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Why Manchester United was sold

The Manchester United fans blog - Truly Reds 06 March @ 10:11 AM EDT
Truly Reds does not normally do book reviews. Although many Manchester United ones go on the market each year, their reviews are normally left to specialist websites.There is the occasional one...
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Doing African Football Justice

A Liverpool Thing 06 January @ 09:00 AM EDT
Book Review: Feet of the Chameleon by Ian Hawkey
Every two years, managers from across the continent seem to join forces in their criticism of that which has become the most despised competition in European football: the African Cup of Nations. Being deprived of some of their best players for up to a month in the middle of the season can have a highly unnerving effect on managers, particularly if results start going against them during that period. Click to continue reading...

Well Read: Top Books from 2009

A Liverpool Thing 31 December @ 04:00 AM EDT
As the year comes to a close, it is appropriate to think of what has gone on during the previous twelve months. There are many others out there analysing Liverpool's best game of 2009, the most spectacular goal as well as the highs (and, undoubtedly, the lows) of the year so I won't bother you all by going over those matters. Click to continue reading...

All of Liverpool's Players

A Liverpool Thing 18 December @ 09:00 AM EDT
Book Review: Player by Player by Ivan Ponting
Some years ago, I accepted to write some Liverpool player profiles for a site, foolishly thinking that this was going to be an easy job. After all, how difficult could it be to write a couple of hundred words about players you knew inside out? Click to continue reading...

When Football Was Football

A Liverpool Thing 15 December @ 06:00 AM EDT
Book Review: When Football Was Football by Peter Hooton
This was love at first sight seeing that on the back cover there is reproduced one of my favourite Liverpool images. It does not show a famous game or triumph but simply Bob Paisley sat down sharing a joke with some of his old friends and with the Champions Cup in front of them. Click to continue reading...

A Look at the Secrets of Liverpool's Glory Years

A Liverpool Thing 13 November @ 09:00 AM EDT
Book Review: The Secret Diary of a Liverpool Scout by Simon Hughes
Now this is an intriguing book. Whilst most of the key architects of Liverpools's lasting success over the four decades after Bill Shankly took over avtively shunned publicity, most were still pushed into the limelight. Click to continue reading...

"Liverpool Fans Don't Make Knee-jerk Reactions"

A Liverpool Thing 04 November @ 09:00 AM EDT
Over the past few days I've been reading the book Secret Diary of a Liverpool Scout which deals with the life of former chief scout Geoff Twentyman (review of this should be online early next week).
Author Simon Hughes has done an excellent job of rounding not only players that Twentyman helped bring to Liverpool but also those that ended up elsewhere. Click to continue reading...

A Look At: Genious Does As it Must

A Liverpool Thing 19 October @ 08:00 AM EDT
Book Review: Genius Does as it Must - Liverpool FC Banners Compiled by Chris McLoughlin and Adam Oldfield
When people talk about the atmosphere at Anfield, particularly on a European night, they often refer to the singing and the raw emotion that there is in the ground. Too often, they fail to pick up on an important element that distinguishes Liverpool fans from many of their English counterparts: the banners that adorn the stands. Click to continue reading...

Book Review: Big Mal

thetwounfortunates 03 October @ 02:47 PM EDT
Big Mal: The High Life and Hard Times of Malcolm Allison, Football LegendBy David TossellMainstreamSeptember 2009, £7.99, ISBN: 9781845964788We recently introduced to the sidebar a table of links to some football-related book reviews that we (well, mostly LR) have written, either on here or Goodreads. Click to continue reading...
Tags: Book Reviews

A Look At: Every Boy's Dream by Chris Green

A Liverpool Thing 21 September @ 08:00 AM EDT
Much has been written about the Gael Kakuta case which has led to the ban on transfer dealings that has been imposed on Chelsea. There has been debate about whether the decision was too harsh or not; others have focused on going over Chelsea's actions to see whether they were right in what they did or not. Click to continue reading...

Book Review: Why England Lose

Oh, You Beauty... 02 September @ 08:29 AM EDT
Meta: I'll be away until Monday, which is really quite handy given the transfer window's just closed and it's an international break. I will miss the three-year anniversary of this blog tomorrow, but that's no great shakes. Here's a book review to hold you over. Don't break anything.
Why England Lose and Other Curious Phenomena Explained
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski
HarperSport
The title's obviously intriguing, it got a rare five-star review in FourFourTwo, and the blurbs have compared it to Moneyball. Click to continue reading...

A Look At: Red Race

A Liverpool Thing 14 August @ 08:13 AM EDT
Book Review: Red Race by Paul Tomkins
If you're a fan of American sport (something that I have to admit I'm not) then you'll be familiar with the love affair that there is with statistics and how numbers are used to explain almost everything.
Up till a few years back such an approach was alien to football where the only numbers you were likely to get were those pertaining to the scoreline. Click to continue reading...

A Look At: Tor

A Liverpool Thing 24 July @ 08:00 AM EDT
Book Review: Tor
For some reason this book – which is a history of German football - had stood, unread, on my bookshelf for a couple of years. I had bought it in one of my usual spending sprees and then felt little inclination to read it. Well, that's not completely true as I had actually started to read it, not really liked what I saw and dropped it soon after. Click to continue reading...

A Look At: Wark On

A Liverpool Thing 14 July @ 08:00 AM EDT
Book Review: Wark On by John Wark
It must be impossible for those who played top flight football in the era of pre-Premiership riches not to wonder how their lives would have panned out had they been born a couple of decades later. Take Glen Hysen: the Swedish central defender who played for Liverpool in the early nineties recently ended up on the dole after a Swedish broadcaster opted not to renew his contract. Click to continue reading...

back in the bright lights

This is American Soccer 14 July @ 12:37 AM EDT

Grant Wahl discusses his new book, The Beckham Experiment, out now from Crown

Why do book reviews have to be summaries of the book? I never got that. I understand it but don't get it. I do get jacket blurbs, though. Those few sentences of praise on the back of a boo I'm always curious what names are there and what they say.

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A Look At:: The Rivals Game

A Liverpool Thing 15 June @ 08:00 AM EDT
Book Review: The Rivals Game by Douglas Beattie
If you've ever read Four Four Two's regular feature More Than A Game, then there's no doubt that you'll love this book. For the premise behind it is similar: take two clubs where there's a derby and look at what makes games between them particularly fierce. Click to continue reading...

A Look At: Behind the Back Page

A Liverpool Thing 23 April @ 08:00 AM EDT
Book Review: Behind the Back Page by Chris Davies
One the cover of this book there's a quote attributed to Ian Ridley where he discribes the author, Chris Davies, as being "a funny guy".
Such a comment would normally be the prelude to a long read without any laughs. Click to continue reading...

The Reading List: Hot Winter Nights

kenn.com 09 April @ 02:08 PM EDT

From time to time, I'll review books that strike my fancy. The first one would have been a must-have for my library even if a friend hadn't written it. Hot Winter Nights: A Game-by-Game History of the Major Indoor Soccer League 1978-92 was a labor of love for my man Rich Paschette and it's a treasure trove for indoor soccer aficionados and stat/sports encyclopedia geeks like me.

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Spreading the Word: A Cultured Left Foot

A Liverpool Thing 25 March @ 07:37 AM EDT
img style="BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; BORDER-TOP: medium none; MARGIN: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none" height="1" alt="" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=alivthi-21amp;l=as2amp;o=2amp;a=0715637630" width="1" border="0" /Normally, I'm either immediately hooked by a book and don't put it down until I finish it or else I start delaying reading more of it which is a clear indication that it isn't really to my liking. Click to continue reading...