Recommended football reading/books
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dennishasdoneit
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Brilliant book.
asahartford1
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Just read this. A sobering couple of hours, uplifting it is not.
Try Jonathan Wilson's 'Inverting The Pyramid' (2008), a history of football tactics from the moment the game was codified to 2008. I think he updated it a year or so back to take in the last decade or so.
Wilson covers everything from the old 'W' formation to Herbert Chapman's Huddersfield and Arsenal, to visionaries such as Jimmy Hogan, Bela Guttmann and Viktor Maslov, to the total football of the early Soviets and then the great Dutch sides to Helenio Herrera's 'catenaccio' and Arrigo Sacchi's 'integrated press/libero' system. It's a really good read and covers every aspect of footy theory up to 2008.
What's most interesting for me though are two things: that cut off at 2008, when Sacchi's AC Milan was still just about at the top of the pile; and the discussion of the contribution to the game by Jack Reynolds, who started life as a right-winger for City in the early 1900s (he never appeared in the first team.. had a bit of competition from some Welsh bloke, Meredith I think he was called..!)
The original book ends with a quotation from Sacchi, musing on what the next 'big thing' might be after his tactics. He said 'As long as humanity exists something new will come along. Otherwise football dies.' To which Wilson adds a final comment in agreement - 'Many before have hailed the end of history; none have ever been right'. Within a year or so, Guardiola's Barcelona was hoving into view and even Sacchi had to bend the knee before the new thinking and style of play.
And of course, Guardiola's arrival at City also links back to Jack Reynolds. Reynolds became a great, unsung coach after surviving being a prisoner of war in WWII (he was even in the same prison as P G Wodehouse!), eventually influencing the Dutch game so much whilst at Ajax that he became known as 'the Father of Dutch football', with people like Vic Buckingham, Rinus Michels, Johann Cruyff and Louis Van Gaal refining his teaching in Holland and at Barcelona (eg Reynolds once said 'We ignore the wings at our peril', always wanting to stretch the game to the opposition..)
Looking back over the past decade at the emergence of that great Barcelona side and at what we've been privileged to witness at City, it's good to know that we've been part-beneficiaries of what Sacchi wondered would come along. Let's hope we can be part of the next 'big thing' too, when Guardiola finally leaves us!
Wilson covers everything from the old 'W' formation to Herbert Chapman's Huddersfield and Arsenal, to visionaries such as Jimmy Hogan, Bela Guttmann and Viktor Maslov, to the total football of the early Soviets and then the great Dutch sides to Helenio Herrera's 'catenaccio' and Arrigo Sacchi's 'integrated press/libero' system. It's a really good read and covers every aspect of footy theory up to 2008.
What's most interesting for me though are two things: that cut off at 2008, when Sacchi's AC Milan was still just about at the top of the pile; and the discussion of the contribution to the game by Jack Reynolds, who started life as a right-winger for City in the early 1900s (he never appeared in the first team.. had a bit of competition from some Welsh bloke, Meredith I think he was called..!)
The original book ends with a quotation from Sacchi, musing on what the next 'big thing' might be after his tactics. He said 'As long as humanity exists something new will come along. Otherwise football dies.' To which Wilson adds a final comment in agreement - 'Many before have hailed the end of history; none have ever been right'. Within a year or so, Guardiola's Barcelona was hoving into view and even Sacchi had to bend the knee before the new thinking and style of play.
And of course, Guardiola's arrival at City also links back to Jack Reynolds. Reynolds became a great, unsung coach after surviving being a prisoner of war in WWII (he was even in the same prison as P G Wodehouse!), eventually influencing the Dutch game so much whilst at Ajax that he became known as 'the Father of Dutch football', with people like Vic Buckingham, Rinus Michels, Johann Cruyff and Louis Van Gaal refining his teaching in Holland and at Barcelona (eg Reynolds once said 'We ignore the wings at our peril', always wanting to stretch the game to the opposition..)
Looking back over the past decade at the emergence of that great Barcelona side and at what we've been privileged to witness at City, it's good to know that we've been part-beneficiaries of what Sacchi wondered would come along. Let's hope we can be part of the next 'big thing' too, when Guardiola finally leaves us!
City Hobgoblin
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Reynolds had some involvement with amateur football in the Whitefield and Stand areas, my Dad remembers him visiting my Grandfather to discuss footballing matters.
franksinatra
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gripping to the last page
It was the best football I had ever read until I picked up ‘The miracle of Castel di Sangria’. Most amazing football book ever