Author: Rob Langham
Book Review: The Wanderer
The Wanderer by Susan Gardiner
Published by Electric Blue Publishing
2016, £9.95
Frank Soo is famous as the first player of Chinese descent to play professional football in England. His career spanned either side of World War II and he is probably best known for his time at Stoke City, operating as a right-half/right winger on the opposite wing to future knight of the realm Stanley Matthews and using …
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 …
TTU Go Predicting: A Club-by-Club Championship Preview 2016-17
We are back for a new season and one in which we hope to post more regularly and where we intend on introducing some new features while exploring the most important themes that impact upon the game, be they political, financial, sociological or economic. There’ll be room of course for some old fashioned analysis of on-pitch trends, some nostalgia and some personal memories – while we shall continue to …
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 …