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My Story
by Tommy Docherty with Les Scott
Headline, £18.99
Reviewed by Joyce Woolridge
From WSC 240 February 2007 

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In these times, when making a few appearances for a Premiership club and being caught brawling outside a lap-dancing club is deemed enough for a three-book deal, Tommy Docherty’s weighty life serves as a salutary counter to such instant celebrity. This is a genuine autobiography, covering in detail his hard but respectable upbringing in a Glasgow tenement, his playing days as an uncompromising but skilful and accomplished wing-half for Preston and Arsenal, and his eventful managerial career at club and international level. Social change and the transformation of the status of footballers probably mean that future autobiographies can never have such depth of interest, replacing stories of early privation and struggle with 300 pages about the contents of their garages, address books and wardrobes.

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Cameron Carter thought he was just sitting down at his computer, but instead found himself sucked into a whirlpool of bizarre and arcane football clips – plus the odd grilling labrador. That’s YouTube for you

If, for any reason, you were thinking of removing all structure from your life and severing ties with humanity, your first step might be to log in to YouTube and use football as a search theme. I embarked upon this experiment on a recent Friday afternoon with the beautiful phrase “Alan Sunderland 1979” and came up for air when it was dark outside – I think it was Sunday – having weakly tapped in “Monkey Football” and sifted through 599 related titles. YouTube is a separate reality, a democratic film utopia with the implied promise that in the future every image will be captured, nothing will be overlooked and, while you watch, food will be transferred directly into your stomach from a national grid.

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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.

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A hundred years ago it was the Manchester United players who were the outcasts. As the PFA celebrate their centenary, John Harding looks at all those who helped make the players’ union

In December 1907 a group of professionals from the two Manchester clubs, Preston North End, Sheffield United, Bradford City, West Bromwich Albion, Newcastle United, Tottenham and Notts County gathered in the Imperial Hotel opposite Manchester’s Piccadilly Station to launch the Association Football Players’ Union.

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What defines a career, money or medals?

If Rio Ferdinand succeeds in getting his Manchester United salary increased to £120,000 a week, he will receive in a month what someone on the average wage would take 19 years to earn. In recent newspaper reports on his contract negotiations, Rio was depicted wearing a Che Guevara baseball cap, so he may have plans to redistribute his bloated income in a manner befitting someone who identifies with a Marxist revolutionary. But it is none the less fair to assume that he will receive advice to the contrary and that his wages will continue to be spent on fast cars, holidays in exclusive resorts and helping Jody Morris to release fire extinguishers in hotel corridors.

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