|
YORK CITY SOUTH |
City Database
City Related Books
How many books have you read about City? Not many, but you’d be surprised to know how many feature City or contain City related material.
Football’s most famous book with City connections is almost certainly Eamonn Dunphy’s "Only A Game?", an account of Millwall’s season which starts with hopes of promotion to the top flight, but disintegrates like most pre season hopes. Dunphy, a former City player, started off as a Manchester United junior under Sir Matt Busby before making his first team debut with City. Within 6 months, he’d left for Millwall where he was to spend the majority of his professional career before embarking on a successful media career whilst based in Dublin. He featured extensively on Irish TV and as a journalist and author. He has authored, co–authored or ghost written several books, including a U2 biography and has managed to fall out with more people than I could mention, but including U2 and Jack Charlton.
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.
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. Whilst 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, "A Tenner & A Box of Kippers", 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 (and our short term caretaker manager in November 2008) 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 nor Colin Walker gets a real mention. The book’s dust jacket details the career of his ghost writer, Andrew Collomosse, a Huddersfield sports journalist. He seems to have written books about many West Yorkshire footballers and Yorkshire cricket stars, 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.
Wilf McGuinness features his Old Trafford days strongly in his 2008 book, "Manchester United - Man and Babe", the less said about his time as City manager the better. To this day, I still cringe every time I hear his joke, "I took York City from Division 4 to Division 2 in successive seasons ... in reverse order".
A more popular ex City manager Denis Smith published his biography, "Just One Of Seven", the title being references to both his spot as one of seven siblings and one of seven managers to manage in over 1,000 league games in November 2008. His time with City gets a good mention, his ability to see in players what others didn't is insightful, so are some of his disagreements with the board. However, he rates Michael Sinclair very highly. He appears particularly proud of the number of his players who are still involved in top level coaching over 20 years later, including Roger Jones, Andy Leaning, Mal Crosby, Chris Evans, John Byrne, Sean Haselgrave and Ricky Sbragia. The publication was marked with a book signing evening at Bootham Crescent. Incidentally, its published by "Know The Score" books, whose rooster features many fine books on Midlands' football.
Many other books, too numerous to name check them all, also feature diverse mentions of City or City related incidents. In Steve Claridge’s autobiography, he recalls being punched by a City supporter when about to take a corner as a youngster at Bootham Crescent. "Kicking Against The Wind", a fly on the wall account of a season at Rochdale. It includes a frightening insight into how another club viewed City’s board of directors (or at least one board member) in the 1994/5 season when we beat them in The Football League Club to earn at trip to Old Trafford.
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 Huntington’s predecessor as The Yorkshire Evening Press’ City correspondent.
Meanwhile, "City Go Nap As Quakers Halt Slump" was a photographic effort centred around a 5 goal win for City over Darlington with lots of black and white photographs.
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 particularly revealing.
We haven’t even touched upon the fanzines. Many knowledgeable observers would cite the Frank Ormston / Mick Kettlewell 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 on 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". First published in 1990, 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. An updated version was published in 2008.
1997's "Citizens and Minstermen, A Who's Who of York City FC 1922-1997", co-authored by Dave Windross and Martin Jarred, features pen pictures of all the players to have played for City, plus managers and chairman as well. An easy to reference who's who of City.
I can’t finish without naming my favourites, "City Memoirs" for a quick dip into City across the years and "Kicking Against The Wind" for the perennial struggles of Rochdale, including an unsavoury away day at Bootham Crescent and the extortionate wage demands of Gary Bull. Another fine read is Robin Friday’s book, an account of the brief career of a lower division Rodney Marsh. For football humour from another era, try one of Fred Eyre’s early books.
P.S. I almost forgot to mention "The York City Quiz Book" and its successor "The York City Quiz Book Volume 2", both excellent reads.
Email Alastair, our chairman.