Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
Stephen Wagg tries to make sense of Peter Taylor's departure from Leicester
I was glad, I have to admit, when Peter Taylor was made manager of Leicester City in the summer of 2000. He seemed a gentler soul than his predecessor, the frequently tetchy Martin O’Neill. He’d been a successful steward of the England Under-21 side and apparently everyone in the English football world attested to his ability as a coach.
Tim Springett looks at Stuart Gray's sorry experience at Southampton and charges the club with mishandling both his appointment and his sacking
For the third campaign in a row, Southampton have undergone a mid-season change of manager. Six points from the first seven games of the season had the pressure building on Stuart Gray and, as Saints prepared to take on West Ham on October 20, it was a fair bet that the losing manager might find himself out of a job by the following Monday. The Hammers’ 2-0 victory earned Glenn Roeder a breathing space but Saints’ chairman Rupert Lowe duly wielded the axe.
David Harrison looks back on the life of Bertie Mee – a truly unique achiever
On February 18, 1939, a young man, barely out of his teens, pulled on Mansfield Town’s No 11 shirt and ran on to the Vicarage Road pitch, to make his third League appearance. Fifty years on, he was again observing that same expanse of muddy turf, only by now operating as the home club’s first-ever paid director.
While the media spotlight was firmly fixated on the September 11 attacks, Swansea City acted swiftly and promptly to replace manager John Hollins. Huw Richards reports on the smooth transiton amidst financial uncertainty
If Swansea City chairman Mike Lewis wanted to minimise publicity for the sacking of John Hollins and Alan Curtis he could hardly have timed it better. The rest of the world was, of course, preoccupied by the previous day’s events in New York when Hollins and Curtis were fired on September 12.
Rangers expressed their dismay at having to play their UEFA cup third round tie in the war-torn state of Anzhi situated right next door to Chechnya. Kevin O'Flynn reports on the harsh realities and possible implications
Few football fans had any idea where Dagestan was a few weeks ago when the draw was made for the UEFA Cup third round, let alone who Anzhi Makhachkala were.