booksmonthly.co.uk june 2011     

 Volume 13 No. 9 | Welcome to booksmonthly.co.uk - I hope you enjoy your visit.

When Football was Football...

PETER HOOTON: WHEN FOOTBALL WAS FOOTBALL - LIVERPOOL

A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT A CENTURY OF THE CLUB

Haynes [HB]

This is a unique and magnificent collection of photographs of Liverpool Football Club from the very early days until 1992, freshly selected from thousands of images in the Daily Mirror's extensive archive. These superb photos, many of them previously unpublished, document the rise of the most successful football club in the English game. The early days and the championship-winning sides of the early 1900s, the 'untouchables' of the '20s, the coming of the 'messiah' Bill Shankly after the lean years of the 1930s, '40s and '50s, the triumphs of the '60s '70s and '80s, the tragedies of Heysel and Hillsborough - it's all here. This book will bring to life the periods, the personalities and the human stories.

Although I played football during my grammar school years, the school itself offered rugby, which I quickly learned was a thug's sport, graceless and skill-less, more akin to all-in wrestling than a ball game. My interest in football peaked in 1966, the year I got married, when England and the magnificent Bobby Moore carried off the world cup. From that moment I was hooked and started to watch MATCH OF THE DAY regularly. At the time we lived in Hertfordshire, Stevenage to be precise, and there was no League One team to support. After only a short while, I found that I loved watching Liverpool more than any other, and quickly became an armchair supporter, and have remained steadfastly loyal ever since. I don't remember the pre-war players in this book, but I do remember Bill Shankly arriving, and everything that's happened since at the club.

GRAHAM McCOLL: WHEN FOOTBALL WAS FOOTBALL - ASTON VILLA

A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT A CENTURY OF THE CLUB [Haynes HB]

Aston Villa has been one of the most successful and popular names in football in the near 140 years since the club was founded under a gas lamp in 1874 by a group of cricketers who decided to create a football club as a means of playing sport through the winter. From those romantic but humble origins, Villa went on to become the most successful club in the first 50 years of the Football League and the Villa updated those successes for modern times when, in 1982, they again made history by becoming one of the elite band of five British clubs to have won the European Cup. This wonderfully illustrated book provides a vivid and evocative celebration of the captivating powers of Aston Villa. Drawing on the vast photographic archive of the Daily Mirror it features evocative, exciting and rare images that show why the Villa mean so much to so many people. Here are the famous players who proudly wore their club's colours with distinction, producing some of football's finest moments in a more innocent age, before commercialism took hold of the sport. The Villa greats are here, pictured in their prime and often in intriguingly unusual behind-the-scenes situations: including such wonderful names as Billy Walker, Paul McGrath, Peter McParland, Tony Morley, Charlie Aitken, Gordon Cowans, Dennis Mortimer, Brian Little, Andy Gray and many more. They light up these pages along with the great managers and the classic matches in which Villa have been involved. When Football Was Football: Aston Villa is not just about the showcase events and icons of yesteryear: it reveals the inner life of the club, capturing the vibrancy of the fans and the vitality of the players on and off the field, plus the colourful and still intriguing lesser-known stories that have made Villa so special. Revelling in the club's most glorious years, this is a must-have photographic tribute for any follower of Villa in particular and the British game as a whole.

Always the mores successful of the two main Birmingham football sides, Villa are iconic, one of the most revered clubs in English football, and this wonderful book recalls the birth of the club and the glory days in a fitting tribute to a massively famous and popular club. The list of British clubs to have experienced the ultimate success of winning the European cup is very short, but Villa are one of them, and this is a superb tribute to their history and their ongoing commitment to provide entertaining and watchable football. The Mirror archives have been once again plundered to provide some memorable photographs, and the whole package is superb.

ADAM POWLEY: WHEN CRICKET WAS CRICKET

A Nostalgic look at a century of the greatest game

Haynes Publishing [HB]

Remember a time when cricket was cricket? Before millionaire players careered around a floodlit field in glorified pyjamas? When a proper match lasted days rather than the crash, bang, wallop of the limited-overs game? Modern innovations like Twenty20 and the IPL have their place in cricket's long and glorious story, but nothing beats the original - as celebrated in this wonderfully nostalgic look at the game in bygone years. Looking back to a heyday of long hot summers and classic matches, When Cricket Was Cricket fondly recalls an era when it was a more enjoyable and carefree pastime - for the most part a sport conducted in a spirit of keen competitiveness but fair and thrilling play. Drawing on 100 years of outstanding photographs in the huge Mirrorpix archive, this book brings to life an age free of intrusive sponsorship and commercialism when huge crowds swarmed to see the stars of the day in action - legends such as WG Grace, Bradman, and Hobbs; famous greats of the post-war era like Sobers, Miller and Trueman; and more recent heroes such as Botham, Warne, Tendulkar and Lara. Ranging from the grandest venues to the humblest village pitches in its depiction of the sport's golden years, this is the perfect illustrated guide to when it really was cricket!

This is a superb book, but unfortunately, for me, it covers one of the sports that really doesn't interest me that much. I would happily sit through four nights of Wagner's Ring Cycle, but four or five days of watching eleven men against two, the odds of which are hardly fair, is a feat of endurance that doesn't appeal to me. Even one-day internationals and 20:20 matches are far too long for me. Having said that, this magnificent Haynes history, which is in the same format and series as their books on English and Scottish football clubs, is chock-full of fantastic photographs and facts, and just because I'm not a cricket fan doesn't mean I can't appreciate something that has been created so lovingly, so painstakingly. I would even stick my neck out and say that this is one of the finer books on cricket, simply because of the nostalgic aspect.

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