The announcement of England's 17 preliminary World Cup venues was supposed to get the stuttering 2018 bid back on track. Instead, the inclusion of Stadium MK has caused yet more controversy

England’s 2018 World Cup bid has not been going well. Members of the organising committee have squabbled repeatedly and it has been suggested that the government want FA chairman Lord Triesman to step down as the bid leader. Meanwhile, some of the FIFA voters who need to be wooed have complained about the high-handed manner displayed by members of the bidding team.

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The Alan Curtis Story
by Alan Curtis, with Tim Johnson and Stuart Sprake
Mainstream, £17.99
Reviewed by Paul Ashley-Jones
From WSC 278 April 2010

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Having grown up watching Alan Curtis from the terraces of the North Bank at Vetch Field, I expected to enjoy this book and wasn't disappointed. Curtis had three separate spells with Swansea as well as playing for Leeds, Southampton and Cardiff City (where he was voted Player of the Year despite his background) while winning 35 caps for Wales.

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 by Archie Macpherson
Black & White, £17.99
Reviewed by Archie MacGregor
From WSC 278 April 2010

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As unlikely alliances go, learning that Archie Macpherson was once good pals with Jeremy Paxman during their days on breakfast TV in the late 1980s must rank right up there as one of the most bizarre double acts in the history of tele­vision. There's no suggestion that they've remained close buddies ever since, rather the rapport was a fleeting mutual support mechanism designed to help both of them deal with the mind-numbing ordeal of early morning broadcasting. Look what it did to Frank Bough after all.

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The Remarkable Rise of Exeter City
by Nick Spencer
Nick Spencer, £12.50
Reviewed by Howard Pattison
From WSC 278 April 2010

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According to this book, supporters of Exeter City bought their football club in a jewellery shop. It is to be supposed that they left the premises, like so many other customers, wondering to themselves what on earth they had just done. But in 2003 the circumstances were so dire that the Trust felt they had no option but to run the club themselves.

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A History of the People's Team in the Workers' State
by Robert Edelman
Cornell University Press, £21.95
Reviewed by Jonathan Wilson
From WSC 278 April 2010

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Listen to some fans of Spartak Moscow and they would have you believe that their club almost single-handedly defied the state machine, that the 12 league titles they won in Soviet times were each clear and decisive blows for liberty and independence. Spartak's founder and long-time president, Nikolai Starostin, is hailed as some sort of sporting saint, whose years in a prison camp in Siberia were a form of martyrdom for the spirit of freedom he kindled in others.

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