When Footballers Were Skint

Shortlisted for The Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2019 Long before perma-tanned football agents and TV mega-rights ushered in the age of the multimillionaire player, footballers' wages were capped – even the game's biggest names earned barely more than a plumber or electrician. Footballing legends such as Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews shared a bond of borderline penury with the huge crowds they entertained on Saturday afternoons, on pitches that were a world away from the pristine lawns of the game's modern era. Instead of the gleaming sports cars driven by today's top players, the stars of yesteryear travelled to matches on public transport and returned to homes every bit as modest as those of their supporters. Players and fans would even sometimes be next-door neighbours in a street of working-class terraced houses. Based on the first-hand accounts of players from a fast disappearing generation, When Footballers Were Skint delves into the game's rich heritage and relates the fascinating story of a truly great sporting era.

One of the most exciting footballers of his era, Vince Hilaire is a cult sporting figure. His career spanned over 600 games and included spells at Crystal Palace, Portsmouth, Leeds United and Stoke City, playing in every professional division. Vince shared a dressing room with some of football's biggest names of the time, including Kenny Sansom, Mick Channon, Gordon Strachan and Vinnie Jones, and was managed by some of the superstars of British football. This book offers a fascinating insight into the methods of these managers, from Malcolm Allison and Terry Venables, with their free-flowing football reminiscent of the famous 'Busby Babes', to the contrasting rigidity of Howard Wilkinson's Leeds. A trailblazer in the professional game, Vince outlines the difficulties he faced as a young black player making his way in football in the 1970s, and the dread he felt playing at certain grounds.Candidly detailing Vince's journey into and out of professional football, this hugely entertaining autobiography tells the story of the beautiful game as it used to be played.

Robin Friday was an exceptional footballer who should have played for England. He never did. Robin Friday was a brilliant player who could have played in the top flight. He never did. Why? Because Robin Friday was a man who would not bow down to anyone, who refused to take life seriously and who lived every moment as if it were his last. For anyone lucky enough to have seen him play, Robin Friday was up there with the greats. Take it from one who knows: 'There is no doubt in my mind that if someone had taken a chance on him he would have set the top division alight,' says the legendary Stan Bowles. 'He could have gone right to the top, but he just went off the rails a bit.' Loved and admired by everyone who saw him, Friday also had a dark side: troubled, strong-minded, reckless, he would end up destroying himself. Tragically, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, he died at the age of 38 without ever having fulfilled his potential. The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw provides the first full appreciation of a man too long forgotten by the world of football, and, along with a forthcoming film based on Friday's life, with a screenplay by co-author Paolo Hewitt, this book will surely give him the cult status he deserves.

'A very funny book that tackles some serious football issues.' Gary Lineker 'Witty and wise.' Clare Balding 'Brilliant. Blows the lid off football. Hilarious, detailed and insightful.' Alan Davies --- Ever dreamed of setting up your own football club? Join the team behind The Price of Football podcast as they start a (fictional) football club and discover what's really going on behind the scenes of the beautiful game. Buying a football club will set you back a few quid, but you've also got to pass the Premier League and EFL's 'fit and proper persons test'. That all seems like a bit of a faff to the team behind the award-winning podcast The Price of Football, so acclaimed comedy writer Kevin Day, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and producer Guy Kilty start an imaginary club instead. In Unfit and Improper Persons they take West Park Rovers on a hilarious journey from the lowest level of the FA pyramid right up to the English Football League, the Premier League and, if fortune favours the fictional, into the heart of Europe. At least that's the plan, but inevitably they face a few challenges along the way. Where to find a shirt sponsor? What should the mascot be – is a dog called Rover too obvious? Can they pay the women's team the same as the men's team? (Spoiler alert: hardly anyone else does.) And how can they get Messi to the Kleanwell Stadium next season, like they promised the fans? Roofing over the toilets, paying the electric on the floodlights, salary caps, parachute payments and avoiding bankruptcy, never mind relegation – owning a football club isn't all about stuffing prawn sarnies and quaffing champagne in the directors' box. Unfit and Improper Persons is informed, funny and, thanks to exclusive interviews with those who've been there, done that, it lays bare the labyrinthine world of football finance.

‘Not since The Football Man has a book so captured the passion of the game. The Bottom Corner is a wonderful journey through life in the lower reaches of the football pyramid. A fascinating tale of a very different world of football from that of the overpaid stars of the television age’ Barry Davies In these days of oligarch owners, superstar managers and players on sky-high wages, the tide is turning towards the lower reaches of the pyramid as fans search for football with a soul. Plucky underdogs or perennial underachievers, your local non-league team offers hope, drama or at least a Saturday afternoon ritual that's been going for decades. Nige Tassell spends a season in the non-league world. He meets the raffle-ticket seller who wants her ashes scattered in the centre-circle. The envelope salesman who discovered a future England international. The ex-pros still playing with undiluted passion on Sunday mornings. He spends time at clubs looking for promotion to the Football League, clubs just aiming to get eleven players on a pitch every week, and everything in between. One thing unites them: they all inhabit the heartland of the beautiful game.

*Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year* *Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award* *The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year* *The Times Sports Book of the Year* *Telegraph Football Book of the Year* Readers love The Boy on the Shed 'A journey full of emotion . . . Spectacular' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Honest, insightful and shows how football really has to sort itself out' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Paul Ferris writes from the heart, a wonderful book' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Exceptional' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Ferris's wonderful memoir represents a twin triumph. He has endured every kind of setback in life but has invariably reinvented himself; and his writing is a pure pleasure.' The Sunday Times 'Enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.' Telegraph 'A masterpiece' Brian McNally 'Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris's The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.' Guardian 'Fascinating and stylishly told.' David Walsh, bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins __________ The Boy on the Shed is a story of love and fate. At 16, Paul Ferris becomes Newcastle United's youngest-ever first-teamer. Like many a tricky winger from Northern Ireland, he is hailed as 'the new George Best'. As a player and later a physio and member of the Magpies' managerial team, Paul's career acquaints him not only with Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Bobby Robson, Ruud Gullit, Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer but also with injury, insecurity and disappointment. Talented and carefree on the pitch, shy and anxious off it, he earns a tilt at stardom. His first spell at Newcastle turns sour, as does his return as a physio, although obtaining a Masters degree shows him what he could achieve away from football. Written with brutal candour, dark humour and consummate style, The Boy on the Shed is a riveting and moving account of a life less ordinary. __________

WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A poignant and moving account of the author’s search for the man his father was and the life he led as a well-known footballer, blending the personal and the historical into an unforgettable story Stewart Imlach was an ordinary neighbourhood soccer star of his time. A brilliant winger who thrilled the crowd on Saturdays, then worked alongside them in the off-season; who represented Scotland in the 1958 World Cup and never received a cap for his efforts; who was Man of the Match for Nottingham Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final, and was rewarded with the standard offer - £20 a week, take it or leave it. Gary Imlach grew up a privileged insider at Goodison Park when Stewart moved into coaching. He knew the highlights of his father's career by heart. But when his dad died he realised they were all he knew. He began to realise, too, that he'd lost the passion for football that his father had passed down to him. In this book he faces his growing alienation from the game he was born into, as he revisits key periods in his father's career to build up a picture of his football life - and through him a whole era. ‘The most emotionally charged and moving sports book I've ever read’ Daily Mail

BEN SMITH: PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER. Recognise the name? Of course you don't. That's because most of Smith's years in the game were spent outside the vaunted, big-money environs of the Premier League - and this sporting memoir is all the more entertaining as a result. 1995: an adolescent Ben arrives at the training ground of one of England's biggest clubs to begin his journey and realise his dream of playing top-flight professional football. Aged just sixteen, he shares pre-season sessions at Arsenal with the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright. Surely this is the start of a stellar career? Instead, the next seventeen years saw the bright young star descend the ranks from Highbury to obscurity. With seasons playing for the likes of Reading, Yeovil, Southend, Hereford, Shrewsbury and Weymouth - and a career including three promotions, one relegation and some very memorable FA Cup games - Ben's story is one of a quintessential journeyman footballer. Candidly describing the negotiations, insecurities, injuries, relocations, personal implications and wet Saturday afternoons playing in front of 500 people, Journeyman offers a unique insight into the unvarnished life of a lower-league player - so far removed from the stories of pampered Premiership stars - as well as documenting the many teammates, opponents, managers and coaches who left an indelible mark on Ben's eclectic career. Refreshingly unsentimental and often hilarious, Smith's story is essential reading for all true fans of the not-always-so-beautiful game.

SHORTLISTED FOR BEST SPORTS WRITING AT THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023 "Sheer joy" – Patrick Barclay "Exhilarating" – When Saturday Comes "Perfect" – Josh Widdicombe "★★★★★" – FourFourTwo Four years after the crowning glory of 1966, and a decade after the abolition of the maximum wage, a brash new era dawned in English football. As the 1970s took hold, a new generation of larger-than-life players and managers emerged, appearing on television sets in vivid technicolour for the first time. Set against a backdrop of strikes, political unrest, freezing winters and glam rock, Get It On tells the inside story of how commercialism, innovation, racism and hooliganism rocked the national game in the 1970s. Packed with interviews with the legends of the day, this footballing fiesta charts the emergence of Brian Clough, Bob Paisley and Kevin Keegan and the fall of George Best, Alf Ramsey and Don Revie, presenting a vibrant portrait of the most groundbreaking decade in English football history.

100 years of Wembley Stadium told through 100 matches. The 1923 FA Cup final – also known as the White Horse final – was the first football match played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium. Although best remembered for its vast, well-beyond-capacity crowd, which had to be marshalled by a policeman atop a white horse, that afternoon marked the opening chapter of the long and eventful history of the stadium soon to be known simply as Wembley. Over the 100 years since that overcrowded day, Wembley has established itself as the home of the beautiful game and, almost certainly, the world’s most famous football stadium. It occupies a special place in the hearts of players and punters alike. Watching your team at Wembley is the highlight of a fan’s lifetime of support; playing there the fulfilment of a childhood dream. Its sacred pitch has been the crucible of many classic matches across the decades: World Cups have been won here, as have FA Cups, European Cups, play-off finals and more. And that hallowed turf has also seen greyhounds, stunt motorcycles, American football, plus the feet of 72,000 music fans at Live Aid in 1985. Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches - from the well known to the esoteric - that have shaped Wembley's legacy and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past 100 years of football, and of Britain. We hear a ball boy’s perspective on the FA Cup Final when Bert Trautmann broke his neck, about the other commentator of the 1966 World Cup final, and why a cup-winning team of eleven unemployed men didn't receive a trophy from a future king. Field of Dreams is the story of how football found its home.