Search: ' Mike Summerbee'

The close of the transfer window has led to more than just exchanges of players as the Abu Dhabi United group arrive in Manchester

So, quite a lively month for Manchester City. Midway through August the club appeared to be in crisis, with owner Thaksin Shinawatra refusing to return home to Thailand to face a corruption trial. If he were convicted in his absence, the Premier League would have faced an unprecedented test of its notoriously obtuse “fit and proper persons” test. There were stories of the club operating on a hand-to-mouth basis with former chairman John Wardle having had to loan Thaksin £2 million on several occasions to pay wages. A shock home defeat to Danish UEFA Cup opponents was followed by a 4-2 mauling at Villa Park.

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The Autobiography
by Mike Summerbee & Jim Holden
Century, £18.99
Reviewed by Ian Farrell
From WSC 260 October 2008 

Buy this book

In an attempt to sell Mike Summerbee’s autobiography beyond a niche market of Manchester City fans, George Best is pictured alongside him on the back cover, while his minor role in Escape to Victory is hyped in the dust-jacket blurb. With few of his great moments – or massive bust-ups – caught on tape, and his eight-cap England career covering little of note, Summerbee’s impact on the collective consciousness is surprisingly slight for such a great player. He will always be thought of in relation to other people: as Best’s best friend in the Swinging Sixties, as one third of the Bell-Lee-Summerbee triumvirate, or as “Nicky’s dad”.

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Six points separated the top five come the end of the season as the blue side of Manchester rejoiced.  Ed Upright reports

The long-term significance
This was the peak of the post-1966 boom – overall attendances were up by well over a million and 15 top division-clubs saw increases. Manchester United and Coventry set all‑time average records, as did Liverpool, who none the less trailed United and Everton in the attendance standings.

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Has Peter Reid’s departure from Coventry spelt the end of his managerial career? The real puzzle, Andy Dawson argues, is how he has been allowed to work so long

Peter Reid is not a criminal. He has never boiled a child, nor has he masterminded an elaborate bog­us pyramid selling scheme. But if he had, it is unlikely that the resulting hurt would be comparable to the distress and anger his decisions and actions in the past decade or so have caused people. Well, maybe apart from if he was a child-boiler. His recent miserable reign at Coventry City, mercifully brought to an end by Monkey Heed himself, should ensure that he will never manage a football club again. Like the existence of a global al-Qaida network, the idea that Reid is a competent football manager is a myth.

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Steve Parish, an official at county league level, says many players still do not really know the laws of the game – or at least they pretend not to

When Peter Enckelman was adjudged to have got a touch (with his foot) on a throw-in from his team-mate Olof Melberg in the Birmingham derby, the chances are the referee David Elleray and his assistant really had no idea whether contact was made before the ball rolled over the line. Video evidence would have been of no help, unless Andy Gray looking at it “time and time again” before deciding there was no contact is considered to be helpful. If it was that obvious, he’d have only had to look at it once.

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