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An Intimate Portrait of Football’s Last Romantic
by Ian Ridley
Simon & Schuster, £16.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 270 August 2009 

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It’s a popular notion that silence is enigmatic. “Still waters run deep,” we say. Some people, however, can talk a hell of a lot yet remain unfathomable. Kevin Keegan is a veritable babbling brook, yet despite the fact he rarely seems to have shut up for four decades the motivations behind key decisions at important times in his life appear oddly mysterious.

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Monday 1 Manchester United miss a chance to go nine points clear, drawing 2‑2 at injury-hit Newcastle. Liverpool’s 3‑0 win over Bolton takes them third. “They’ve shown me in the last couple of weeks why they are down there,” says Alan Curbishley as West Ham crash 6‑0 at Reading, their third successive defeat. Wigan drop to 17th after a fifth straight loss, 3‑0 at home to Blackburn. Antti Niemi is hospitalised with a serious neck injury in Fulham’s 0‑0 draw with Watford. Derby’s 2‑1 win at Preston takes them to within three points of Championship leaders Birmingham, beaten by a 90th‑minute goal at Ipswich. Torquay are six points adrift in League Two after losing 1‑0 at Bristol Rovers.

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With only one promotion left until the Football League beckons, St Albans City now have the money on board for required ground improvements. Steve Menary reports

To most non-League clubs, a marketing officer is an unaffordable luxury. John Gibson tends to agree. When Verry, a £100 million turnover construction firm owned by Gibson, opened a new office in St Albans four years ago, he decided that instead of hiring a marketing man he would buy the local team. “Their manager played for a pub team I ran. He said, ‘The club’s in real trouble, can you help?’ ” says Gibson. “I was going to get a marketing manager but decided to spend the £50,000 to £60,000 a year that would cost on a club.”

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Dear WSC
I’m sure this is very old hat and we’re just being ignorant, but in a recent pub conversation I asked a Brighton fan which team Charlie Oatway was named after. He had no idea. Oatway does indeed have 11 first names. It’s presumably a 1970s outfit, but we couldn’t get past the goalie, Ant­hony. The rest is Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway. Can anyone help?
Jeff Moffat, London NW6

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Cris Freddi recalls a narrow escape against Austria in 1932, when the 'man of paper' exposed the shakiness of England's supposed dominance over the Continental teams

The last time England had played a foreign country, almost exactly a year earlier, they’d thrashed Spain 7-1. Now the selectors decided it was no more Mr Nice Guy. Putting it another way, they were bricking it. With just cause, too. While Spain were a perfectly res­pectable side (the great Ricardo Zamora simply had a shocker in goal), Austria were something else. In a run of 13 unbeaten games, they’d hammered Scotland 5-0, Ger­many 6-0 and 5-0, Switzerland 8-1 and Hungary 8-2. 

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