| When Football was Football: Spurs | Array Print Array |
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When Football was Football Tottenham Hotspur A Nostalgic Look at a Century of the Club Haynes £18.99 Haynes don't just make car repair manuals. This reference book is a dip into the waters of one of London's most famous clubs. This year it will be some 49 years since they last won the league (though they did it in style by completing the first double of the century), and this gives fans the chance to enjoy some of the highs (and also the occasional low) of the century up to 1994. Written by Adam Powley, a journalist and lifelong Spurs fan, this looks at each decade in turn, picking out highlights and accompanied by a small essay on what achievements were made during the decade. Primarily it is about photographs and these are to be browsed at leisure. Throughout there are also sections which cover legends. As expected names such as Gilzean, Jennings, Peters, Chivers etc are in these little featurettes and they give basic stats about appearances and goals and a brief thumbnail portrait of the player as well. We see articles on football violence in the 70's, glamour marriages and of course those cup wins. It is ironic to see a hand written sheet hanging from the top of the open double decker bus in 1863, a far cry from what you would expect today. The early decades are hardly touched upon, apart from the cup win in 1921 (what about the cup win of 1901. It isn't covered, and that's because all the coverage is from the Daily Mirror which only began printing in 1903). There are plenty of quirky bits such as Chas and Dave recording yet another cup final song, Maradona in a Spurs shirt and demo's on the high street, and years later outside Alan Sugar's home. The weirdest is factory girls on the terraces in anti gas gear. |
