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The rise, fall and rebirth of Gretna football
by Anton Hodge
Chequered Flag, £11.99
Reviewed by Paul Brown
From WSC 347 January 2016
The rise and fall of Gretna FC is one of the most fascinating football stories of recent times. After swapping English non-League for the Scottish Third Division in 2002, the border-town club won three successive promotions, reaching the Premier League and a Scottish Cup final, plus the UEFA Cup qualifying rounds. But, after just six years in League football, the club fell into administration and folded. Then came the rebirth, the tale of which Anton Hodge is well placed to tell, as he was the first chairman of phoenix club Gretna 2008.
DAVID BOWIE: 1966 newspaper cutting of Bowie crowning eight May Queens at Bromley Football Club #RIPDavidBowie pic.twitter.com/osBSlOoRyO
— Bromley FC (@bromleyfc) January 11, 2016
The inside story of Coventry City’s 1987 FA Cup win
by Steve Phelps
Pitch Publishing, £18.99
Reviewed by Ed Wilson
From WSC 347 January 2016
For the relative newcomer to football, the fact of Coventry City’s victory in the 1987 FA Cup final, 3-2 against Spurs in one of the most dramatic games in the history of the competition, may come as a surprise. The longer the club spend in the lower reaches of the League, the more improbable the event seems. For success-starved fans, it has acquired quasi-mythical status, conferring a credibility and pride that the club’s current incarnation fails to provide. In Sky Blue Heroes, Steve Phelps offers a hit of nostalgia for those who witnessed this story unfold, and a detailed account of the triumph for those too young to remember it.
Blue Thunder
The Jock Wallace story
by Jeff Holmes
Pitch Publishing, £17.99
Big Jock
The real Jock Wallace
by David Leggat
Black & White, £9.99
Reviewed by Ian Plenderleith
From WSC 347 January 2016
Jock Wallace was the manager of Rangers from 1972 to 1978, and is revered at Ibrox for leading the club to two trebles that ended a decade of dominance by Jock Stein’s Celtic. In the 1980s he returned for a second, less successful, spell at the club. He is also famous for making his players run endlessly up and down the sands of Gullane, a costal town east of Edinburgh.