed 23 people, including eight Manchester United footballers, approached, the club announced that there would be a new memorial “both significant and easily accessible to all who visit the ground”. This deceptively bland statement nevertheless revealed the club’s anxiety to avoid potential controversy. Why the commemoration of the tragedy should be so fraught with difficulty lies partly in the past, in the continuing dispute about the ways in which victims of the crash were and still are treated. Also, Man Utd’s recent ownership history has left the club, in the eyes of its critics, unworthy to “own” or exploit the disaster’s memory commercially.

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