Book reviews | When Saturday Comes

Moral high ground

A controversial exit from Celtic has angered the Scottish club, but Graham Davidson asks if they have the right to feel aggrieved

It has never been unusual for Scottish players to move south at an early age. Denis Law and Billy Bremner never kicked a ball in club football at home, while more recently Darren Fletcher arrived in Manchester before he was a teenager. None of these moves, however, generated the publicity recently given to Islam Feruz’s decision to move from Celtic to Chelsea.

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - Book reviews

The life of Brian

Harry Pearson reviews the latest biography of Brian Clough, that includes an analysis of the great manager’s approach to tactics

Just as evangelical Christians are supposed to address difficult situations with the words “What would Jesus do?” there is an apparently burgeoning legion of football folk who react to any player-related crisis at a club by asking: “How would Cloughie have handled this?”

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 - Book reviews

Board stupid

Ed Wilson explains Coventry City fans’ growing discontent with Sisu Capital’s ownership of the Sky Blues

Bournemouth chairman Eddie Mitchell has already won this season’s award for elevating supporter-owner friction to the level of hilarious and harrowing performance art. But on the same day that he took to the Dean Court pitch to confront unhappy supporters, the relationship between Coventry City fans and the club’s owners, Sisu Capital, was also bottoming out. City’s 2-0 home win over Derby took place against a backdrop of antagonism towards the hedge fund, with the confiscation of a banner bearing an anti-Sisu message leading to a scuffle between supporters and stewards.

Monday, November 21st, 2011 - Book reviews

Buying British

Adam Bate questions the perception that recruiting from the lower leagues is a risk

Paul Merson risked being accused of xenophobia when he expressed the view last season that Arsène Wenger had put too much focus on buying from France or Belgium and not explored the home market effectively. While Merson could have been dismissed as a Little Englander, he found an unlikely ally in Italian football journalist Gabriele Marcotti, who noted: “Scouting in the Championship is something few clubs do well.” But is the  talent really there?

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 - Book reviews

Court conspiracy

Roger Titford on the proposal to Oxford United and Reading in the early 1908s

If megalomaniac tycoon and serial football chairman Robert Maxwell had not made two monstrous errors, there could well have been a Thames Valley United in Division Three in 1983-84 in place of Reading and his Oxford United. And, as David Lacey wrote in the Guardian at the time, “as a method of killing off two Football League clubs at a stroke the scheme surely has few rivals”.

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 - Book reviews