Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
Rogan Taylor pays tribute to former Liverpool manager Bob Paisley, who died last month
Football in Britain owes much to its coal-mining communities, especially those in the North-East of England and in Scotland. Never mind the great players hewn out of them for generations; forget the loyalty and tenacity of the football crowds they helped produce. Just think of the managers who were born in sight of the pit-shafts: Busby, Shankly, Stein and Paisley amongst them.
Borussia Dortmund's recent success in the Bundesliga is a throwback to the days when their region dominated German football, as Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger explains
Just over a month into the New Year and Borussia Dortmund are exactly where they were twelve months ago: at the top of the Bundesliga and in the quarter finals of a European cup. In 1995 they beat Lazio to reach the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup. This year their Champions League run seems likely to end at the hands of Ajax. If you had predicted this scenario a decade ago, you would have been taken to a place where the rooms have no windows.
We'd just been wondering whether we'd ever had a feature extolling a much-maligned ginger-haired striker, when Davy Millar offered a tribute to the singular Iain Dowie
Each generation of footballers produces its own crop of heroes, the men whose talents single them out for mass adulation. The rest can briefly rise to national prominence only by persistently psychotic tackling or by becoming a national joke. Iain Dowie is a select member of this group. Ridiculed by lazy comedians and desperate fanzine editors, he is doubly cursed as his physical appearance is considered as amusing as his performance on the pitch. Everybody now knows that he is an anti-Adonis with the footballing ability of a carthorse in labour.
Archie MacGregor explains why Edinburgh clubs have little need of trophy cabinets
On the top of a hill in the centre of Scotland’s capital rests a sorry-looking, unfinished 19th Century monument to the dead of the Napoleonic Wars. Intended to be a replica of the Parthenon in Athens, it has for many years now been popularly referred to as ‘Edinburgh’s disgrace’. As a symbol of inflated grandeur, unfulfilled potential and downright farce it has few rivals throughout these isles, yet, oddly enough, two of the closest contenders lie within its immediate environs. They are called Hearts and Hibs.
Doug Stenhouse explains why Berwick Rangers, rescued from the brink of oblivion, have more reason than most to be thankful to their supporters' club
You might know Berwick Rangers as the only English team in the Scottish League. You might even know that through a quirk of history, the town of Berwick was left out of the peace treaty at the end of the Crimean War, so Berwick was technically at war with Russia for over 100 years. You probably do not know that Shielfield Park, Berwick Rangers’ ground is owned by their supporters, a unique situation brought about by a tale so bizarre even the script writers of Baywatch would have found it too far-fetched.