Books about Breedon Books

Review

Product Description: "Tranmere Rovers: The Complete Record 1884-2009" is the official history of Rovers since their formation as Belmont, and its release has been timed to coincide with the 125th anniversary of that date. The foreword has been penned by BBC presenter, and Tranmere fan, Ray Stubbs. A collaboration between club historians Gil Upton, Steve Wilson and former Tranmere program editor, Peter Bishop, this lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced book is the definitive guide to Tranmere Rovers and will be on the wish list of every Rovers fan. It is the culmination of over 20 year's painstaking research by the three authors. The story of Tranmere Rovers FC, from its fledgling beginnings as Belmont in the late 19th century, is one of determination in the face of adversity and takes the reader through the golden era of the late 80's and Nineties right up to the present day in fascinating detail with many previously unpublished illustrations. Also included in this comprehensive volume is the story of the club's Anglo Italian Cup adventures, match programs, and Internationals, plus profiles of 130 of the club's greatest players, all the managers, 25 memorable matches, and for the first time a meticulously researched and illustrated history of Prenton Park. Additionally, the full season-by-season record of every League and cup game Tranmere Rovers have contested since 1919 is documented, with summaries for the years before. A host of key data, records, statistics, and some unique graphs-including ones which chart the clubs attendances and finances since inception - complete the picture. Enough facts and figures to satisfy the most ardent aficionado of the clubs' history! The result is a volume that is an essential addition to the bookshelf of any Rovers fan. Put simply, this is finally the book that provides everything any Rovers fan, and indeed any football fan would want to know about Tranmere Rovers Football Club. This is the ultimate guide to Tranmere Rovers - all the statistics from every season, matches to remember, star players and much, much more. With over 400 illustrations and every conceivable fact and figure associated with the club it is the definitive volume on the clubs history.

Review

Product Description: This title contains first-hand accounts from the legendary figures who defined Nottingham Forest's history; features interviews with Stuart Pearce, Nigel Clough, John McGovern amongst others; and reviews coverage in local and national press and football media. Ever since his addiction began with a 1-1 draw against Coventry City at the age of seven, "Guardian" journalist Daniel Taylor has been both blessed and cursed to be a Nottingham Forest fan. "Deep into the Forest" is the story of his quest to track down those legendary figures who defined the club's history and gather their first-hand accounts about the exhilarating highs and excruciating lows, from the European Cups and Wembley triumphs to the relegations, cup shocks and controversies. In the most colourful book ever written about the club, we learn about the long-running feud between Kenny Burns and Trevor Francis, how Forest were cheated out of a European final by a 'dodgy' referee, how Brian Clough once punched Stuart Pearce in the dressing room and why Roy Keane once called the author a 'fecking idiot'. From the 'glory years' Garry Birtles, John Robertson, Viv Anderson, John McGovern and many others pay tribute to Clough and recall those magical days when unheralded, unfashionable Forest won the European Cup twice and could rightly claim to be the greatest football team in the world. Nigel Clough lifts the lid on what it was really like to be the manager's son, the fiercely secretive Des Walker breaks the habit of a lifetime to offer a personal insight and Pearce explains why a part of him will always hate Derby County and Liverpool. Add to that the revealing, often controversial, stories of Ian Storey-Moore, Archie Gemmill, Larry Lloyd and Niel Webb and Deep into the Forest is the ultimate read for Forest's supporters and a lasting tribute to Brian Clough.

Review

Product description: Rangers may have scaled great heights, but the personal lives of almost all the founding fathers were touched with terrible tragedy. Journalist Gary Ralston has used fresh research and uncovered hitherto unseen documents, records and transcripts to sympathetically recount the heartbreaking stories behind the men who created a great institution. He reveals the torrid tales of death through insanity, a drowning that denied a birthright as a steamship entrepreneur and the sad passing of a pioneer who lies buried in a pauper's grave in the forgotten fringes of an English cemetery, cast as a certified imbecile, tried as a fraudster and left to live out his life in the poorhouse. This fascinating insight into the earliest years of Rangers, the first in-depth analysis for almost a century, also tells of happier times, the links with royalty and football aristocracy such as Sir Stanley Matthews and the club's relationship with the city in which it was born and grew in the tumultuous Victorian era. It also traces the only two known surviving grandchildren of the founders and tells how they knew nothing about their grandfather's most famous achievement. "Rangers 1872: The Gallant Pioneers" tells one of football's most romantic tales - and also one of its saddest.

Review

Product Description: Burnley Football Club comes from the smallest town ever to win the League Division One, and the F.A. Cup. Some big city clubs at present in the Premier League have won neither! Their history sparkles with international players, 'football firsts' and record breaking achievements. Among their players have been a Footballer of the Year, one who played for Great Britain, several who played in World Cups, and at least one who captained his country. But this book is one which is mainly 'off the record'. Here you can read some of the queer, quaint and quirky things that have been part of the past 125 years in Clarets history. Who scored three goals for England and was never picked again? When did Burnley play ten Scots in the first team, making the only Englishman feel 'lonely'? And what has golf in a hotel bedroom got to do with anything? When Burnley were in Division Four, how was it that they attracted over 80,000 to watch them in one game? When did ten Blackburn Rovers players walk off the pitch? Which position did Blackadder play in the Burnley team? And which bricklayer became the club's greatest ever player? 'Read all about it!' in this captivating trivia tome.

Review

Product Description: This title features a unique period in Sunderland AFC's history when they were Football League Champions, FA Cup Winners and Charity Shield Winners. It contains unrivalled pictures, some of which haven't been seen in decades. 'Arsenal are now second to Sunderland' screamed the "Sunday Sun" headline on 7 December 1935. Sunderland AFC were truly at the top of their game, and at the start of a two-year period that would bring them unprecedented success. In 1935/36 the Red and Whites won their sixth English Football League Championship, a feat they have not managed to repeat since. The drama of that historic season is recreated in Total Football through the original contemporary match reports and rare original photographs from the archives of Sunderland supporters. The highs and lows of the League campaign are recalled in detail, including the tragic death of goalkeeper Jimmy Thorpe, to whom the book is dedicated, after a match against Chelsea at Roker Park. Thorpe's grief-stricken teammates went on to play their hearts out for the rest of the season, eventually hammering Birmingham City 7-2 at St Andrews to capture the League title. In 1936/37 Sunderland lifted the FA Cup at Wembley for the first time in the club's history after their dramatic progression through the rounds included two replays against an exciting young Wolves side. The Wearsiders also claimed the FA Charity Shield, bringing yet more silverware back to Roker Park. The team's achievements in 1935-37 prompted legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, who played for Preston North End against Sunderland in the 1937 FA Cup Final, to remark: "In many ways the Sunderland team of 1937 played the same brand of Total Football as the great Holland team of the 1970s. " Sunderland heroes Raich Carter, perhaps the finest player ever to take the field for the club, and Bobby Gurney, still the club's highest-ever goalscorer, helped to make the team of 1935-37 the greatest in the land. The story of that remarkable era is told here for the first time, and is sure to inspire a new generation of Sunderland supporters.

Review

Product Description: In April 1945, a group of bedraggled, weary German prisoners of war landed at Tilbury after being captured during the last days of the war. They were dispersed to prison camps throughout England and one of their number, a confused 22-year-old veteran of some of the harshest conditions and hardest battles experienced by the German forces, found himself in south-east Lancashire. His name was Bernhard Carl Trautmann, later to become famous as Bert. This book is the complete story, from his early life in Bremen where he was born and raised in the seething political climate of the 1920s, his involvement with the Hitler Youth movement and extraordinary war experiences to his often hilarious internment at prisoner of war Camp 50, until his signing by Manchester City in 1949 amid a barrage of controversy and prejudice. Trautmann ran the gauntlet of racial hatred to become, without doubt, one of the greatest goalkeepers ever seen. He played in two successive FA cup finals, 1955 and 1956, the latter year bringing him into world focus when he sustained a broken neck. Yet he continued with the game! Within weeks of that Cup Final he suffered further appalling personal tragedy, amid turmoil in his home life, as he fought to regain his fitness. This is an exciting story of courage and humour and it gives a rare insight into the professional football world of the 1950s and 1960s, while recording with candour Trautmann's often turbulent personal and professional life. The book also includes details of the Traumann Foundation and Trautmann's OBE.

Review

Product description: Whether you support Newcastle United, have a general interest in the British love-affair with European football or are fascinated by English football in the 1960s this is a book that captures a bygone era and stirs a host of memories. This book includes interviews with victorious captain Bobby Moncur and semi-final hero Jim Scott. It details each and every game in the victorious cup run, profiling every player to take part in what was Newcastle United's last major trophy success. It is fully illustrated throughout with Newcastle memorabilia.

Review

Product Description: This is the biography of one of football's most remarkable careers, published in association with "Lancashire Evening Post". It is a collection of over 300 photographs, charting the life of Preston's most famous son. It is published to coincide with Sir Tom Finney Day on 26th March and Sir Tom Finney Exhibition at the National Football Museum on 28th March. SIR Tom Finney's place among the very greatest footballers of all time is assured. He played for England 76 times and even today, almost half a century after his retirement from the game, he remains among the nation's all time scoring greats with 30 goals for his country. Born in 1922 within the shadow of Preston North End's Deepdale Stadium, Sir Tom spent his whole career playing for the famous old club he followed as a boy. He made his mark in his very first game taking just 18 minutes to score his first goal of what was to be a glittering career. Over the following 14 seasons he pulled on the club's white jersey 433 times notching up 187 goals in the process and becoming the first man to be crowned Footballer of the Year twice. His performances as an attacker comfortable on the left or right saw him nicknamed the Phantom Winger by his legion of fans. When injury eventually forced him to hang up his boots in 1960, at the age of 38, more than 30,000 fans turned up to bid him farewell. The emotion charged day is captured in a series of photographs published here, some of which have never been seen before. Within 12 months his beloved Preston North End had dropped out of the top flight of English football. With his playing days over he ran the family's plumbing and electrical business and took on a host of public roles. Sir Tom was also a tireless charity worker, a role he fulfills to this day. His public roles and exemplary football career saw him awarded the OBE in 1961, received the CBE in 1992 and was finally knighted in the New Year's Honours List in 1998. In his hometown he was awarded the highest honour possible when he was made a Freeman of Preston in 1979. Many of today's football lovers never saw the great man play but his legend lives on. In 2009, the National Football Museum will dedicate a whole exhibition to Sir Tom while stars of the game across the generations will attend a gala celebration day in his honour. "Sir Tom Finney: A Life in Pictures" draws on the extensive photographic archives of the "Lancashire Evening Post" to chart the life and times of Preston's most famous son. Many of the pictures published here have never been seen before while others have lain unseen for decades. Together they chronicle both his playing career and his life off the pitch painting a fascinating portrait of a man who has truly earned the status of national treasure.

Review

Product Description: "Behind The Glory!" tells a story that anyone interested in the history of our national game will find essential reading. Ever since professionalism in soccer was legalised in 1885, the stars of the game have been the object of fascination, envy and adulation - but for much of the last century, professional players at all levels struggled to gain respectability and a fair wage.The poor relations of the entertainment world, they were often exploited by their clubs and regularly treated with disdain by the game's administrators. Today, the lives and loves of football's young millionaires are scrutinised by the broadsheets and on TV while for a new generation of devoted young fans they are fashion icons and role models."Behind The Glory!" is the story of how the Player's Union - the Professional Footballers' Association - played such a crucial role in this extraordinary transformation. At first devoted to securing for all professionals their basic rights and freedoms, the PFA has gone on to play a major role in shaping the development of the nation's favourite game."Behind The Glory!" is a story of great football characters - pre-1st World War stars like Billy Meredith, Charlie Roberts and Colin Veitch; interwar legends such as Charles Buchan and Jimmy Fay; post war stalwarts like Jimmy Guthrie, Joe Mercer and Cliff Lloyd; plus modern innovators such as Jimmy Hill, Derek Dougan and Gordon Taylor. All of these and many, many more have played crucial parts in the PFA's long and fascinating battle against the odds, a battle that continues today as our national sport struggles to come to terms with the conflicting demands of rampant international commercialism and loyalty to the game's local roots.This title tells the story of the Professional Footballers' Association and the role they played in shaping the nation's favourite game. It gives fascinating insight into many great football characters.

Review

Product Description: Many decades before SKY TV's popular "Football Idol" series Tommy Tynan won a newspaper competition called "Search for a Soccer-Star"; he was just 16 years old. His reward was an apprenticeship at Bill Shankly's famous Liverpool Football Club, and, at the club, he scored in abundance at every level he had a chance to play at. The problem was the squad was so damn strong that Tommy was unable to get a chance in the first-team. Loan moves to Swansea City (where the great John Charles wanted to show off his talent in Italy), and the Dallas Tornado's (he played against such greats as Pele, Bobby Moore and George Best) helped him to become one of the most prolific strikers in an era before the money men moved into the game, and, he never earned more than five-hundred quid a week!At Jack Charlton's Sheffield Wednesday, he was a hit. At Newport County, playing alongside John Aldridge, they marched into Europe. At Plymouth Argyle, his goals propelled the team to promotion and a place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Tommy was a goal-machine wherever he went, and he wasn't afraid of controversy.Today, to many thousands of people, he is a cult-hero. This is his story...Signed for Liverpool by legendary Bill Shankly after winning the "Search for a Soccer-Star" competition, Tommy went on to become a cult figure during his time at Plymouth Argyle and Newport County.