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

Product Information

I’ve met hundreds of nice females,’ he says, ‘including my missus, who’s a good Nottingham girl who puts me in my place.’

‘It was in the character and spirit of Duncan | Biteback

Don Ratfcliffe, the popular Ratter who was another team-mate of Matthews’s in his second spell at Stoke, says: ‘I got on very well with Stan and used to fire his bullets for him. He was a very quiet fella, but he was funny and used to tell me things to say to their defenders. The taxi driver is right, the estate he has just turned in to is a regimented assembly of what the Americans call cookie-cutter houses. Maybe he was right, too, in implying that there could be nothing or no one of interest in surroundings of such overbearing conformity. Occasionally, Matthews would instruct his hitmen to deploy psychological rather than physical retribution. According to charity Xpro, as many as 60% of Premier League starlets have been declared penniless within the space of five years of hanging up their boots. Meanwhile, across the pond, nearly 80% of American football players have got themselves into all sorts of financial stress after just a couple of years out of the game. At the end of the day, a professional athlete’s career may only span a decade at best. But some choose to squander their money for a number of different reasons. As a player he represented a number of clubs and was almost as ubiquitous as a manager. His seven clubs included Norwich City, Notts County and Leeds United, but it was during 17 years at Wolverhampton Wanderers, 1927-44, that he made his name as the most innovative manager of his time. Some of his ideas and methods survive to this day.The house he had been given was on the shabby side. If he could earn a little more he might be able to do something about it. 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. 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. Half the relations of mine lived in Barugh Green and there were about 40 of them. I still love that place and Barugh Greeners, though I was quite young when we moved to Wombwell, on the other side of Barnsley, where my dad got a council house. Newcastle were probably hoping that after I eventually signed for Arsenal the dispute over the retain-and-transfer system would fall away,’ Eastham says. ‘But the PFA were looking to me to be the man to take the fight forward, to bring an end to the system.

When Footballers Were Skint by Jon Henderson - Signed Edition When Footballers Were Skint by Jon Henderson - Signed Edition

Timeless Two Stripes: How sponsorship conflict made Johan Cruyff play the 1974 World Cup with a two striped Adidas kit 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.If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us Timeless Sony MiniDisc Euro Sixes: The bizarre star-studded mid-season six-a-side tournament lost in time I said, “Yes, let’s do it. Let’s go the whole hog.” I wasn’t happy with the way things had gone with my transfer. So the case went to High Court and that broke the retain-and-transfer system.’

When Footballers Were Skint 2018 by Jon Henderson - Waterstones When Footballers Were Skint 2018 by Jon Henderson - Waterstones

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. It was an historic triumph that could hardly have been concluded by a more appropriate figure. The judge appointed to try the case in 1963 was Mr Justice Wilberforce, whose great-great-grandfather, William Wilberforce, led the movement that resulted in the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. 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. Collindridge starts by telling me he was born at Cawthorne Basin. In case I should wonder where exacty this is, which I do, he adds that it’s down the bottom of the hill a quarter of a mile from Barugh Green, the first village out of Barnsley on the Huddersfield road.

The retain-and-transfer rule was more accurately described by its alternative name, the slavery act. It lasted until the 1960s when Eastham and the Professional Footballers’ Association took legal action... 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.’ After enduring a dismal qualifying campaign for the 1984 European Championships, a crestfallen Bobby... 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.