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Book reviews

Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.

Waiting game

wsc300 Managers who do badly nearly always get the sack, so why is such a drama made out of it? Jeffrey Prest explains

I was in two minds whether to write this because the chances are that you’ll see Steve Kean’s name in the opening paragraph and promptly turn the page. That’s if he is Blackburn Rovers’ former manager by the time you read this. Should his team have built on that bolt-from-the-blue at Old Trafford to keep him in a job until this issue of WSC hits the shops, I may be able to count on your attention for a little longer.

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Power struggles

wsc300 When team selections are made by senior players rather than managers things can only end badly, writes Mark Brophy

To an outsider, it seems mad that a club that has been in the top four of the Premier League pretty much all season should be rumoured to be in turmoil and on the verge of dismissing their manager. Yet that is exactly the situation Chelsea and Andre Villas-Boas have found themselves in at various points, usually coinciding with a marginal dip in performance level or results. These are not the chief reasons for the speculation, however. Constantly looming in the background is the over-confident shadow of player power.

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The Scottish play

wsc300 When struggling to secure promotion to the Football League, Wigan attempted to join the Scottish pyramid. Owen Amos explains more

Wins may be scarce, but the Premier League fixture list offers consolation for Wigan Athletic: Manchester United one week, Liverpool the next. But if things had gone to plan in 1972, it could have been quite different: more like Stranraer one week, Stenhousemuir the next.

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Peel Park life

wsc300 Archaeologists rarely take an interest in old football grounds but Peel Park, the former home of Accrington Stanley, has proved to be quite a treasure trove. Rick Peterson investigates

The idea began when Howard Booth, a producer at BBC Sport North West, suggested Dr Dave Robinson and I should “do a Time Team” (his words not mine – other fieldwork-based archaeology programmes are available) at Peel Park, Accrington Stanley’s home from 1919 until 1964. The middle of the 20th century may seem slightly too recent a period to interest archaeologists. However, archaeology is the study of the past through its material remains and we don’t have to confine ourselves to the remote ages of pre-history.

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Out of time

wsc300 As Arsenal celebrate their 125th anniversary with the unveiling of three bronze statues outside the Emirates, Jon Spurling looks at their somewhat disputed origins

With a parade of former stars prior to the league victory over Everton, and the official unveiling of the bronze statues of Herbert Chapman, Thierry Henry and Tony Adams outside the Emirates Stadium the day before, Arsenal celebrated their 125th anniversary in some style. Over the last few years, the Arsenal History Project, run by the Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association (AISA), has undertaken a review of the club’s often murky formative years. One of the main drivers of the Arsenal History Project, Tony Attwood, commented on his blog: “In the early days of writing histories of the club, people relied on their memories or occasional comments from others. This built up a range of documentation all based on the flimsiest of evidence.” The Woolwich Arsenal blog has highlighted and questioned several elements of the story of the club previously been taken as gospel.

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