Book reviews

Neil Rose paints a sorry picture of Luton Town

I wanted to believe, really I did. I wanted to be­lieve Luton Town could become “the largest club in Europe”. I wanted to believe we would have a 75,000-seat indoor stadium that also accommodated a Grand Prix track, from which we would net a clean £200 million profit a year once Luton took its rightful place alongside Mon­aco and the rest on the Formula One cal­endar. I even wanted to believe our new sta­dium would be home to NFL and NBA fran­chises and that thousands of Europe-based Americans would travel to it.

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Paul Ashley-Jones explains why TNS will be a force to be reckoned with in the Welsh Premier next season

When this year’s UEFA Cup draw was made, there cannot have been any greater sense of anticlimax than that felt by Manchester City when they were drawn against Total Network Solutions. Still, at least it should mean a straightforward passage into the next round for Kevin Keegan’s team, with no one really expecting an upset against a team based in Llansantffraid, a mid-Wales village of under 1,000 people. No one, that is, except Mike Har­ris, chairman and owner of TNS Football Club, who has gone on record as expressing his condolences to City for the fact that their long-awaited European adventure is to finish so soon. This is the same Mike Harris who has predicted his TNS side will become the second largest team in Wales, behind only Cardiff City, within five years.

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Some Manchester City fans just don’t want to let their old ground go and spent a few hundred quid at auction to make sure they never have to, as Helen Duff  reports

Though the wake for Maine Road was held on the last day of the season, the will reading had to wait until high summer. On a scorching Sunday morning in July, Manchester City fans converged for one final time on the stadium that had served their team through 80 turbulent years – to bid for its fixtures and fittings. The auction spelled a temporary change of emphasis for City, from eager anticipation of the future (this was the week in which an excited Kevin Keegan had taken custody of the keys to the club’s sparkling new 48,000-seat stadium) to bittersweet retrospection.

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Roman Abramovich's takeover of Chelsea has sent shock waves through football not just in England but across the world. Dan Brennan discusses some of the wilder rumours doing the rounds in Moscow and wonders whether we will have to become accustomed to Russian oligarchs following in Roman's footsteps

Roman Abramovich is undeniably good news for tabloid hacks and T-shirt sellers, but will he be good news for Chelsea Football Club? On the face of it, of course, the injection of his thus far limitless millions, which during the last month have allowed the press to link the Blues to just about every A-list star from six continents, are a supporter’s and a manager’s dream (even if Claudio Ranieri would prefer it if he was asked first). And, if Ken Bates is to be believed, Abramovich’s roubles have saved the club from near extinction. So, for the moment at least, all around him are bowing down to the Roman emperor.

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Chelsea fan Mike Ticher pays grudging and limited tribute to the man who has run the Blues for good or ill for the past 21 years – and isn’t going anywhere just yet

For more than 20 years, Chelsea have been run by a man who has sailed close to the wind in his business dealings. Some of Ken Bates’s closest associates have been in serious trouble with the law and the ownership of the controlling stake in Chelsea Village was of­ficially a mystery for many years.

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