When Footballers Were Skint: A Journey in Search of the Soul of Football

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Henderson has spent four years interviewing former players who are now in their 80s and whose stories were in danger of being forgotten. Time colours everything, but while there is something undeniably attractive about footballers being rooted in their communities, travelling to games by public transport and earning a similar amount to the fans who came to watch them – if the game did ever have a soul, this might have been that era – Henderson is too astute an observer to let the romance ever slide into sentimentality - John Crace - The Guardian. A patriarchal home life when he was a lad and a tightly knit mining community forged in him what I soon learn is an uncomplicated set of values. In his tributes to Edwards, Bobby Charlton, Edwards’s Manchester United teammate, has said: ‘If you asked such players as Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney about Duncan their answers were always the same: they had seen nothing like him.’ I couldn’t have been born any better really. I was working-class Yorkshire, south Yorkshire, where most people were skint. Some of them had got work at the colliery and some hadn’t and it was the mine owners who ruled – only the one thing they didn’t do was dare fight my dad.’

When Footballers Were Skint | Biteback Publishing

Interviewing 23 now-elderly former players whose careers fell into this period, Henderson uses their memories to paint a vivid picture of the hopes and aspirations, trials and tribulations of young men who earned only a few pounds more on the pitch than their fathers had down the pit. When Saturday Comes magazine From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada:This is both an important historical record as well as an immensely entertaining book. Highly recommended. Greville Waterman Occasionally, Matthews would instruct his hitmen to deploy psychological rather than physical retribution.

When Footballers Were Skint - Google Books When Footballers Were Skint - Google Books

Before agents and TV mega-rights ushered in multi-millionaire players, footballers’ wages were capped, with even the game's biggest names earning barely more than a plumber or electrician. Long before perma-tanned football agents and TV mega-rights ushered in the age of the multimillionaire player, footballers' wages were capped – even the game's biggest names earned barely more than a plumber or electrician. A player may have had to graft for a while playing in the small leagues. On the other hand, an individual could wait for a lifetime opportunity while sitting on the bench for a Premier League team. They could even be a prodigy with boundless energy waiting in the wings for their youth side. Whichever way circumstances dictate, there is only one chance to make an impact. Little could Richard Wilberforce or anyone else have known that his landmark decision, even though loudly hailed at the time, would eventually transform the game by quite such a multiple. About the Author: Jon Henderson has written about football as a journalist and author for more than fifty years. He progressed from covering Rushden Town for the Northants Evening Telegraph in the 1960s to filing stories for Reuters on Diego Maradona’s antics in winning the World Cup for Argentina in 1986. Since then he has written on football for The Observer and Guardian and his biography of Stanley Matthews was shortlisted for Football Book of the Year in 2013. His other books include a biography of the tennis champion Fred Perry, which was shortlisted for Sports Biography of the Year in 2009 and was a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.Is this really the sturdy competitor who played for three Football League clubs when a bit of clogging was mandatory and if you could not play with freezing mud filling your big leather boots you should be doing summat else? His cynicism may prove justified but Colin Collindridge, one of the oldest surviving Football League players, lives here, an invaluable source for my book When Footballers Were Skint given his direct link with professional football’s pioneering days.

When Footballers Were Skint by Jon Henderson | Waterstones

Jon Henderson has written about football as a journalist and author for more than fifty years. He progressed from covering Rushden Town for the Northants Evening Telegraph in the 1960s to filing stories for Reuters on Diego Maradona's antics in winning the World Cup for Argentina in 1986. Since then he has written on football for The Observer and Guardian and his biography of Stanley Matthews was shortlisted for Football Book of the Year in 2013. His other books include a biography of the tennis champion Fred Perry, which was shortlisted for Sports Biography of the Year in 2009 and was a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4. Player after player mentioned his name to me when I was writing When Footballers Were Skint. Not all liked him, quite the reverse in some cases, but the impression that emerged was of a character who would have stamped his personality and ideas on whatever profession he had chosen in whatever era.The same goes for the World Cup. Now that the tournament in Russia is under way no one is talking about how the bid was won. Nor will they be in Qatar in four year’s time. All eyes are on the football alone. The pound signs are forgotten and replaced by goals. Football is dead. Long live football.

‘And, of course, generally I showed them that | Biteback

Interestingly, though most of my interviewees mentioned Edwards among their favourite players, there were few anecdotes, just expressions of quite how formidable he was. The narrator was a bit iffy, but the content was well researched and made you nostalgic at times, but the Bosman ruling changed everything, not always for the better and now we have owners that don’t give a flying for fans & their communities...and they call it progress!My first meeting with Colin Collindridge, a player for Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest and Coventry City either side of the war, was both a pleasure and slightly unnerving... Long before perma-tanned football agents and TV mega-rights ushered in the age of the multimillionaire player, footballers wages were capped even the game's biggest names earned barely more than a plumber or electrician. His first international appearance was against Scotland at Wembley where he played with poise and without a hint of nerves in a 7-2 victory. Edwards’s grave in Dudley remains a place of pilgrimage and he is depicted in a stained-glass window in a local church. At the time of his death, at the age of 21, he had already played 151 times for United and 18 times for England.