Book reviews

by Elmar Neveling
Ebury Press, £12.99
Reviewed by Rob Hughes
From WSC 351 May 2016

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Attempting to write a biography of someone with an ongoing career means that your work is never quite done. As a contributor to DFB Bundesliga magazine, Elmar Neveling has been well placed to chart the rise of Jürgen Klopp over the past decade. A book published in Germany in 2011 Echte Liebe (Real Love) brought Klopp’s achievements with Borussia Dortmund into some kind of focus, but landed between back-to-back Bundesliga titles. A new version, published four years later, was able to evaluate his achievements (including the German double and reaching a Champions League final) from a better perspective. Klopp’s decision to cut short his post-Dortmund sabbatical has now necessitated an extra chapter in this English version of the book, probably earlier than Neveling anticipated, to cover the start of his Liverpool tenure.

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The true inside 
story of football’s 
greatest miracle
by Dave Bassett 
and Wally Downes
Bantam Press, £18.99
Reviewed by Shane Simpson
From WSC 350 April 2016

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Dave Bassett, and co-author Wally Downes, make it clear that this book has been written in response to those involved in the BT Sport documentary The Crazy Gang, who Bassett feels “had not done their homework on the years before the 1988 Cup final… [having] an agenda whereby they wanted to sensationalise some of the stories that Vinnie and Fash had, and made them the centre of attention when the film was released”.

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Football between 
the lines
by David Farrell
Teckle Books, £9.99
Reviewed by Neil Andrews
From WSC 350 April 2016

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There’s a scene in Dad’s Army that neatly sums up David Farrell’s football career. In the midst of a rant about class warfare, Captain Mainwaring informs Sergeant Wilson that he had to “fight like hell” to get into grammar school and “fight even harder to stay there”. It is a sentiment Farrell can empathise with in his dogged determination not only to become a professional footballer but remain one, despite a crumbling left foot and a run of very bad luck.

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The autobiography 
of Tim Cahill
by Tim Cahill
HarperSport, £18.99
Reviewed by Jamie Rainbow
From WSC 350 April 2016

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When Tim Cahill’s contract with Shanghai Shenhua was terminated, a number of A-League clubs approached the midfielder offering him the chance to finish his playing career in Australia. But, as he reveals in Legacy, he’d already snubbed an earlier return to his homeland for commercial reasons. The 36-year-old, fast approaching the end of his playing career, was already thinking about life after football. Or, to use Cahill’s own slightly nausea-inducing phrase, he had to “strategize as a businessman”.

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How Bury triumphed 
in British football’s worst year
by James Bentley
SilverWood Books, £14.99
Reviewed by Charles Morris
From WSC 350 April 2016

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The story of how a hard-up Fourth Division club succeeded against the odds and won promotion in 1984-85 using just 15 players has immediate appeal to fans of smaller clubs. The underdog theme also chimes with the present, as Leicester, Bournemouth and Burton confound expectations this season. The tale’s backdrop is compelling, too, because 1984-85 was a nadir for British football, a period besmirched by appalling hooliganism and the tragedies of the Bradford fire and the Heysel stadium.

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