Booker Prize winner: The English Patient by Michael OndaatjeJohn Peel Festive 50 Number 1: Bang
Bang Machine: Geek LovePoet Laureate: Ted HughesPresident of Libya: Muammar al-GaddafiFor a series
purporting to cover great teams, our second East Anglian choice of recent weeks perhaps takes
liberties with the brief.
It is surprisingly uncommon to find a player whose passing will be marked equally between two
different clubs, but the death of Ralph Coates at the age of sixty-four will be marked with sadness
at all three of the Football League clubs at which he played: Burnley, Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton
Orient.
The road that led to the manager's position as it is currently understood – the man who is in
charge of practically everything – has been a difficult and tortuous one.
So domineering is the manager today that it is difficult to reconcile with the knowledge that it is
a position that was born of the need to put a buffer between the team and those who owned it, one
that was originally routinely carried out by the club secretary.
