Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
We've all got used to hearing about wing-backs and players who sit in the hole, but there are several other technical terms known only to football insiders. Here are explanations of just a few them
Consolationist Shakes his head sadly and pats arm of opponent who has just been sent off
Cris Freddi looks at how Glenn Hoddle's predecessors have coped with the press
The rough ride Glenn Hoddle’s been getting from the fourth estate isn’t unusual (every other England manager had it) but the timing of it is. Most of the others were granted the luxury of a honeymoon period.
A driveway in Yorkshire will always mean something special to Dave Cohen and his chamois leather
Whenever I come to Leeds on the train, I still experience a shudder of recognition as we chug past Elland Road, even though the ground now resembles the hundreds of superstore complexes already passed on the way up from London, where I now live. But the most significant footballing address I remember is number 41, The Drive, Leeds 17 – the modest suburban semi that for a few years was the home of Peter “Hot Shot” Lorimer, and a mere ten minutes walk from my teenager abode.
Somewhat to their own surprise, Reading fans have been presented with a big new ground. Roger Titford assesses early reactions to the Madejski Stadium
In terms of stadium comfort no English fans can have travelled so far so fast as Reading’s followers. Only 20 days after the final, final farewell to the rusting tin and crumbling concrete of Elm Park, last used for a testimonial, we welcomed “the clarity of vision and handsomeness of space” (the Times) of the Madejski Stadium. It was like 40 years of ground improvements in a day.
In the wake of the David Unsworth saga John Williams & Sarah Gilmore examine how football treats women who are married to, or linked with, players
In football’s “good old days”, way before 30,000-quid-a-week contracts and multi-lingual team talks, players’ wives were seen by the canniest managers mainly as a means of keeping their prized young performers indoors, out of the papers and off the bevvy.