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Stories
The Biography
by Jim White
Sphere, £18.99
Reviewed by Ashely Shaw
From WSC 266 April 2009
Enter the words history and Manchester United into Amazon and the mind-boggling number of results returned suggest that this subject is perhaps over-subscribed. In the last 12 months alone there have been a plethora of retrospectives – so how can a new “biography” of United be justified?
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.
The omens did not look good for Russia after Wembley, but in Moscow there was a rare success for Europe’s biggest underachievers. Saul Pope explains why the only English winners were the supporters
In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s 3-0 defeat to England at Wembley, a journalist at the Moscow daily Sport Express imagined the arch twisting over Wembley to be a noose around the neck of his national team. Russia seemed destined to fail again; despite having the largest population of all the European nations to draw on, the national team have not made it past the first round of a major tournament since becoming the official successors to the Soviet Union side, and they have a less than impressive qualifying record (just four out of the past seven major tournaments). A Russian friend with whom I attended that game glumly surmised that the only victory any Russians would get over England was the illegal smoking den hastily set up in the Wembley toilets at half time, which almost went undetected by the authorities.
Dear WSC
The substitutes’ bench at a football stadium should be exactly that – a rickety, splintered wooden structure, also housing an elderly physio with a smoker’s cough, that players will be only too keen to get away from. Yet several Premier League clubs, including Newcastle and Spurs, have comfortable seats for the substitutes that look like something from the executive class on an aeroplane. These players won’t feel motivated to leave their padded headrests with optional vibro-massage function in order to run around in the wind and rain. What next – soothing music piped in through headsets? Treat them mean to keep them keen, for God’s sake.
Glyn Teasdale, via email