Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
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.”
Paul Hutton reflects on a sordid affair north of the border
It’s enough to make even Marti Pellow weep – on July 9 Clydebank, the club whose shirts were once sponsored by Wet Wet Wet, ceased to exist as a Scottish League club. Having survived more traumas in the last few years than anyone deserves, Clydebank were finally sold by the administrators to a Glasgow-based accountant and Airdrie fan, Jim Ballantyne. They will play next season’s fixtures as tenants in the ground left vacant by Airdrie’s liquidation, in Airdrie’s colours, under the name Airdrie United.
From top to bottom, in Britain and abroad, fooball's finances are in a mess. Dave Jennings examines the plight of one club, Bradford City
I was sitting in my usual seat at Valley Parade, but something was badly wrong. There were only about 200 people there, and we were watching a truly dire game. A handful of away fans were chanting “Hello, hello, League rejects”. Fortunately, I then woke up and realised that it had all been a particularly vivid nightmare. Bradford City weren’t a non-League club… yet.
Is Terry Venables really any good as a coach? Leeds' new manager is the subject of this month's Head to Head
Yes ~
I met Terry Venables once. He’d brought out a rather bizarre board game called The Manager and was trying to sell it as a TV programme. I was hired to answer the quiz questions on it in front of some BBC bigwigs. They didn’t take it up and I had to spend the morning with Eric Hall, so it wasn’t a successful day.
Gillingham will have to persevere without their leading light in attack, as Haydn Parry reports
Gillingham will be spending the season without their leading scorer Marlon King, after the striker’s appeal against a conviction for handling stolen goods, namely a BMW convertible, was rejected in July. King’s sentence of 18 months, initially handed down at the Inner London Crown Court on May 10, will now begin from the date of the appeal.