Book reviews

Ken Gall describes Gretna's meteoric rise from the depths of English football to taking the Scottish Third division by storm

To those sadly unenlightened individuals not au fait with the gálactico-fest that is the Scottish Third Division, the news that Gretna FC had only just lost a seven-goal classic to Dundee United in the third round of the Scottish Cup might have caused some surprise. (Among those so surprised would be those Bolton Wanderers fans who can recall their side knocking Gretna out of the FA Cup just over ten years ago.)

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Whatever happens to Diego Maradona, the people of Naples will still love him and the city is the first European destination for a travelling exhibition about him, as Paul Virgo reports

Today Diego Maradona is an obese, emotionally fragile, addiction-ridden wreck. Which is very sad. But it also makes it easier for England fans to drop the 1986 World Cup grudge and allow themselves to ap­preciate his genius. Anyone wanting to completely purge their soul of rancour can pay a visit to M10, an exhibition devoted to his life, currently in Naples.

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Has Peter Reid’s departure from Coventry spelt the end of his managerial career? The real puzzle, Andy Dawson argues, is how he has been allowed to work so long

Peter Reid is not a criminal. He has never boiled a child, nor has he masterminded an elaborate bog­us pyramid selling scheme. But if he had, it is unlikely that the resulting hurt would be comparable to the distress and anger his decisions and actions in the past decade or so have caused people. Well, maybe apart from if he was a child-boiler. His recent miserable reign at Coventry City, mercifully brought to an end by Monkey Heed himself, should ensure that he will never manage a football club again. Like the existence of a global al-Qaida network, the idea that Reid is a competent football manager is a myth.

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Not all ex-Sunderland bosses are unemployable. Burnley fan Kevin Clarke looks at the amazing success of Steve Cotterill

Pundits often express disappointment at the lack of young English managers flourishing and the fact that top clubs appoint foreign coaches with the rest of the jobs swallowed up by the same old names. In Burnley, however, a quiet revolution is taking place, spearheaded by a man whose public stock was very low be­fore this season. Step forward Steve Cotterill.

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Nottingham Forest have lost another manager and are playing their worst football of most fans’ lifetimes. Al Needham looks around frantically for signs of hope

When Joe Kinnear accused the supporters of Nottingham Forest of living in a time warp last month after resigning as manager, it was hard to deny that he had a point. After all, fans in pubs, factories and offices across the city have done little else this season than casting their minds back and trying to remember a Forest team as uniformly lamentable as the current one. The relegation teams of 1993, ’97 or ’99? The Matt Gillies-Dave Mackay-Allan Brown era of the early 70s, when Forest trod water in the old Second Division?

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