The earliest book I can recall with a City slant is Sam Bartram’s autobiography. "Sam Bartam. The Story Of A Goalkeeping Legend”, first published in 1956. Bartram, a popular City keeper during World War 2, had a long and successful career with Charlton, some people would name him England’s best ever uncapped keeper. His first managerial appointment was with City in 1956. After leaving City, he turned to journalism and had a long and successful second career with "The People" newspaper.

2 recent autobiographies have included passages on City. Keith Houchen’s 2 years at City are best remembered for his FA Cup winner against Arsenal, his career is best remembered for his 1987 FA Cup Final goal for Coventry. Neil Warnock’s brief City career saw him training in his suit on a Friday and sacked as club captain 4 days later after just one game for City. His book also recalls some of the times when he came up against City during his playing and managerial career.

The February 2008 appointment of Neil Redfearn to City’s coaching staff had me scrambling through my bookcase to locate “There’s Only One Neil Redfearn”, first published in 2006. From memory, the only City related incident that comes to mind is his spell as Neil Thompson’s assistant as Boston won Football League status. He goes into chapter and verse on many subjects including Scarborough and Eric Winstanley, but neither City or Colin Walker get a real mention. The book’s dust cover details the career of his ghost writer, Andrew Collomosse, a Hudderfield sports journalist who seems to have written books about many West Yorkshire footballers and Yorkshire cricketeers, including his 1998 effort “On the Edge”, a 140 page soft back book by Tom Cowan who was our left back during our ill fated 2002/3 season.

Manchester City fanatic, Colin Schindler has written a host of Manchester City themed books, "George Best And 21 Others" traces the careers of the 21 other players who featured in the 1964 FA Youth Cup semi final alongside Best. Manchester City’s side included Phil Burrows and Chris Jones who later starred in our 1973/4 promotion season. The book, pieced together from a series of interviews with all the players, traces their careers from their early schoolboy days all the way through their professional careers. The book also features David Meek, for many years the Manchester Evening News’ Manchester United correspondent and son of Wilf Meek , the former York City director and Malcolm Huntingdon’s predecessor as The Yorkshire Evening Press’ City correspondent.

Gary Beckett’s "City Memoirs" features over 20 former City players in their own words recounting their time at Bootham Crescent. A myriad of images are presented, many don’t show the club in a very good light, infectious diseases in the dressing room, lack of respect for managers, lack of respect for players, I could go on. Suffice to say, its probably my all time favourite City book. I’m sure nearly every City supporter will find interviews with some of their all time City heroes from Jack Pinder to Tony Barrass and Paddy Atkinson. For me, the chapters where a City player was diagnosed with a life threatening illness after City’s Wembley appearance and the manager who was ignored by the players on the training ground were particulary revealing.

We haven’t even touched upon the fanzines. Many knowledgeable observers would cite the Frank Ormston lead "Terrace Talk" as the forefather of all fanzines, certainly, it helped pave the way for many more and pre-dates both "When Saturday Comes" and "Off The Ball". Later City fanzines included, "In The City, "New Frontiers" and "Johnny Ward’s Eyes", all offering their own unique take of events at City and beyond. All have helped shape City over the last 25 years and have probably had a more permanent impact on City than any of the more mainstream offerings.

Drawing on his extensive City archives, Dave Batters produced the definitive City book in "York City. A Complete History". The first half is an account of City’s history whilst the second half features pen pictures of every manager and many of our more prominent players. It finishes with a statistical section including a full list of results and playing careers. Having started out as an independent project, it was published as part of the Breedon Books series which covered most of the 92 league clubs in the late 1980s.