Book reviews

Gary McAllister has been asked to come up with some ideas to revive Coventry on a zero budget. Neville Hadsley is impressed so far, but not quite won over

When Gary McAllister walked into the job of player-man­ager at Highfield Road, he came with plenty of baggage from his last stint with the Sky Blues – and acquired a few awkward bits of hand-luggage left be­hind by his immediate predecessors too. His time as a player had not been an unalloyed success: two med­i­ocre seasons (the rest of the team arguably as much at fault as he); another spent injured – no crime there, but hardly a plus point; and a final season in which, thanks bizarrely to a partnership with Carlton Palmer, he performed so brilliantly that he earned him­self a free transfer to Liverpool.

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Two years after being in charge of England, Peter Taylor is helping out at Peterborough. Barney Ronay investigates his peculiar career and eternal youth

For Peter Taylor, former England coach turned Pet­erborough United hired hand, life really is like a box of chocolates. You just don’t know what you’re go­ing to get next. Apparently cast as a kind of foot­balling Forrest Gump, Taylor’s story is remarkable for the speed of his climb to the heights, and even more so for the vertigo-inducing plummet in his fortunes over the last two years.

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Peter Taylor's latest port of call is Peterborough, where many of the supporters are waiting impatiently for the end of the Barry Fry era. Darren Fletcher reports

Nobody knows what is happening at Peterborough. Not the fans, nor the media and nor, it seems, the manager or the chairman. Six seasons ago, Barry Fry took over the club. How­ever, having written himself a rolling three-year contract, he gave up the idea to let a wealthy local businessman, Peter Boizot, take the reins while Fry concentrated on the football. The season before Peterborough had finished 16th in the Second Division and the new manager promised he would take us out of that div­ision. Following numerous triple sub­- stitutions, he did – into the Third.

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The decline of Scotland and Austria was encapsulated by a Champions League game in 2000 featuring hardly any Scots or Austrians, as Cris Freddi recalls

This being the Champions League, Rangers weren’t expected to stay around for long. It’s been the story of their lives for the last decade or so. This time at least they’d given themselves a real chance of reaching the second round, winning their first two group matches 5-0 against today’s opponents and 1-0 in Monaco. But this was a right rollercoaster of a group, and by the time they arrived in Graz they’d taken only one point from two matches with Galatasaray, while Sturm had won 2-0 at home to Monaco, who then thumped the Istanbul side.

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With financial uncertainty and franchising in the air, Barney Ronay looks at Fulham's 'temporary' move

Fulham fans really are extremely stylish and well dressed individuals. Certainly, the group of people queuing to buy tickets on the morning of the Cottag­ers’ first Premiership fixture at Loftus Road look a sartorial cut above your average football supporter. Designer labels mingle with vintage denim. Beneath immaculately styled hair, Gucci sunglasses glint in the August haze. The Fulham look is retro, perfectly acces­sor­ised… and strangely Japanese.

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