Search: 'laws'

The Autobiography
by Alan Mullery with Tony Norman
Headline, £18.99
Reviewed by Adam Powley
From WSC 239 January 2007 

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“Outspoken, controversial and entertaining”: so say the publishers in hyping the memoirs of Alan Mullery, adding the titillating prospect of naked blondes in hotels and “every human emotion”. Perhaps the current trend for football biogs replete with tales of mega-bungs, bling and bedroom antics has skewed the biographical template, but there’s little need for the Heat-style hard sell here.

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A Global History of Football
by David Goldblatt
Penguin/Viking, £30
Reviewed by Steve Roser
From WSC 245 July 2007 

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David Goldblatt’s new book weighs in at 3lb 8oz – three-and-a-half times the regulation ball weight established in the first revision of the laws of the game in 1872, but probably about the same mass as the sodden leather bladder that Nat Lofthouse used to head home. Very little has changed in the size and weight of the ball since then (an odd ounce in 1937), although technology, fashion and utility mean the modern ball is a different beast. In many ways the attraction of football is the enduring simplicity and coherence of the laws echoing those governing the ball, and the room that leaves for self-expression on a personal and team level. Goldblatt draws together all aspects of the game’s development into a terrific set of stories and insights, from tiny detail to sweeping generalisation, that well repays the potential upper body strain of lifting the thing.

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The Remarkable Life and Death of Leigh Richmond Roose, Football's First Play Boy
by Spencer Vignes
Tempus, £9.99
Reviewed by Harry Pearson
From WSC 249 November 2007 

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While those with even a passing interest in cricket can probably name a dozen Edwardian players without recourse to Wisden, I suspect that even the die-hard football fan finds the era before the First World War a good deal less familiar. Because while cricket regards the years that spawned Frank Woolley, Jack Hobbs and Victor Trumper as its “golden age”, to most people football doesn’t really seem to get going until the 1930s.

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December 2007 ~ England’s failings and Sepp Blatter’s plans could combine to produce a lengthy wailing about how it’s all the fault of foreign players. But before the inquest begins, Barney Ronay points out the flaws in this view

Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly who you are supposed to blame. With England’s hopes of qualifying for Euro 2008 all but extinguished by the complex series of injustices and frustrations visited by the defeat to Russia in Moscow, the building blocks are already being shouldered into place for a major inquest. And what an inquest it looks like being. Should the final cut be administered this month, English football is already geared up for a masterpiece of introspection, an epic of self-reproach born aloft on the twin pillars of the too-many-foreign-players and let’s-revamp-the-under-sevens lobbies.

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Dear WSC
Oh blast, nearly made it, Huw Richards (Reviews, WSC 248). Six paragraphs of something approaching even-handedness towards Leeds United in your review of Gary Sprake’s biography but then, with the finishing line in sight, you can soar above the gravity of glib public opinion no more: “They were indeed dirty, cheating bastards.”It’s not that I’m a Leeds fan, nor that I unreservedly dispute these allegations. I was in my naive early teens when Revie’s men were in their pomp, so I could easily have been oblivious to the more devious methods of what was still one of the most effective teams I’ve ever seen. If they are to be criticised 30 years on, however, then can it at least be in a manner consistent with modern times? Consider one Roy Keane, for example. Occasional thug, habitual hothead, a cynical intimidator who went after what he wanted regardless of whether it did more harm than good to those around him. How many times have you witnessed a debate on the Irishman kick off with one of these themes, only to undergo a remarkable transformation as your local Keane apologist enters? By the time he has stressed Keane’s honesty, perfectionism and dedication, you’re being invited to believe that Sunderland’s gain was the Vatican’s loss. Whatever side of the argument you take, its structure certainly works to Keane’s advantage. Get the Mr Hyde stuff out of the way first, then finish the discussion on a high, firmly focused on Dr Jekyll. And if it’s good enough for Roy, it’s good enough for Leeds United. So next time your writers are let loose on the Elland Road archives, can we have a gentlemen’s agreement that they get the whole snidey, paranoid, Machiavellian thing out of the way early on and then close with two simple points: that Revie’s team were one of the best passing and possession sides this country has ever produced and that anyone who thinks you can merely cheat your way to two League titles, League and FA Cups, plus two European trophies from five finals, wants their head examining?
Jeffrey Prest, via email

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