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In this compelling memoir, Roy Massey tells the fascinating story
of his 50 years in football as a player, coach and scout, including
a long spell at Arsenal during the Wenger glory years. As a player,
Massey overcame a series of injuries to score goals for Rotherham,
Orient and Colchester only for another serious injury to end his
career at an early age. Unperturbed, he became a PE teacher and
combined this with behind-the-scenes work to discover and nurture
talent at Colchester United and later full-time at Norwich, where
he helped the Canaries as they revolutionised their youth
programme. When the FA agreed to allow clubs to attract and train
children from eight years upwards, it was Massey whom Gunners
legend Liam Brady asked to join him at Arsenal in 1998 as assistant
academy manager. Over the next 16 seasons Massey helped build a new
academy structure that would unearth and develop a wealth of young
talent capable of playing at the top of the football ladder. Massey
later scouted for three Premier League clubs.
Gainsborough's Fred Spiksley was one of the first working class
youngsters in 1887 to live 'the dream' of becoming a professional
footballer, before later finding a role as a globe-trotting coach.
He thus dodged the inevitability of industrial, poorly paid,
dangerous labour. Lightning fast, Spiksley created and scored
hundreds of goals including, to the great joy of the future Queen
Mary who chased him down the touchline, three against Scotland in
1893\. The outside left scored both Sheffield Wednesday's goals in
the 2-1 defeat of Wolves in the 1896 FA Cup Final at the Crystal
palace. Forced by injury to stop playing at aged 36, Spiksley
adventured out into the world. He acted with Charlie Chaplin,
escaped from a German prison at the start of the First World War
and later made the first 'talking' football training film for
youngsters. As a coach/manager he won titles in Sweden, Mexico, the
USA and Germany, becoming the last Englishman to coach a German
title-winning team with 1FC Nuremburg in 1927\. He coached in
Barcelona in 1932 and it was only after his involvement had
exceeded 50 years, during which time, as this book explains, the
game changed dramatically, did Spiksley's football career end. As
an addicted gambler and womaniser, Spiksley had his problems away
from football. However, he was beloved by his football fans,
including Herbert Chapman, the greatest manager of that era in
English football who, towards the end of his life, picked him in
his finest XI.
For most supporters of Sunderland AFC, the history of their club
would probably be best represented by the names of the mid 1930s
team, particularly Gurney and Carter, undoubted Wearside football
legends. The name of Charlie Buchan also looms large even today in
the tale of a football club whose history can be cut like a knife.
Although Charlie Buchan might still be a revered figure on
Wearside, his team mates aren't and yet the 1912/13 season, which
is the subject of this book, produced arguably the fi nest
Sunderland team ever to grace the famous red and white striped
shirts. It came the closest the club has ever come to winning the
double, almost became the first English football club to achieve it
in the 20th century, yet the names of Albert Milton, Frank Cuggy,
Jackie Mordue and the rest of Sunderland's league champions and FA
Cup finalists that season have long since been cast into the annals
of the club's history. Even the football club's near talismanic and
perhaps finest ever captain Charlie Thomson is seemingly forgotten.
The was team guided by Bob Kyle, Sunderland AFC's longest serving
manager, he too also forgotten. This book looks at the matches and
the characters that shaped an immensely successful 1912/13 season.
Although they were crowned league champions, perhaps an enduring
highlight, although it ultimately ended in defeat, was the now
legendary FA Cup final which took place at The Crystal Palace in
April 1913, before a world record crowd. For the first time in the
20th Century England's top two football teams contested for the
most coveted domestic knockout cup competition in world football
and what a tale it tells; an iconic match. Finally, to give the
book a social context and a flavour of the times, we have captured
the main news stories of the 1912/13 period which includes some
momentous incidents such as the sinking of the Titanic; another
iconic event.
In addition to being the most bitter industrial dispute the
coalminers' strike of 1984/5 was the longest national strike in
British history. For a year over 100,000 members of the National
Union of Mineworkers, their families and supporters, in hundreds of
communities, battled to prevent the decimation of the coal industry
on which their livelihoods and communities depended. Margaret
Thatcher's government aimed to smash the most militant section of
the British working class. She wanted to usher in a new era of
greater management control at work and pave the way for a radical
refashioning of society in favour of neo-liberal objectives that
three decades later have crippled the world economy. Victory
required draconian restrictions on picketing and the development of
a militarised national police force that made widespread arrests as
part of its criminalisation policy. The attacks on the miners also
involved the use of the courts and anti-trade union laws,
restrictions on welfare benefits, the secret financing by
industrialists of working miners and the involvement of the
security services. All of which was supported by a compliant mass
media but resisted by the collective courage of miners and mining
communities in which the role of Women against Pit Closures in
combating poverty and starvation was heroic. Thus inspired by the
struggle for jobs and communities an unparalleled movement of
support groups right across Britain and in other parts of the world
was born and helped bring about a situation where the miners long
struggle came close on occasions to winning. At the heart of the
conflict was the Yorkshire region, where even at the end in March
1985, 83 per cent of 56,000 miners were still out on strike. The
official Yorkshire National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) area
photographer in 1984-85 was the late Martin Jenkinson and this book
of his photographs - some never previously seen before - serves as
a unique social document on the dispute that changed the face of
Britain.
As one of the twelve founding Football League clubs in 1888/89,
Everton Football Club has a long, proud history. Having played more
top-flight League games than any other English team, the Toffees
have won the League championship nine times - the fourth best
record of any team. The first occasion was in the third season of
League football, 1890/91 when the Blues became the first club from
Liverpool to collect the League championship trophy from their then
base, Anfield. In achieving their success, Everton knocked the
winners of the first two championships, the Invincibles of Preston
North End, off their throne. But how did they do it? Who were the
players in this momentous season, what sort of football did they
play and who did they beat?
Loosely based on the seminal 'Gonzo' writings of Hunter S.
Thompson, this comedy stars Bill Murray as the renegade,
drug-crazed, drunken journalist 'Dr' Hunter Thompson, who decides
to cover the Super Bowl and the 1972 Presidential Election,
accompanied by his reprobate lawyer Carl Lazlo (Peter Boyle), in
his own inimitable style.
In 1888, Englands Football league came into being and ever since a
player has been recognised each year for the highest number of
goals scored in the league, First Division or Premier League. The
first was John Goodall of Preston North End, with 21 goals, the
most recent, Didier Drogba, with 29. The Football leagues top
scorer was Dixie Dean of Everton, in 1927/28, with an impressive
tally of 60 goals.
Frank Swift was Manchester City's first goalkeeping legend, winning
many honours for the club. This book details those heady times.
Ultimately it is a tragic story though as Swift perished at Munich
as a reporter for the News of the World. As a genuine MCFC legend,
this book will be well received by the fans of the Premiership
champions. The club have over 540k followers on Twitter, and the
book has guaranteed reviews in the programme, the fanzine and the
general football press. Frank Swift is one of the greatest English
goalkeeper's of all time. A First and Second Division, FA Cup and
Charity Shield winner with Manchester City, his only League club,
he represented his country on 33 occasions between 1941 and 1949.
Although often injured, and on many occasions knocked unconscious,
Blackpool born Swift was fearless and unmoveable in the City goal,
playing all but one of over 200 games from the day of his debut, 25
December 1933, up to the start of World War Two. Swift was a
regular between the posts for England, and in 1948 he became the
first keeper to captain his country in the professional era. Fans
also adored Swift for his sportsmanship, broad smile and constant
banter with spectators behind his goal. Forty years later in 1998,
Swift was one of four City legends named in the Football League 100
legends selected to celebrate 100 seasons of League football. Now
in the first biography to be written on him, find out more about
the keeper and his exploits.
On the 7th December 1935, Sunderland went top of the First Division
and so at the start of a two year period that would bring them
unprecedented success. The highs and lows of the league campaign
are recalled in detail. Included in the book are the tragic death
of goalkeeper Jimmy Thorpe after a match at Chelsea. Thorpe's
grief-stricken teammates went on to play their hearts out,
eventually hammering Birmingham City 7-2 at St Andrews to capture
the league title. In 1936-7, Sunderland went on to lift the FA Cup
at Wembley for the first time in the club's history by beating
Preston North End. The Wearsiders also claimed the Charity Shield,
bringing more silverware to Roker Park Bill Shankley, who played
for Preston in that final remarked: "In many ways the Sunderland
team of 1937 played the same brand of Total Football as the great
Holland team of the 1970's.
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