A Search for the Truth
by Brian Belton
Pennant Books, £16.99
Reviewed by Darron Kirkby
From WSC 254 April 2008
In Len Shackleton’s autobiography, a chapter entitled “What the average director knows about football” famously comprised a blank page. Brian Belton, on the other hand, manages to eke more than 270 pages out of Terence Brown’s 15-year tenure as chairman of West Ham United.
Ever-fewer home-grown players are breaking through at major clubs as managers look abroad for youngsters as well as first-team players. Gavin Willacy examines what’s going wrong for British kids
As another summer of frantic buying draws to a close, I have yet to hear a single manager say they are steering clear of the shark-infested transfer market and sticking instead with their youth system. For all their Football Icon hype, there is still no sign of a first-team regular emerging from Chelsea’s academy – ten years to the month since John Terry turned pro, the last Chelsea trainee to make it to the top. Arsenal had yet to field a locally farmed player this season before Justin Hoyte appeared in the second leg of their Champions League tie against Sparta Prague, a match that was largely a formality. Liverpool fielded just one Brit in their return match against Toulouse (Peter Crouch). Only the absent Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard in their entire first-team squad are home-grown. Meanwhile, Rafa Benítez has signed 20 teenagers from other clubs in the past two years, many of them foreign.
The menace of meddling chairmen
“The only crisis we have here is when we’ve run out of champagne in the boardroom,” said John Cobbold when Ipswich chairman. The Cobbolds, whose family brewery was one of the town’s main employers, are often held up to exemplify the attitude of the patrician dynasties who used to own many teams. They may have looked upon their clubs as heirlooms – one of the last of the breed, Peter Hill-Wood at Arsenal, has been magnificently disdainful of the rumoured interest in the club from US billionaire Stan Kroenke – but they also knew better than to interfere with the manager’s role.
The marriages of four England players on one weekend took football’s relationship with celebrity culture to new heights – or, as Barney Ronay sees it, new depths
Footballers, even quite famous ones, used to get married in a registry office in front of three people. They took honeymoons in Whitby before setting up home with Sue/Meg/Jakki in a modern semi, where they might stand out as the only people in the street with a double-glazed conservatory or a new patio. Best of all, you wouldn’t know anything about it, beyond the odd appearance in the “at home with…” feature in Shoot!. All things considered, this seemed to be enough.
Thursday 1 Emre is accused of having racially abused Ali Bangura of Watford; the Newcastle player was previously charged with insulting Everton’s black players in December. Anton Ferdinand will face trial for alleged assault over an incident at an Essex nightclub last year. Alan Knill is dismissed by Rotherham, who are without a win in 14 games.