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The day the promises had to stop
by Denis Cassidy
Amberly Publishing, £9.99
Reviewed by Mark Brophy
From WSC 312 February 2013

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As calls for improved governance of football clubs continue to be made, Denis Cassidy’s experiences after being appointed a non-executive director of Newcastle United in 1997 give an illustration of just what can go wrong. He remained in position for 20 months, during a period which spanned the removal of Kenny Dalglish and appointment of Ruud Gullit as well as the News of the World undercover sting which forced the owners Freddy Shepherd and Douglas Hall to leave the board for a short time.

Despite the inside track he can provide, the book itself is a mixed bag. Though it’s styled as an attempt to show how the creation of the Premier League has affected the game in England, much of the book sets the scene for the section describing events during the short period Cassidy was on the board, and concludes with a run down of his thoughts on how to ensure success. Alex Ferguson’s views on success might prick up a few more ears, 
of course.

That’s not to say that there isn’t interest in the rest of the book. Cassidy’s insider knowledge isn’t limited to the period of his tenure on the board and his excellent contacts mean the reader is often left wanting to hear more. At one point, he reports meeting Lord Taylor just after the delivery of the report which changed English football post-Hillsborough, frustratingly without any record of the conversation.

It’s that 20-month period in the boardroom where the book comes to life, however. Though current owner Mike Ashley doesn’t escape criticism, Cassidy clearly disapproves of the way the Shepherds and Halls ran Newcastle; he calls them “vandals” at the point they are trying to force their way back into control of the plc board. He suggests John Hall used the club first as a promotional vehicle for his own regional interests then later as a cash cow for his other businesses. Cassidy points out that Newcastle abandoned corporate governance best practice when they removed independent directors  from the board in favour of the majority shareholders’ nominees. The Shepherds and Halls are painted as draining the club to the point of financial chaos, to their own personal benefit.

The final implied criticism, left to an appendix on the last page, is both the largest and via its format least open to argument. Without commentary, it’s an account detailing how much was taken from the club by the Hall and Shepherd families in their time at the club between 1996 and 2007. The total comes to nearly £144 million. As Cassidy succinctly puts it earlier: “Did their performance over that period justify such rewards?”

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The story of a football legend
by Mike Smith
Grosvenor House, £11.99
Reviewed by Alan Tomlinson
From WSC 306 August 2012

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Until 2004, when Arsenal’s “Invincibles” went unbeaten through a full Premier League season, Burnley held the record for the longest undefeated run in a single season of England’s top tier. This small-town Lancashire club avoided defeat for 30 successive League games, going on to take their first championship in 1921. At the heart of this achievement was a gritty, combative Yorkshire-born midfield dynamo of Irish Catholic parentage, Tommy Boyle.

Mike Smith’s compellingly related and minutely researched biography of Boyle makes some of Burnley’s championship-winning heroes of 1960 look like pampered softies alongside this tough player, who dominated Burnley’s fortunes either side of the Great War. Boyle was a mere 5ft 7in but dominated the teams he led with a physical and psychological presence that willed his team-mates to victory. He cajoled, bullied and consistently inspired the players at Burnley, and before that at Barnsley, to the highest levels of competitive performance.

Boyle worked as a miner from the ages of 12 to 20, before signing professional terms for Barnsley. He took them to an FA Cup final against Newcastle, before a move to Burnley, who he led to Cup and League success. He was wounded in service in France, called back into action, then resumed the captaincy at Burnley, where eight of the 1914 Cup-winning team reunited for the 1920-21 triumph. For a time, Boyle had it all: the adulation of the “lasses” of the Lancashire mill-town (one of whom he married), money way beyond the reach of working men, the status of the local hero, acceptance and patronage of the local elite.

But the peak of 1921 was achieved in a climate of post-war industrial decline, and as his ageing body became less able to cope with the wear and tear of the top-flight game, his world fell apart. Fiery and brief spells as a trainer at Wrexham and then in Berlin were followed by the collapse of his marriage (after the tragic loss of an only child), unemployment and drink-fuelled aggression and violence. Boyle was committed to the local asylum under the new Mental Health Act of 1930, where he died after almost eight years of incarceration, aged 53.

This is a tragic story told well and with much revealing detail. Smith draws on an impressive range of sources in conveying this connection between the life of a community and the decline of one of its local heroes. The attribution of thoughts and reflections to Boyle is not always convincing, and some parts of the narrative are, as Smith concedes in a disclaimer, based on anecdote and the author’s imagination.

It is a long read, with match reports and lists of names that can jar the narrative flow. But Smith is to be congratulated for bringing alive a figure so typical of the fluctuating fortunes of early professional footballers, for whom the problems of adjustment after the glories of playing days so often proved insurmountable. Boyle’s story is no mere historical curiosity; reading this haunting tale, I was repeatedly reminded of Paul Gascoigne’s life after the magic was gone.

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Rather than being a blessing, new owners often leave managers looking for a new job of their own, writes Mark Segal

Apart from the first day of the season, there are very few times in the life of a football team when you think anything is possible. The arrival of a new manager often brings increased expectation, but the fact they have been appointed more than likely means the club are already in the mire.

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Mike Ashley is reviled by many fans, but according to Mark Brophy, his tough financial policies are making Newcastle self-sufficient

As Newcastle United faced relegation in 2009, they were heavily in debt with one of the highest-paid squads in the Premier League and an owner who was trying to cut his losses by selling the club. Many expected a tumble down the divisions and an imminent financial collapse. Just over two years later, following promotion, consolidation, a summer of turmoil and the unlikeliest of good starts, Newcastle sit near the top of the league, like an urchin crashing a society party. Perhaps more importantly, the finances of the club are under control.

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Mark Brophy looks at the emerging trend of former player agents becoming directors of football at Premier League clubs

If a Blackburn or Newcastle fan were to feel dismay towards recent personnel changes at the heart of their club, it might not be the sackings of Sam Allardyce or Chris Hughton that were exercising them. Supporters might find the growing influence of men who previously were in the business of promoting players infinitely more worrying. Jerome Anderson, a prominent agent, has been advising Blackburn’s new owners (see WSC 288) and Kia Joorabchian, best known here for his role in Carlos Tevez’s career, has reportedly also begun to act as an advisor to Mike Ashley at Newcastle. Chelsea fans needn’t be smug either: super-agent Pini Zahavi is a member of Roman Abramovich’s inner circle.

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