Book reviews

When Keith Alexander passed away on March 3, 2010, football lost one of its nice guys. Rob Bradley pays tribute to a true gentleman of the game

From 2000 to 2005 I was chair of Lincoln City Supporters Trust and chairman of the club. For three of those years Keith Alexander was our manager and I got to know him well. Keith liked his sayings. We liked them too. They lifted us when the finances were bad or when we were worried about the results. “We’ll be there or thereabouts,” was his favourite. And our favourite too because it reassured us when the going had got tough. Or had got even tougher.

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Carlisle United have spent two decades at either end of the table. Plenty of excitement but Roger Lytollis just longs for a little calm

Carlisle 1, Huddersfield 2. Disappointing, although no disgrace to be beaten by one of League One’s better teams. Back home I checked the league table. Carlisle had dropped one place to 12th. That may not seem unusual to most people, but to me it was remarkable. It’s been a while since my team floated in the calm waters of mid-table. Twenty-one years, to be precise.

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Recent times have taken a drastic toll on football in Luton and south-west London, but things are looking up. After an 18-year gap Andy Brassell returns to Kenilworth Road with AFC Wimbledon

How did we end up here? The last time many of the 1,000-odd Wimbledon fans who made the trip to Luton on February 20 visited was back in April 1992. The home side that day won 2-1 but failed to stave off relegation from Division One, while the visitors went onto become founder members of the Premier League a few months later.

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A History In Ten Matches
by Jonathan Wilson
Orion, £14.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 281 July 2010

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Jonathan Wilson produces so much high-class writing about football that, had I not met him on a couple of occasions, I'd be tempted to believe he was actually a workers' collective. The Anatomy of England is Wilson's fourth book on the game and while the subject – the England national team in all its splendid misery – might seem less exotic, esoteric and altogether more familiar than those covered in his excellent Behind the Curtain and Inverting the Pyramid the result is every bit as thought-provoking and entertaining.

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The Reinvention of Leeds United
Anthony Clavane
Yellow Jersey, £16.99
Reviewed by David Stubbs
From WSC 285 November 2010

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Thanks to the searing influence of David Peace, Leeds Utd currently burn vividly on the collective consciousness. It helps that their team-sheet remained so constant under Don Revie – nine of the 1963-64 promotion squad were still regulars nearly a decade later. Even many non-supporters of a certain age can recite the classic line-up, as easily as if it were the Dad's Army platoon – Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Madeley, etc, invariably culminating in Bates – Mick Bates, the perennial substitute and Private Sponge of the organisation.

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