Book reviews

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.

Read more…

Tranmere fans fear their newly redeveloped stadium may not be long for this world. Tony Morris reports on the chairman's post-ITV Digital manoeuvring

Dave Watson is not the first manager to be sacked after a heavy defeat and he won’t be the last. But events surrounding his dismissal by Tranmere Rovers – after a 7-0 pre-season friendly loss to Birmingham City – hint at something more than another knee-jerk reaction by a club chairman.

Read more…

David Harrison explains why Watford decided to sell their stadium again after they had just bought it. It wasn't because they didn't like the colour

The trouble with detailing recent boardroom activity at Watford is that the goalposts keep mov­ing – on­­ly metaphorically to date, but confidence is dwin­dling that that is how it will stay. In February 2001, the club confirmed, to widespread local rejoicing, that re­location plans had finally and irrevocably proved fruitless. Three months later they announced they would pay a six-figure sum to buy the ground from the existing freeholders, Punch Taverns, thus “securing their fut­ure at Vicarage Road in perpetuity”. Hankies out.

Read more…

Harry Pearson welcomes a new biography of the Charlton brothers that looks more sympathetically on Bobby's personality and flays his detractors

When it comes to the Charlton brothers, most peo­ple probably concur with the assessment Big Jack apparently delivered to Ron Atkinson: “Our kid was the better footballer, but I am the better bloke.”

Read more…

Colin Peel searches in vain for a long history of exciting derbies in the Second City, as Aston Villa and Birmingham City prepare to resume hostilities

Blues v Villa is the derby that football forgot. No other big city rivalry has had to wait as long for its protagonists to renew the duel for league supremacy. December 12, 1987, was the date of the last clash, in the Second Division, which saw Villa triumph 2-1 in front of 28,000 at St Andrews. Both Villa and their man­­ager that day, an enterprising chap called Graham Taylor, were bound for promotion. For Blues, things got much worse before the current owners began the transformation which has the put the club where it is today.

Read more…