Books

Reading matter for footie fans

Pics and stats galore

Dean Domerecki continues his review of: Gareth M.Davies & Peter Jones, The Racecourse Robins from Adams to Youds (1999)

Fans can leaf through the 370-or-so pages of player biographies, soaking up the atmosphere of the club in times long gone, bringing back to life barely-remembered names, learning more about the current squad of players. Whether the night, the light or the half-light, this book provides further illumination, and although you can put it down once you’ve started it, you won’t be able to stop picking it up again. The pictures that accompany the text range from ‘passport photo’ to real gems of action shots - those of Bob Connor, Joey Jones and Gareth Owen at the start of their respective alphabetical sections are just wonderful. For those with a fashion interest, check out Tommy Matthias!

The biographies of course occupy the bulk of the book, but there is also a brief history of the club (‘brief’ in the sense of ‘more than you can remember’) as well as sections on managers, chairmen and directors, all researched in as great a depth as for the players. The final part of the book deals with bare club statistics, some of which must have taken an insane amount of time to compile. Information like this is, of course, equally useful to those from outside who need background information on the club, and is no doubt an absolute godsend to local quiz-setters! Knowledge increases with each dip into the book, and, although I don’t expect to have read every word of it by next year, or maybe even by the end of the next five years, I’m sure that I’ll keep coming up with little nuggets of useful/useless information to keep me amused (‘so that’s why they were called the sugarbags’).

In short, if you haven’t already got it, you need it - desperately. No fan’s collection of books will be complete without it. It sells at £23.95, but is still tremendous value - buy it from the club shop if you can, and you benefit the club as well. I guarantee you that you will feel very proud to own this book, but perhaps not quite as proud as Gareth and Peter ought to feel for having written it.