Book reviews

A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory
by Paul Watson
Profile Books, £12.99
Reviewed by Nick Dorrington
From WSC 303 May 2012

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"Pohnpei," read the Wikipedia article, "have never registered a win." That sentence alone was enough to pique the interest of frustrated football writer Paul Watson, who was sick of regurgitating news and writing profiles of players he had barely heard of. Searching for a national team bad enough to give them a chance of earning an international cap, he and flatmate Matt Conrad stumbled across Pohnpei, a tiny island in the Pacific ocean whose football team seemed to fit the bill.

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The Autobiography
by Dwight Yorke
Pan Books, £7.99
Reviewed by Damon Green
From WSC 280 June 2010

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Tits. He's seen a few. Especially in the latter days of his career. Graeme Souness tried – he says – to break his leg during a five-a-side game. Roy Keane has the management skills of a psychopathic Mr Bean. And Peter Andre has no idea how close he came to being strangled to death.

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The Story Of The Greatest FA Cup Final Shock Of All Time
by Lance Hardy
Orion, £18.99
Reviewed by Ed Upright
From WSC 283 September 2010

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As a Sunderland supporter born nine years later, I have, on occasion, been accused of intergenerational grumpiness towards the club's 1973 FA Cup win. Acutely aware of the folklore that surrounds it – Bob Stokoe's trilby, John Peel's favourite ever gig (the Faces in the town a week after the semi-final), street parties and rented colour TVs – I've witnessed more rain-soaked half-time raffles drawn by members of the winning squad, while play-off hopes foundered or relegation fears worsened, than I care to remember.

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Revie Revered And Reviled
by Richard Sutcliffe
Great Northern Books, £16.99
Reviewed by Duncan Young
From WSC 291 May 2011

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Keep Fighting The Billy Bremner Story
by Paul Harrison
Black and White, £14.99
Reviewed by Duncan Young
From WSC 291 May 2011

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Don Revie and Billy Bremner, manager and captain of the triumphant Leeds Utd team of the 1960s and 1970s, are inseparable in the public consciousness. There's also the idea of an unshakeable bond between them and, not far under the service, the suggestion that their success was sinister and tainted. The Damned United reanimated their pantomime villain incarnations, but feelings of injustice have inspired some authors to try to counter these perceptions and highlight what was good about both men.

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My Autobiography
by Gary Neville
Bantam Press, £18.99
Reviewed by Joyce Woolridge
From WSC 297 November 2011

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"Put ‘Gary Neville' and 'wanker' into Google and you'll get about 10,000 results." Neville is a man with no illusions about his popularity. The English generally like their professional footballers to be either thick or humble, preferably both. Gary Neville is neither and has taken plenty of flak about what are deemed to be his ridiculous pretensions, such as planning to build an ecohouse and daring to have opinions.

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