book review – Page 17 – FOOTBALL BOOK REVIEWS (FBR)

Book Review: “Dirty Northern Bstrds!” And Other Tales From The Terraces: The story of Britain’s Football Chants by Tim Marshall

“This is a book about the wisdom of the masses, and the madness of the crowd. It’s about football and Britain, and Britain and football, because you cannot understand one without the other.”

These are the opening words of the book from the introduction by author Tim Marshall, and it sums up the book incredibly well, as it explores the relationship of football, its spectators and the history of Britain.

The book is divided into three football-related chunks, First Half: Football Chants in Britain Today, Second Half: If You Know Your History and Extra Time: ‘You’re ‘Avin’ a Laugh’. As such they simply and neatly reflect what unfolds over the books 206 pages – football chants today, the history of the songs of the terrace and the humour of the chants.

Whilst this sectioning of the research makes sense, it may have made for a better flow if there was greater division within each of the three major sections.

However, this is a minor point of what is a well-researched book. It is in no way is a dry study, as Marshall shows he is a true football supporter who understands the culture of what was the terrace, but is now the all-seater stadium.

There is a great deal of humour throughout the pages such as when Marshall illustrates the absurdity of the football fans stereotypical classification of those from the various parts of the country.

He also is able to reflect that even though chants down the years have seen a great deal of invention and humour, there was (and is thankfully less so today) a time when chants and songs were vessels of violence, racism and homophobia.

This is a book which has an academic feel befitting of an established journalist, but is well worth a read, and may make readers listen more keenly to the sounds of the stands the next time they are at a game.

As a Fulham fan, it would be remiss to leave this review without a chant still sung for ex-chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed which came about when he was struggling with his application for a passport.

Sung to the tune of Volare:

Al Fayed, oh oh,
Al Fayed oh oh oh oh,
He wants to be a Brit,
And QPR are shit.

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Book Review: Night Games: Sex, Power and a Journey into the Dark Heart of Sport by Anna Krien

The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an award that is never afraid to tackle serious subjects, as witnessed by the recent winners. In 2011 A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke explored the depression and subsequent suicide of the one-time German international goalkeeper, while in 2012 (The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France) and 2013 (Doped: The Real Life Story of the 1960s Racehorse Doping Gang), the murkier side of cycling and horseracing were exposed.

Now in 2014 the latest winner of the prize, Night Games: Sex, Power and a Journey into the Dark Heart of Sport by Anna Krien, the subject of rape and its relationship with the macho world of the “locker room” is investigated, focusing on two of Australia’s biggest games, Australian Rules Football and Rugby League.

The book is centred on Australian sports, but its relevance won’t be lost on an English audience, with the recent debate around the rehabilitation of convicted rapist Ched Evans back into professional soccer, a contentious topic.

At the centre of Night Games is the trial of Justin Dyer, a junior football player accused of raping Sarah Wesley in 2010, amid the partying and celebrations in Melbourne, after Collingwood beat St Kilda in the Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final.

Interestingly, Krien reveals the outcome of the trial at the beginning of the book, and then details the events leading to the verdict. This is a useful device, in that it means the book isn’t read as a ‘whodunit’ and instead prompts the reader to try and understand the process of law and how the final decision on Dyer is reached.

As the story of the trial unfolds, Krien explores and raises a number of questions about topics such as, the definition of rape within the legal system, the culture of the locker room, and the interpretation of consent. These are not easy subjects to write about with an objective view, and therefore to come to any black and white position about them is a nigh on impossible task without being accused of some bias.

Krien’s search for balance in the book suffers a major blow, in that she spends a great deal of time with Dyer’s family through the trial, while she was unable to get Sarah to tell her side of the story, leaving the book without the view of the defendant.

With Sarah as an ethereal voice in the book, a world of uncertainty is presented by Krien. A realm in which the law has difficulty in establishing the truth and providing genuine justice, where the term “consent” is muddied by the concept of legal definition, resulting in a “grey area” in sexual assault cases, which Krien views as the “gulf of uncertainty between consent and rape”. A place where the players of the AFL and National Rugby League have a cosseted existence, in which they live and breathe their sport, where the club rules and team-bonding is king and there is always somebody to clear up their mess. A land where “footie chicks” are happy to become a “piece of meat” for the sexual gratification of “the lads”, but where ultimately no one emerges unscathed.

As Krien has reflected, this is a book that neither footballers nor feminists will be happy about. It is also a book that can be uncomfortable reading, but it is an honest undertaking at raising the issues around the distress and misery that sexual assault causes within sport and society.

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Book Review: A Matter of Life and Death by Matt Carrell

What makes a good crime thriller? In short a book which has good pace, characters that all make creditable suspects and a plot with twists and turns that keep you guessing right till the end; a book that you can’t put down as you want to know what happens next. And on that score, Matt Carrell’s A Matter of Life and Death, fits the bill.

Set in the fictional town of Coldharbour, its football club has risen to the Premier League under the chairmanship of local businessman Jack Enright. However, with the club struggling against relegation and with heavy investment needed, Russian billionaire Dimitri Koloschenko purchases the club. Coldharbour is also struggling off the pitch, as a spate of killings takes place and throws the town into turmoil. These two stories are the central plotlines for the book.

From a football perspective Carrell uses the book to get across his view on the modern game. The new Russian chairman at Coldharbour represents many of the foreign owners in the English game for whom the club is merely an extension of their business empire and who invariably have little regard for the fans or traditions of a club. The author ably demonstrates through the book and its characters that football today is a game driven and motivated by greed.

The media also is scrutinised in the guise of Coldharbour’s newspaper editor Toby Thomas; a man who is happy to publish a sleaze-filled tabloid, fuelled by backhanders to anybody willing to take them. It is also a media which deals in hype, and so dubs Coldharbour Town’s promising youngster, the “new Gareth Bale”.

Carrell creates a world that is grim, from the name of the fictional town, its club battling with relegation, to characters that all seem to be struggling in one way or another with their lives. This creates a fitting backdrop to the murders in a book that will provide football fans and crime thriller readers alike with a satisfying conclusion.

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Book Review: A Lack of Thrill in Brazil – A Diary of England’s World Cup Disaster by Dean Blunden

Not just a lack of thrill in Brazil…

…It took me several attempts to read this kindle offering. If you want a book which is packed full of stats – that in all honestly you don’t need to know and have no real relevance – then this is the book for you.

I don’t care how many caps John Ruddy has or anyone else on Roy Hodgson’s standby list for that matter. What I do care about is being entertained or informed when I read.

Reading is something I do for enjoyment and reliving the catastrophe that was England’s World Cup is not something I want to do for fun. I know most England fans thrive on purgatory, you only have to watch one of the games to see that, but to want to read about it is not my idea of a good time.

Perhaps in 20 or 30 years time when we look back with ‘rose-tinted’ glasses at World Cups’ gone by, and ask, “I wonder who played right-back in the friendly against Peru?” will this book find its purpose.

This is not a diary in the sense of Bridget Jones’s Diary or The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, which both have various plot strands. The only story in the book is the much maligned and analysed performance of the England football team and we all know how it ended. The newspapers and television companies spent millions on coverage and commentary of the tournament so do we really need a book to remind us what happened?

Blunden doesn’t provide any insight into the England story nor does it reveal anything new. It’s merely a collection of match reports and articles similar to those that we read at the time and which have now have been consigned to the bin.

If he had been in Brazil or at least spoken to someone who was there, then he may have found something new to talk about. There are so many stories that come out of every World Cup that to focus on what we already know seems a little futile.

I want to find out something I didn’t read in the newspapers or see over and over again on the TV. Stories like people surviving on crisps at the 2002 World Cup because they had spent all their money in the first week would have helped bring this book to life.

This book must have been a labour of love for the author, because I can see no other reason for him to write it. The headlines that littered the text were straight from newspapers and there is no colour in any of his descriptions. This is due to the fact that Blunden was not in Brazil leaving his descriptions of the game to be factual and without emotion.

For example, on reading the report of the Italy game, there is no sense of the oppressive heat of Manus, the tension of being a goal down or the passionate release when Sturridge equalised. There is none of that emotional rollercoaster that might have made this book interesting, only a factual description of the game. Blunden doesn’t even make a reference to the legions of fans who stayed up late back in England either huddled round a TV or packed in a bar and who at the final whistle speedily retired home to bed hoping that when they awoke it would have all been a nasty dream.

We all have our own thoughts on why England faired so badly – we don’t need to read the match reports of a fellow fan – or perhaps I have completely missed the point of this book and I’m in a minority of one?

For all this though, I hope that Dean produces another book because there is evidence of skill in his writing and has clearly put a huge amount of effort into this book. However, in future he needs to inject some colour and feeling into his writing and find the story.

Stories are about people – so tell me about the people because I know all about the team; I watched it painfully unfold with my own eyes.

Ed Williams

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Book Review: The Odyssey of a Soccer Junkie by Patrick Johnston

Odyssey: a long and eventful or adventurous journey or experience.

Junkie: a person with a compulsive habit or obsessive dependency on something.

Both the words odyssey and junkie form part of the title of this book by Patrick Johnson, and so their definitions provide a clue to readers of what is in store.

First though some background on the author. Patrick Johnston is an American who excelled as a goalkeeper whilst at Duke University and then pursued a professional career in England and the USA. Since that time Johnston has also worked as a building contractor and more recently as a freelance photojournalist and football coach.

In terms of format of the book, the 329 pages are divided up over 14 Chapters, with each (for the most part) focussing on a particular trip. It would have been good to see some images from his adventures included as this would have broken up the text, as would have starting new Chapters on a fresh page. The book would also have benefited from tighter proofreading which would have picked up on various typos ensuring for instance, the correct use of ‘to’ and ‘too’.

Of the content itself – by looking at the list of the excursions, the reader gets a significant clue as to Johnston’s particular obsession. So amongst the Chapter titles are the following; Mexico 1986, Italy 1990, France 1998, South Korea/Japan 2002, Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010 – all venues of the FIFA World Cup.

Quite simply, Patrick Johnston is a Soccer Junkie, with a particular penchant for World Cups.

In addition there are Chapters featuring the 2004 Copa America in Peru, the 2006/07 Argentinian League Play-offs, 2008 UEFA European Championship Finals in Austria/Switzerland and three trips to England for a variety of league and cup fixtures.

Johnston uses the device of a conversation with a passenger on the flight to South Africa in 2010 for the USA v Algeria World Cup fixture, to relate the story of his adventures. At the end of each Chapter, with Johnston having told the tale of his exploits, the passenger offers a reflective remark or observation, which rounds off each section of the book.

The Chapters are for the most part entertaining, with some of the stories bordering on the unbelievable. They all show that Johnston thrives on the buzz of just turning up at games and then attempting to get a ticket, with the notion of actually planning travel or accommodation often mere details besides the need to get his football fix.

In order to make this happen, Johnston is fortunate that he has connections. There is for instance his Uncle who is able to sort flights, another individual known only as the “Benefactor” who manages to provide World Cup tickets on some occasions and various friends and relatives living in a variety of countries across the globe able to provide a bed. In addition, the author also has more than his fair share of luck on occasions, although he might argue that this is down to experience, gleaned over years attending games.

There is no doubt that Johnston’s story is indeed an odyssey, with his adventures covering 24 years as he lays bare his football obsession.

However, there were issues and questions left answered. There is for instance the juxtaposition of his views on English football. On the one hand, Johnston professes his love of the game in England (through three visits in the book and also having adopted Newcastle United as his team), yet on the other is quick to portray all England fans as an undesirable mob to anyone that will listen.

In addition, there is the issue of ticket touts. They are an unwanted part of football as well as other sports. Their existence is only perpetuated by those willing to pay over the odds for tickets and those in organisations who are willing to sell tickets to the touts for profit. Johnston’s ‘adventure’ in some places relies on this trade and for me it’s not something I’m comfortable with. Whilst we live in a world where greed is considered as good and there is a profit to be made, then this will unfortunately continue.

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Book Review: Alfie Jones and an uncertain future by David Fuller

The fourth instalment of the Alfie Jones series opens with the central character scanning the table of the Middleton District Youth League Division 2. With three games to go in the season, Alfie’s team, the Kingsway Colts are bottom of the league.

With two of their best players, Billy and Hayden having left to play for the local professional club’s Academy – and others of the current Colts’ squad uncertain about whether they will stay with the club after this season – Alfie is worried that his dream of becoming a professional footballer is seriously under threat.

Those frantic last three games for the Colts’ are packed into 169 pages of another fast paced winner from author David Fuller. The tension lasts to the final page and readers will be hooked as they find out whether the Colts survive the dreaded drop.

What is also great about this book (and indeed the series) is that Fuller once again shows he understands football at this level and is able to translate this into his writing. He also demonstrates that he knows what makes children ‘tick’, so that Alfie, like many lads his age, whilst football-mad, is a boy who does occasionally get annoyed with his mates and can be prone to sulk and fall-out with his siblings.

Can Kingsway avoid relegation? Will Alfie’s dream of playing professional football be kept alive?

Prepare for some twists and turns in another excellent book of the Alfie Jones adventures.

Links to reviews of the first three Alfie Jones books are below:

Book 1: Alfie Jones and a change in future

Book 2: Alfie Jones and a test of character

Book 3: Alfie Jones and the missing link

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Book Review: First Touch by J. J. Welsh

There was a time when the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) was a tournament that was generally ignored by the media, clubs and fans in Europe. However, this tide has turned over the years as African players such as Roger Milla, Abedi Pele, Kanu, Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure have become famous names not only in Europe, but around the world.

However, if you look at the teams lining up in the forthcoming 2015 AFCON Finals in Equatorial Guinea, you will see that it isn’t all about the star players plying their trade in the Premier League, the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 or Serie A. The influence of African talent has now spread across Europe and not just in the top leagues.

Take the 23 man squad from Cameroon for example. Their group is drawn from clubs in Belgium, Cameroon, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey and USA.

How these players can make this journey from Africa to Europe is central to First Touch, a novel by J. J. Welsh.

It opens with a Preface, set in Abidjan within Ivory Coast, where the readers are introduced to Ismael Bamba and Habib Akoun – schoolboys and friends who play football on the streets and share a dream of being professional footballers. There is then a leap of several years as the opening chapter begins and Welsh shifts the scene to mainland Europe and starts the process of laying down the characters and plotline.

At the heart of this book is the story of Ismael and Habib, focusing on their respective, but very different journeys from the Ivory Coast to France in the hope of pursuing their dream of a professional football career. What runs alongside and is intertwined with that storyline is an introduction to a number of characters who are involved in the football industry in academies as well as agents and scouts.

What Welsh highlights through the book, is that the football world can be an unscrupulous one, and he opens the window on the issue of young African footballers who become abandoned in Europe by unscrupulous agents.

The author is to be praised for bringing this serious topic into the public domain through First Touch, and it is evident that Welsh has carried out extensive research in the writing of this book. However, there are occasions that the factual detail isn’t smoothly integrated into the narrative, so stopping the flow of what is an otherwise good paced book.

First Touch explores one of the murkier sides of football, but it is also about the human spirit and the desire to succeed. It is a story that will appeal whether you are a football fan or not.

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Book Review: Just Visiting – A grumpy old fan’s journey into English football’s Promised Land by S. B. Mann (Match Reports by Mark Gardiner)

“Just Visiting”, is the story of Crystal Palace’s 2013/14 season in the Premier League, one in which the football pundits, (and maybe even some of the Palace faithful), predicted would see the club from Selhurst Park confirm their ”yo-yo team” status and return to the Championship.

Indeed the belief that ‘The Eagles’ sojourn in the English top flight could have been a brief one, is alluded to in the title of this book by S. B. Mann.

The cover is eye-catching, featuring the black away kit used during the season which came to be known as the “evil sash”.

Of the book itself, it consists of 343 pages and follows a diary format from the preseason outing at Dagenham & Redbridge, taking in the League Cup and FA Cup fixtures along the way, through to the final Premier League game at Craven Cottage against Fulham.

In terms of the content, there is a formulaic approach with S. B. Mann providing his thoughts and anecdotes on match-days, with a detailed report by Mark Gardiner, which includes Gardiner’s marks for the Palace player’s on the day. The book also contains a season summary, which includes a review from Mann and Gardiner, details of their ‘Player of the Year Awards’ and a more comprehensive match-by-match analysis of the marks awarded by Gardiner. This approach and detail ensures that the book is a thorough review of the season from two obviously very dedicated and devoted Palace fans.

Interestingly and honestly, Mann explains that the idea for the book didn’t come prior to the start of the season, but was triggered instead by the visit to Anfield a couple of months into the campaign. This meant that the author had to retrospectively recount his thoughts from the preseason and the games up to the Liverpool fixture.

The reason for mentioning this is that rather like Palace’s opening fixtures in the 2013/14 season, the book is slow to start and this is maybe down to the fact that Mann has to recall his thoughts from the early games. Indeed, in a parallel to ‘The Eagles’ fortunes, the longer the book goes on, the more the author seemed to warm to the task and the immediacy of the diary approach works, as the reader is introduced to Mann’s match-day routine at home and away.

Mann covers many of the gripes that affect modern day fans – price of tickets, changing of date and time of fixtures, clubs fielding weakened team in the League and FA Cup, the influence of SKY – as well as talking about events such as Heysel and Hillsborough. His use of ‘endnotes’ is useful in providing links to articles and websites that reinforce his points.

However, there are other topics which get quite an airing, these being away ticket allocation, the issue of fans standing or sitting, the treatment of disabled fans and finding somewhere at grounds to smoke. Mann’s concerns around the method of away tickets allocation and the standing/sitting debate, is an issue close to home as it relates to his mother and the need for her to be able to sit down with an unobstructed view. The author approaches the subjects with an honesty and integrity that is apparent throughout the book.

Whilst Mann provides overall observations on the fixtures he attends, Mark Gardiner provides detailed match reports, which as Steve Browett (Co-owner of Crystal Palace) observes in the Foreword, “are far more valuable and insightful than any that you will have read on the back pages of the Sunday papers.”

Gardiner writes with no little humour; some of it very much tongue-in-cheek, an example being that from a preseason friendly at Selhurst Park, in which he observes, “Lazio spurned some good chances and probably eased off in anticipation of sampling a night out in Croydon.”

The combination of material from Mann and Gardiner works well and as stated earlier, this is a book with honesty and integrity. Overall, it is a good review of a memorable season for the Palace faithful, through the eyes of two loyal fans. There is so much that is positive and can be recommended about “Just Visiting”, however it has its faults.

Mann openly apologises for the “inevitable proof reading errors”. However, despite his candidness in this, the reality is that the book would have benefited from a more thorough proof reading and editing exercise. The book unfortunately does contain grammatical errors, missing words, poor paragraph spacing, and inconsistent use of fonts, with even mistakes on the front cover.

Perhaps surprisingly, there is also a football error in relation to Mann’s visit to what is detailed as the “Hearts v Dundee” fixture. Firstly, the game in Edinburgh featured Dundee United rather than their neighbours Dundee and secondly, Mann states he “headed off in search of Tannerdice”. This is unfortunately wrong on two counts – firstly the spelling should read, Tannadice, and secondly, the game was at Hearts, so the ground he attended was Tynecastle.

Mann states that, “writing a book is often a compromise between the desire and the practical” and so this book is an attempt, “to accomplish something worthwhile within a reasonable budget.”

“Just Visiting” is a book that achieves that aim.

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Book Review: The Incredible Adventures of…The Unstoppable ‘Keeper by Lutz Pfannenstiel

Why has it taken so long for this book to reach the English speaking world? Unhaltbar — Meine Abenteuer als Welttorhüter was published in Germany during 2009 and it has now been updated and translated into English. The book has won accolades from far and wide and also made it onto the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2014 ‘long-list’.

The Incredible Adventures of…The Unstoppable ‘Keeper is the story of German footballer Lutz Pfannenstiel from his humble beginnings in Zwiesel, Bavaria to the highs of the Brazilian League.

It flows well, taking the reader chronologically through his professional career with so many tales it could almost be a work of fiction. For instance, how many footballers can you name who can boast having owned two pet monkeys and kept a pet penguin kept in their bath?

The reader is given an insight into the life of a, ‘have gloves will travel’, goalkeeper with an insatiable passion for the game. Not a guy just happy to take the pay cheque, but one who wants to play for the love of the game; a man who died three times on the pitch playing for Bradford Park Avenue on Boxing Day in 2002.

While not being the main driver of the book, the stories Lutz tells give an insight into some of the problems and temptations facing young footballers. Not only the uncertainty of knowing when your next contract will come, or in what country it will be in, but also managing the lifestyle that having so much money at such a young age brings. The world is littered with footballers who have gone from riches to rags after mismanaging their wealth; Lutz somehow managed to circumnavigate this via his continental travails.

The second part of the book moves into the dark arena of illegal bookmakers and how footballers caught up innocently in conversations with so-called ‘fans’ can end up in court charged with match fixing. After reading the book it is hard to believe that Lutz would betray the game he loves and the treatment he received in the Singaporean jail was brutal, making anything the legendary ‘Crazy Gang’ of Wimbledon F.C. could throw at him during his time in South West London, seem tame.

As Lutz says, he could have settled for a steady contract with a middle-of-the-road German second division football club and a stable home life, but there is nothing safe about this goalkeeper. His bemusing globe-trotting antics takes readers from Bayern Munich, where he turned down a contract, through negotiations at gun point in Albania, to meeting his old mate Gary Blissett in a Chinese boot camp and turning detective in New Zealand when Lutz’s beloved kit was stolen.

While not being a household name during his playing career, the book made his name in Germany and it is set to do the same in the UK, enhanced by the nomadic ‘keeper’s recent media work for the BBC as a pundit.

After the recent scandals in football it is refreshing to read a book by someone who is clearly passionate about the game for what it is and not for the lifestyle that can go with those involved in the professional game.

For me this is the football book of the year and it should definitely be on the Christmas list of many a football fan.

Ed Williams

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Book Review: A History of Bradford City AFC in Objects: The Definitive Record of Memorabilia from a Hundred Seasons of League Football, 1903-2014 by John Dewhirst

Imagine visiting an exhibition that told the story of your football club through a myriad of ephemera, memorabilia and club relics; room upon room of programmes, badges and medals, oozing with the history and tradition of the team you support.

Think about capturing all this in a book, so that you were able to pick it up at any time and look back upon the fantastic collection.

Too fanciful an idea?

Well, over 344 pages of beautifully glossy colour pages, John Dewhirst, a Bradford City supporter of more than forty years, has detailed the story of The Bantams from 1903 to 2014, through the presentation of over 1,050 objects.

Besides memorabilia from the 1911 FA Cup Final, the 1985 Valley Parade fire, the 1996 Play-Off Final, the Premier League years, the 2013 Capital Cup Final and the 2013 Play-Off Final, there are programmes and pennants, badges and books, magazines and music, ties and tickets, scarves and shirts, fanzines and fixture cards, handbooks and hats, covering the ‘highs and lows’ of the club.

However, to think that this book is simply a collection of images of Bradford City AFC (BCAFC) related objects would be wrong. The wonderful pictures are supported by over 67,000 words, which whilst exploring the detail behind many of the items, also seek to inform the reader.

For instance, there is a significant chapter on the history of the BCAFC supporter organisations who down the years have worked to ensure the club survived. There are also little nuggets, such as the short, but nonetheless pointed piece, about the fact that if you talking about the team from Valley Parade, they should always by referred to as City, whereas if you talk about Bradford, then that is the Park Avenue club.

This book though is also a very personal story in that the memorabilia is based extensively on the collection of the author and indeed Dewhirst is not afraid to express his opinion, whether that be about the club from Elland Road, his ‘soft spot’ for Workington or the future of collectables.

Dewhirst himself is also part of the BCAFC history as an editor of the fanzine, The City Gent and through his day job as an accountant. In 2003 the author “experienced a collision of…personal and professional life” as he was, “formally engaged by BCAFC to assist with the preparation of a financial forecast”. This led later in 2004 to Dewhirst preparing a review for the Professional Footballers’ Association as to whether they should lend money to cover the players’ wages at BCAFC. As the author says, “it was the ultimate moral dilemma that caused much agonising.”

Does this book have a wider appeal than supporters of BCAFC? The answer has to be ‘yes’, in that the relationship with Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC is explored (and will be detailed further in the book Wool City Rivals by Dewhirst, available in late 2015), as well as touching on other sports in the city, such as rugby league and speedway. It should also have an appeal to fans of other clubs who have crossed swords with The Bantams down the years.

In addition, those who live in Bradford will be able to glean some measure of the social history of their city from the words and images of this book and it is an excellent study for anybody interested in sporting memorabilia.

With the world and indeed football now dominated by the internet in terms of the range and immediacy of information and images available, A History of Bradford City AFC in Objects will come to have even more significance in time and provide the reader with a lasting reminder of a different era through an incredible collection.

Quite simply – every club should have a book like this.

For further information about the history of BCAFC visit www.bantamspast.co.uk

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