Book reviews

John Beck's return to Cambridge has delighted some but disgusted others. Simon Knott explains why there is such a difference in opinion

And so, he’s back. The man who gave us our proudest moments as Cambridge United fans returns under a cloud, albeit someone else’s. John Beck’s reappearance in the Cambridge hot seat has been greeted with a few gasps of horror and revulsion. These have mainly come from younger fans, brought up on Roy McFarland’s gentle arm-round-the-shoulders dressing room diplomacy, as well as the horror stories of their parents; there are mums on Ditton Fields who still threaten their naughty children with what Beck might do to them.

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The Worthington Cup final was widely seen as a potential watershed for Liverpool. John Tandy was more interested in what it meant for Birmingham

“Not a cat’s chance in hell”– that’s my favourite way to approach a football match. When you’re so far out the running that anything short of abject humiliation will do quite nicely. The Worthington Cup final fitted the bill. The prevailing mood in Birmingham was that of gratitude: we were just glad to be there, glad of a crumb of attention for a change. The weekend was always going to be more of a carnival than a riot, and with arrests in Cardiff city centre both Saturday and Sunday seemingly somewhere below average, a record police presence for the final seemed a tad superfluous, even given Birmingham’s occasionally shady past.

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Will Wimbledon FC be based in Wimbledon much longer? Kris Stewart doesn't seem the think so, unfortuantely

On May 4, 1991, Wimbledon lost 3-0 to Crystal Palace at Plough Lane. It wasn’t until after the game that I knew for certain we were moving to Selhurst Park. Plough Lane had done us proud since 1912, but the demands of the Taylor Report, we were told, made a “temporary” move inevitable. Since then, we have play­ed 486 consecutive matches away from home. As soon as we moved, we started hear­ing rumours linking us to all sorts of places, the worst being a plan to take us to Dublin.

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Gillingham are bound to be the losers, regardless of the outcome, if the case between ex-manager Tony Pulis and chairman Paul Scally ends up going to court. Haydn Parry explains why

Gillingham are currently enjoying something of a golden age. The past five years have seen two promotions, an FA Cup quarter-final, three Premiership scalps and a £3.5 million renovation of Priestfield. This season, the club had maintained a healthy midtable position in the First Division, but there’s now a guaranteed nailbiting climax to come.

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In recent decades, few Britons have gone abroad and stayed. Phil Ball  profiles John Toshack, the only British coach working at the top level in a major European league

“Whether it’s with a bottle of claret, a good rioja, a glass of raki or a decent port, the attraction’s still the same – come away after 90 minutes with the three points,” said the peripatetic Welshman, John Tosh­ack, in an article penned just before Christmas from St Etienne for El Diario Vasco, the Basque newspaper with whom he had signed a contract at the beginning of the year to write a weekly column. His Bacchanalian references were, of course, a nod to all the countries in which he has managed a football team, although he seems to have had some problem recalling his Welsh spell, unless he was alluding in the opening clause to some new strain of Swansea claret.

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