Book reviews

From foresight to hindsight, sound judgements to naked prejudices, Joyce Woolridge sifts through, as the man himself put it, “the **** in the papers” written about the Beckham transfer saga

David Beckham’s transfer to Real Madrid has pro­vided the press with a close-season story beyond its wildest imaginings. The amount of print dedicated to increasingly wild speculation about the sale of (variously) “The boy who got too big for his boots” or “An England hero” led Beckham himself, according to the Manchester Evening News, to text his Dad in disbelief: “Can you believe all this **** in the papers?” Most of what was written was best described as **** flowing copiously on to the pages of broadsheet and tabloid.

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Has any recent transfer been as fateful as Leeds United selling Eric Cantona to Manchester United? Duncan Young recalls the Frenchman’s spell in Yorkshire

It’s difficult to imagine now, but in November 1992 selling Eric Cantona to Manchester United didn’t seem like such a crazy idea. Six months previously he had been the talisman of Leeds’s first championship success since 1974 and the near-mythical reign of Don Revie. The funny thing is, he didn’t actually play that much.

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He may have played in white then blue, but Robbie Fowler will always be a Red to David Bendelow who has moved from shock to acceptance over his transfer

The poll on a Liverpool website sum­med it up nicely. Asked about Robbie Fowler’s move to Leeds, 28 per cent claimed it was “the end of the world” while a more reasoned 25 per cent viewed it as “sound management”. But the 47 per cent voting “Cheers la, good luck” put it best. In other words, we had seen the best of Robbie Fowler and now the decent thing was to wave him on his way and wish him well. Injuries had taken their toll and the instinctive goal-­poacher who ran amok in the mid-1990s would never be as good.

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An Englishman you’ve never heard of who carries the football hopes of a nation of one billion people? That’s Stephen Constantine, as Dan Brennan explains

If the FA’s decision to make the FIFA Pro Licence a mandatory qualification is set to send managers up and down the country scrabbling for their revision notes, one man who won’t be suffering pre-exam nerves is Stephen Constantine. On paper, at least, Con­stantine is probably the most qualified British coach around. The FIFA A Licence and Full Badge Licence already feature on a managerial CV that runs to several pages, and he expects the Pro Licence to follow. At 40 he is one of the youngest coaches to sit on the FIFA instructors’ panel and is the only Englishman.

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Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia – British coaches are everywhere, reports Gavin Willacy. And if you’ve ever wondered what happened to Gus Caesar, read on

If the current trend of importing highly talented Chinese players in to the English Premier League continues, there will soon be more Asians earning a living playing football in the UK than there will Brits in Asia. But although the number of ex-pats on the pitch in the Orient is diminishing, British coaches are still much in demand.

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