Peter Robinson has photographed football across five decades, as his new book records. But in spite of his unparalleled career, the Premier League want him to start again

My first involvement with football came through meeting someone I knew in the street who told me that the Football League Review was looking for a regular photographer. This was the League’s official magazine, produced on a shoestring initially. It was included as an optional insert with club programmes. Most of the lower division clubs took it be­cause they needed something to pad out their prog­rammes, most of which were only the size of the Re­view itself. Some of the wealthier clubs with bigger programmes didn’t want it, though, and that affected their level of co-operation with me when it came to taking pictures. The League wanted a range of clubs to feature, though you couldn’t hope to cover all 92 in a season even when the Review went weekly.

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Al Needham used to doubt that football could take Asia by storm. But then he saw the film Shaolin Soccer and his reservations were sent flying by surprsingly violent monks

Like most people, I fretted about the 2002 World Cup and FIFA’s latest attempt to foist football upon south-east Asia. I knew about the trials and tribulations of the J-League. I remembered the wave of apathy across America in 1994. I worried about the faddy na­ture of the area towards western trends. I was a patronising, know-nothing get, as it turned out, but had I seen one of the biggest films to come out of Hong Kong in 2001, I would have realised that well in advance.

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Few football men can be claimed to have died as a result of their desire for power and few had as lasting an impact as Herbert Chapman, as Barney Ronay explains

“In this business you’ve got to be a dictator or you haven’t a chance,” Brian Clough remarked on his appointment as Hartlepools United manager in 1965. It is temp­­ting to wonder whom Clough might have had in mind as a dictatorial role model in 1965. Mao Tse-Tung? Leonid Brezhnev? Charlie Chaplin? More likely, however, Clough was briefly visualising himself as a stocky, dapper man with a large-brimmed hat and the look of a prosperous northern greengrocer.

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The Atlantic islad has two thriving teams in Portugal's top flight but, as Jon Spurling explains, some want to wreck that by recreating the Faroe Islands, only with sunshine

On the face of it, football on Madeira, 500 miles south-west of Portugal, is enjoying a boom. In late September, Maritimo, the island’s only fully professional side, were joint top of the Portuguese league. Nacional, the island’s second team and not yet full time, were in mid-table. But if certain political groups get their way, the golden era may be brief.

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Ian Farrell is puzzled by the lack of appreciation for one of England's most  decorated footballing exports, now looking to add to his medal collection at Manchester City

Upon returning to Britain from relatively brief spells at moderately successful foreign clubs, Paul Ince and John Collins were assumed to be better players, better people and an asset to any employer. Even Paul Gascoigne, whose time in Italy was mainly about in­juries and semi-public urination, was thought to be bet­ter for the experience. Steve McManaman had four years as a popular and at times very important player for the world’s biggest club, with two championship medals, two Champions League medals and the ex­perience of playing and training with the very best to show for it. He’s only 31, he’s dropped his wages by half and he’s free. Form an orderly queue, gentlemen, sure­ly? Yet, after Man­chester City won his signature ahead of another mid-table side, there were enough eyebrows raised for Kevin Keegan to feel the need to come out and defend signing him, like you would an unstable alcoholic or convicted match-fixer. Strange.

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