THE CRAZY GANG – THE INSIDE STORY OF FOOTBALL’S GREATEST MIRACLE, BY DAVE BASSETT, WALLY DOWNES AND THE REST OF THE CRAZY GANG, PUB-LISHED BY BANTAM PRESS, PRICE £18.99.
RATING OUT OF 10: 10
IT WAS timing the Swiss would have been proud of. No fewer than three weeks had passed since the never-to-be-repeated tale hit the shelves than it had something perfect to sell against.
Dave ‘Harry’ Bassett always knew how to make an entrance. Here’s a man who once addressed the men of the media in his office wearing just a pair of muddy white Y-fronts whilst sipping his tea following a job well done.
He and long-term mucker Wally Downes judged it well, sales in south west London likely to soar following the news that AFC Wimble-don have clinched an emotional return to Plough Lane. This was about its past as they look to the future.
Like the club, annoy-ance fuelled its inception. Bassett and 1980s menace Downes put pen to paper with a record to set straight.
The BT Sport documentary of the same title ruffled the feathers of even the 20th century’s thickest-skinned sportsmen.
The Vinnie and Fash show, they say, wrongly portrayed the Crazy Gang as bullies, who dragged their knuckles across the pitch as often as they dragged their young apprentices into the bushes. This was the real deal.
As you’d expect, nothing’s off limits as many of the extraordinary characters who took Wimbledon from the Southern League to the old First Division inside nine years explain all. And we mean all.
The language as colourful as the anecdotes, it reaches its peak when Wally outlines actress June Whitfield’s visit to the Dons’ dressing room to congratulate the team after winning promotion at Huddersfield in 1986.
“Most of the players were naked following their showers,” he recalled, “and June wanted to shake our hands. Being footballers though, a few accidently forgot to wrap a towel around their bodies.
“June needed all of her acting skills to keep control and only look into the players’ eyes. She got to 6ft 4ins Dave Beasant who was standing on a bench with a towel around his waist. June, slightly flustered, decided to glance away as she held out her hand. With that, off came the towel and June was shaking hands with something that certainly wasn’t a hand!”
It’s the Crazy Gang laid bare by the ones who actually made the old mob tick. Don’t leave yourselves exposed by not reading the true account.
Sam Elliott
MY GENTLEMAN JIM, BY BR YONY HILL, PUBLISHED BY THE BOOK GUILD, PRICE £15.99.
RATING OUT OF 10: 7
WE RECEIVED this book in the Late Tackle office before Jimmy Hill passed away in December, making the contents all the more poignant.
Bryony Hill, his third wife, admits she isn’t a football fan and this book weaves in and out between stories about his football career and other interests, such as golf, horse riding and charity fundraising.
It charts the life of someone extraordinarily busy, but also covers his home life and how he felt.
As the author admits: “My Gentleman Jim is a wonderfully indulgent, loving celebration of our life together.”
They first met when Bryony answered a newspaper advertisement for a personal assistant in August 1976. A year later Jimmy put his house in Bayswater up for sale in order to move to the Cotswolds, leaving her out of work.
However, they soon got together, despite a 23-year age gap, eventually married in 1991 and lived a happy life until Jimmy was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in September 2007, just two months after he had retired from his last job with Sky at the ripe old age of 79.
This book is a bit ‘indulgent’ at times – there is an awful lot of name-dropping and some of the stories are a bit random – but it is clear there was a lot of love between Jimmy and his Miss B, and in many ways it’s a charming tale.
Hill’s love of football runs through it – even on his honeymoon. After Bryony suggested Suffolk, Jimmy replied: “Would you really prefer Suffolk to Barbados?”
“Yes, actually, I would,” she replied. “Ah,” he said, flicking the paper. “Fulham are away to Cambridge on Saturday. Okay, Suffolk it is then. You win.”
And on the wedding night itself, she recalled: “I went into the bathroom, leaving my new husband lying on the bed fully dressed. As I was squeezing toothpaste onto my brush I heard the television start up. ‘Lovely,’ I heard Jimmy say, ‘Sportsnight’.”
Towards the end of the book, Bryony talks about the devastating effect Alzheimer’s has. She describes the impact on a person as like a large office block where light bulbs keep going out over time, but no one replaces them, and the pain of him going into care and knowing that he would never come home.
Wisely, she doesn’t go into specific details about how the disease affected Jimmy. Indeed, those of us who watched him on television as we grew up would prefer to remember him in his pomp. Reading this book, it’s clear that he packed more into his life than most people could in two lifetimes.
He had an incredible football career from player to director to television presenter, was a true innovator and travelled extensively. And his enthusiasm for life and, most of all, football shines through.
Bryony includes the introduction to one of his regular columns in the Coventry City programme in her book. In a part of it, he said: “We must never forget the spirit of football, which for me is exemplified not so much by world stars winning World Cup competitions nor yet legendary players stirring our memories.
“It’s more of the pleasure that a young boy gets of rushing out onto the nearest piece of grass with a new pair of boots, or a new ball on Christmas morning. The fun he gets is the fun we should all continue to see from this extraordinarily satisfying game.”
John Lyons
THERE’S ONLY TWO DAVID BECK-HAMS, BY JOHN O’FARRELL, PUB-LISHED BY BLACK SWAN, £7.99.
RATING OUT OF 10: 8
REMEMBER the title…
John O’Farrell is a Fulham fan who includes in his thanks Clint Dempsey whose goal beat Juventus in a famous European tie. His new novel is a great idea: what if England reached the final of the Qatar World Cup 2022, but a journalist has an exclusive which could scupper all potential glory? Alfie Baker, father of Tom, divorced partner of Suzanne, is a tabloid journalist who has finally got round to writing a long-awaited book about English football. A lifelong England fan, he was not born in 1966 but follows England home and away, taking Tom to his first one at Wembley and helping him get the bug.
Alfie, who often curses himself for joining a dying profession, is a loveable schlubb who could be played in the film version by Martin Freeman or, better, James Corden.
Alfie is the hero, or villain, of his own story, after becoming suspicious about the brilliance of England’s Under-19 team. This team advance to the senior level, just about qualify for Qatar (losing to Vatican City on the way) and set the tournament ablaze.
Alfie, though, follows his nose and ends up in a place where plausibility meets satire, while learning life lessons along the way which will chime happily with any Late Tackle reader.
But the debate rages: who would be in your Best Ever England XI (pre-2000 for reasons that become clear in the story)? Would you choose Lineker over Greavesie, Ashley Cole over Kenny Sansom, Duncan Edwards over Jackie Charlton?
O’Farrell is a funny writer who has written for Spitting Image and Have I Got News for You, and there are great gags on every page which will even make those few nonfootball fans who read this book smirk. There is heart in the writing which helps a reader swallow the social commentary and biting satire. O’Farrell has always been influenced by the New Labour movement, and Tony Blair pops up as one of many cameos.
Very few football novels in recent years have come close to Fever Pitch, but I am sure Nick Hornby would smirk and applaud the excellence of a story that has the happiest of endings.
Now to see O’Farrell’s fantasy made real…with no need for ‘RW’ to intervene.
Jonny Brick
THE PFA PREMIER & FOOTBALL LEAGUE PLAYERS’ RECORDS 1946-2015, EDITED AND COMPILED BY BARRY J HUGMAN, PUBLISHED BY G2 ENTERTAINMENT, £40.
RATING OUT OF 10: 8
BARRY J Hugman edited and compiled this weighty tome – rather him than me!
If you’re looking for a book of football stats, then you can’t do much better than this one. The best advice is ‘be careful’ because if you drop it on your foot, you’re going to be in agony.
Apparently, Barry is renowned as one of the world’s leading sports statisticians. I suppose this book has been a labour of love, but can it be enjoyable?
This is a book that does what it says on the tin. I’ve tried to test it out by checking if an reminding themselves about players from bygone days.
At approaching 1,000 pages, it should keep you going for a while… obscure player from yesteryear is in it – and it’s come up trumps.
If you like your books to come with pictures, illustrations and extraordinary art work, then forget about this one. It’s all names and numbers in incredible detail.
It’s ideal for people like club statisticians and journalists, but football fans in general may like skimming through it and
John Lyons
THE FOOTBALL POCKET PUZZLE BOOK, BY NEIL SOMERVILLE, PUBLISHED BY SUMMERSDALE PUBLISHERS, £5.99.
RATING OUT OF 10: 7
IF YOU’RE looking for a little present for someone, this book is a great option.
It’s got 120 different brain-teasers to keep you on your toes with activities such as Sudokus, Acrostics, Cryptograms, Picture Posers, Crosswords, Word Ladders and Word Searches.
When you start this book, you think it will be fairly easy to solve the puzzles, but then you find yourself stumped – and desperate to think of the answers you’re missing.
The beauty of this book is that you can dip in and out when you want. If you’re travelling on the bus or train, or if you’ve got a spare five minutes, you can attempt a puzzle. And, as it says on the back page, ‘This challenging compendium of brain-teasers about the beautiful game will have you puzzling long after the final whistle has blown’. Too true…
Tom Blackett
