There's something special about cup football, and Dan Walker has had a privileged seat for some of football's greatest knockout dramas, getting close to the action in World Cups and FA Cups. Who wouldn't want to play a knockabout game of beach football on Copacabana beach with Clarence Seedorf? But there have also been moments when things haven't quite gone according to plan, as when he rubbed out the names on Wrexham's honours board live on Football Focus, or when he was halfway up the famous Wembley arch on FA Cup final day, only to be interrupted by his mum ringing him up to ask what he wanted for his tea. Dan's own personal highlights reel are a jumping-off point for some of the funniest and most bizarre football stories of cup success and failure, from the most outrageous dressing-room dust-ups to Maradona's greatest rants. Then there's those moments that show footballers in a new light, such as Ipswich Town's Paul Anderson, who paid to repair a fan's ceiling after the fan punched a hole in it when celebrating a vital goal scored by Anderson. Packed with brilliant photographs, and told in Dan's unique style, the book also features a collection of his hugely popular team line-ups to make this the perfect gift for football fans everywhere.
Ronny Mintjens, linguist, teacher, and professional football coach, needed to find a way to really see the world, something deeper than mere tourism. Leaving the comfort and familiarity of his own European life, Mintjens decided to pursue his love of professional sports and exotic cultures all at once. He began coaching football at clubs all across Africa. Beginning in southern and then moving on to eastern Africa, Mintjens soon realized that there was more to professional football than simply training and winning matches. Trying to find ways to make a true mark on the game, Mintjens travelled from one club to the next. Each club, from Mount Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti Plains to Table Mountain and the Cape of Good Hope, held its own surprises and boasted its own strengths and weaknesses. In the end, each had its own lessons on the intricate weaving of African culture and heritage. Leave your life behind and dive into the exotic world of African sports with this fascinating tale of an ambitious foreigner and his deep journey to understand football as a way of life in the African football club. In this relatively unknown part of the world, football is certainly more than a game.
After 40 years in football management, there’s not a lot I haven’t seen. There’ve been big highs, but a fair share of lows too. When I have to make difficult decisions, I make a point of avoiding newspapers, phone-ins, Twitter – all of it. But there’s always a load of armchair-pundits waiting to start on me. Being a manager has never been easy, but between the fans and the media it often feels impossible to get it right. In It Shouldn’t Happen to a Manager, I talk about how different the job is now from what it was like when I used to play. For one, managers used to drive up and down motorways all day to scout for players – now there’s so much analysis and global scouting. It’s a different thing, completely. In this book, I share everything I’ve learnt from a lifetime of both wins and losses, and wisdom from greats like Cloughie and Ferguson. I’ll tell you about what actually happens in the dressing room, including when Clough smashed the door off its hinges; the bust-ups at full-time, like when I kicked a tray of sandwiches on Don Hutchinson’s head; and the times when I had to swap an arm round a player’s shoulder for a boot up the arse. It’s my guide to being a manager, the Harry way.
One of the most comprehensive collections of its kind features more than 21,000 quotes from 3,500 authors, arranged alphabetically by author with a complete keyword index, mini-biographies of the authors, and notes on source and historical context.
Recounts the events of the past year, from the tragedy in Somalia, through the war in the former Yugoslavia and the devastation of Hurricane Andrew, to the 1992 presidential election. 35,000 first printing.