Book reviews

Brian Clough’s reign saw two clubs from the east midlands reach for the stars, then slump. Simon Tyers looks for the reasons why success didn’t last

It is not even as if the area can boast a great stadium with lots of history. While other English regions have grounds dripping with prestige and memories – Old Trafford, Anfield, Highbury, even Deepdale – the best the east midlands’ top three clubs can come up with are the City Ground, whose only real dis­tinguishing feature is that the Trent runs alongside it; Filbert Street, which looks as though it has stolen its stands from clubs in four different div­isions; and Pride Park, where the floodlight failure during its first League match ­couldn’t even be put down to sabotage by Malaysian gambling syndicates.

Read more…

Derby supporter Alistair Hewitt reflects on ow his expectations for the team have changed since the heady days of the Seventies

At home I have a dusty old copy of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and a few Slade singles. Somewhere in the attic I’ve got school reports which told my mother how I was rude and lazy and cheated in exams. When the mood takes me, I can still recall how the sunshine brought out the freckles on the face of my first girlfriend.

Read more…

Martin O’Neill has worked wonders at Leicester but, as John Williams explains, his mentor’s title-winning achievements are out of reach 

Earlier this season Leicester City, playing at home in the Worthington Cup and stinking out even Filbert Street’s Shanks and McEwan Stand (sponsor’s motto: “For all your waste needs”), found themselves two goals down to a Fulham side late in the match. The visitors had run the game and at most clubs this might already have been given up and put down as just a bad night. Not here. A whirling Martin O’Neill signalled a final throw, a new City partnership up front.

Read more…

There is not ingrained reason to pick one team or the other in Nottingham, says Al Needham. And now it's County's turn again

As anyone from Derby or Leicester will tell you, Nottingham is not a “football hotbed”. The relationship between the city’s two clubs is more like a resentful older brother (County) and his more successful, patronising sibling (Forest). When the half- time results are announced at the City Ground, a County lead is cheered – Forest really want to see County rise to their level. If Forest are behind at half-time, the fans at Meadow Lane laugh and jeer – they really, really want Forest to fall to theirs.

Read more…

Harry Pearson remembers the player and man who still casts a shadow over Teesside

For many of us who grew up around Teesside in the Sixties and Seventies, Wilf Mannion was a source of considerable youthful irritation. The older generation of Middlesbrough fan made it abundantly clear that those of us who had not had the privilege to see the blond inside forward play had missed a vital part of our footballing education and would therefore never be competent to pass any judgment on the game whatsoever. Any praise for a modern star was routinely dismissed by an unflattering comparison with the South Bank-born genius. It was as well Mannion was capable of lacing his own boots, for it was widely held that no one else was fit to do it for him.

Read more…