Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
A Life in Football
by Egon Theiner & Elisabeth Schlammerl
Liberties Press, £10.99
Reviewed by Jonathan O'Brien
From WSC 259 September 2008
Giovanni Trapattoni couldn’t have enjoyed a smoother entrance to the Republic of Ireland job. An initial whirlwind of adulatory obeisance was followed by two inept friendly performances that helpfully dampened down expectations, though Trap was wily enough not to lose either game.
by Lou Macari
Bantam, £18.99
Reviewed by Jonathan O'Brien
From WSC 263 January 2009
There’s a 30-year-old piece of footage, buried somewhere in the BBC’s archives, of Lou Macari leaning out of the window of the Scotland team bus to talk to Tony Gubba, an hour or so after the 1-1 draw with Iran at the World Cup in Argentina. Despite the awfulness of the result, Macari looks awesomely relaxed, even though you can hear the enraged Scottish fans baying for the team’s blood outside. If his own account in this book is to be believed, the cheekily carefree Macari of 1978 is long gone and not coming back.
A Journey To The Heart Of Football
by William Barr
Morrow & Co, £8.99
Reviewed by Neil Rose
From WSC 265 March 2009
Just where is the heart of football? That is the question posed by William Barr in this slightly curious book whose title sums up the whole venture.
Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly
by Jeff Stelling
Harper Sport, £15.99
Reviewed by Roger Titford
From WSC 270 August 2009
Not long ago I bought a remaindered copy of Barry Davies’ autobiography, Interesting, Very Interesting. “Toe-curling, very toe-curling” would have been more appropriate. Likewise, Jeff Stelling has drawn from the well of his own commentary for a title. In his case he confesses the pun on the Mansfield defender’s name was many months premeditated and this tells you all you need to know about his (or hopefully his ghost’s) style. But the truth is both Barry and Jeff are among my very favourite football broadcasters. Stelling has created in Soccer Saturday the only programme where I prefer the Sky offering to the BBC and he has used it as a platform to half-escape the backwater of satellite TV for Channel 4’s Countdown.
The Autobiography
Norman Whiteside
Headline, £18.99
Reviewed by Joyce Woolridge
From WSC 249 November 2007
It’s June 1991, and Norman Whiteside won’t get out of bed. His fearless attitude on the pitch inspired a Manchester United fanzine, The Shankhill Skinhead, but he spends his “bed-in” crying, unable to come to terms with the reality that he is finished as a footballer at 26. So begins Determined, his autobiography, and he spares readers none of the harrowing details as he traces how a series of medical decisions, made in good faith and often the standard treatment then available, had, as he puts it, “done for him” by the time he was 18. By that tender age he is unable to rotate his hips, giving him his trademark robotic-style run, has lost his pace, and has a knee in which bone grinds against bone. Chips will henceforth regularly flake off into the joint, causing excruciating pain, swelling it up to the size of a swede, necessitating further surgery. Injuries used to be discussed in macho style in football autobiographies, an inevitable consequence of a man’s game, the honourable scars of battle. The recent trend of revealing the pain, both physical and mental, of professional football is refreshing and welcome, if often difficult to read without wincing.