Book reviews

David Lee was good enough to play 150 league games for Chelsea in the 1980s and 1990s – but was only worth one game for Matt Nation's Sunday league side

It was unclear what exactly Bob Lee said or did to his kid brother in the car park before the match, but it certainly did the trick. After a couple of minutes of Chinese burns, dead legs and threats to tell Mum ex­actly what was in those magazines on top of the ward­robe, little David came back and agreed that, al­though he’d only come along to watch and even though he’d just broken into the Chelsea first team, he would deign to make up the numbers for his brother’s Sunday league team after all.

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When taking over at QPR, Ian Holloway did not realise the severity of the situation he was getting into. Here he talks to Barney Ronay about administration, finances and Kevin Gallen

QPR were among the clubs to have been traumatised recently by relegation from the Premiership. What was it like being a manager picking up the pieces?
Funnily enough it was all a bit of a shock for me at the time, because I didn’t know quite how bad things were. We were talk­ing just before deadline day about doing this and doing that, we even made an offer for a player with money it turned out in hindsight we didn’t have. It was a very difficult time. It also brought some reality. For the fans it was a shock, rather than moaning about where we are, to realise that we might not even be on the map. With the gates we get, that was 13,000 people looking like they might not have a team any more. The players were concerned about being paid, and all credit to David Davis and Chris Wright, they did keep paying us. But what we had to try and do was overcome the fact that we’d had a rich sugar daddy who’d built up a huge gap between what we were paying our players and what the fans were paying to come in and watch us. Feeling that the whole thing might die at any moment was very, very difficult.

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The transfer window system has found few friends in England – but Barney Ronay believes it can help save the critics from their own excesses

Chairmen are raiding their piggy banks, agents are warming up their fax machines and all over the coun­try costly foreign imports are nervously checking their passports. The transfer window is open and no one knows quite what to expect. Although, those with most to lose have already had their say on the matter.

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Chris Ramsey is a successful black English manager – but he's working in South Carolina, where Gavin Willacy found him bitter at his treatment in his homeland

Chris Ramsey spreads his arms out wide, palms up to the cloudless sky, and looks around him at the neat yellow stands of Blackbaud Stadium. “Just think about it,” he asks. “Where would I want to be? Here or Rochdale?” The coach of Charleston Battery, arguably the best club in America’s A-League (one level below the MLS), expects the answer to be “here”, in idyllic South Carolina, where the air rarely dips below 70 deg­rees. But challenge him and he admits he would love to be coaching back home in England. The pro­blem is, he’s black. “Being black has certainly been a stumbling block in my career,” he claims. “Put it this way, I’ve had obstacles to overcome that other coaches haven’t.”

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Leroy Rosenior is settling in well as the far south-west's latest black manager, but Nick House is puzzled by the route that took the former striker to Plainmoor

It’s fair to say Leroy Rosenior’s appointment as Torquay United’s first-team coach – manager in old money – met with some scepticism. The concern was simple yet forceful: was he any good? Reports from travellers were decidedly mixed: acclaimed as part of a trio at Bristol City; steady at Gloucester; hardly a suc­cess at Merthyr

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