Author: Rob Langham
My Second Team: Leeds United
I first attended a football match at Elm Park, Reading in October 1976. Amid a torrential downpour, the home side thumped local-ish rivals Swindon Town 4-1, with Robin Friday, one of the most immortalised players in lower league history turning out for the Royals on the day.
So far, so impeccable — a club’s original home, a cult hero, a derby victory of sorts - and all before ‘modern football’ …
Book Review: Bendelow and Kidd’s Dictionary of Football
Bendelow and Kidd’s Dictionary of Football
Published by Bennion Kearny
2016, £8.05
The army of terms required to talk convincingly about football has been a great source of mirth over the years. As far back as the 1970s, footballers were depicted as alternating between being ‘over the moon’ or ‘sick as a parrot’ depending on their feelings at 5 o’clock on a Saturday while Ron Atkinson let loose a …
Another set of half-baked proposals from the Football League
Two summers ago, I stood on the stoop of a pub in Oxford and was interviewed over the telephone by the We Are Going Up podcast about the proposals to introduce reserve teams of Premier League clubs into the Football League.
Met with a volley of outbursts and snorts as it was, the idea was given short shrift in most quarters (aside from Mark Warburton — a man who …
Book Review: The Sum of the Parts/Great Football League Teams 50: Reading 2005-6
The Sum of the Parts by Jon Keen
Published by Mickle Press
2016, £20.49
Records set outside the uppermost levels of football usually gain no more than a footnote in the record books and rarely enter the consciousness outside of the fan base of the clubs which have set them. Ten years on from posting a new highest points total for the second tier of English football aka the …