'COMPREHENSIVE' The Sunday Times 'BEAUTIFULLY DETAILED' The Guardian 'UTTERLY COMPELLING' Nottingham Forest News 'WONDERFUL' Forbes 'INTIMATE' FourFourTwo 20th Anniversary Edition - Fully revised and updated. In this authoritative, critical biography, Jonathan Wilson draws an intimate and powerful portrait of one of England's greatest football managers, Brian Clough. It was in the unforgiving world of post-war football where his identity and reputation was made - a world where, as Clough's mentor Harry Storer once said, 'Nobody ever says thank you.' Nonetheless, Clough brought the gleam of silverware to the depressed East Midlands of the 1970s. Initial triumph at Derby was followed by a sudden departure and a traumatic 44 days at Leeds. By the end of a frazzled 1974, Clough was set up for life financially, but also hardened to the realities of football. By the time he was at Forest, Clough's mask was almost permanently donned: a persona based on brashness and conflict. Drink fuelled the controversies and the colourful character; it heightened the razor-sharp wit and was a salve for the highs of football that never lasted long enough, and for the lows that inevitably followed. Wilson's account is the definitive portrait of this complex and enduring man, whose legacy in football remains untouched to the present day.

Alchemy reveals the bittersweet reality of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor's first management job together. The lower-league Hartlepools United are penniless, with a meddling chairman, a ramshackle ground and want-away players. Yet the management pair tackle every challenge head-on, forging a winning blueprint that later transforms unfashionable Derby County and Nottingham Forest into League and European Cup champions. Exploiting a wealth of archive newspapers, plus interviews with those present at the creation, Alchemy exposes the humble origins of Clough & Taylor's meteoric rise to the top of the football tree.

The votes have been counted, the results are in. Just what was the Greatest Game in Nottingham Forest's history? Who is the fans' choice as the Best Player of All Time – and who else made the Top 11? Who’s the best manager? And the worst? Just as importantly, what are the Top 20 Terrace Anthems? The Twelve Most Irritating Opposition Players? The Seven Most Pompous Referees to have darkened the City Ground's door? Alex Walker has been canvassing opinions from Forest fans across the globe and here presents the definitive Nottingham Forest hall of fame, shame and the hard-to-explain. Not selected by the club or by pundits, but by the people who really know what matters: the fans.

Soccer has long been known as 'the beautiful game'. This multi-disciplinary volume explores soccer, soccer culture, and the representation of soccer in art, film, and literature, using the critical tools of aesthetics, poetics, and rhetoric. Including international contributions from scholars of philosophy, literary and cultural studies, linguistics, art history, and the creative arts, this book begins by investigating the relationship between beauty and soccer and asks what criteria should be used to judge the sport’s aesthetic value. Covering topics as diverse as humor, national identity, style, celebrity, and social media, its chapters examine the nature of fandom, the role of language, and the significance of soccer in contemporary popular culture. It also discusses what one might call the ‘stylistics’ of soccer, analyzing how players, fans, and commentators communicate on and off the pitch, in the press, on social media, and in wider public discourse. The Aesthetics, Poetics, and Rhetoric of Soccer makes for fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, culture, literature, philosophy, linguistics, and society.

In 1960, the wealthy owner of the Merseyside-based Littlewoods corporation, John Moores, took control of Everton Football Club, setting in motion a chain of events that still affect the game in this country today. Everton had enjoyed success before Moores's takeover but things would never be the same again from the moment he walked through Goodison's doors. Although big clubs had spent money before, none had done so with such naked short-term ambition and a ruthlessness to succeed that sent shockwaves through the previously stagnant world of English football. The new owner's ruthless streak was personified by his first major move, sacking the popular Johnny Carey in the back of a London taxi in April 1961. Everton would finish that 1960/61 season in fifth place, their highest position since World War Two, but the Irishman's affable nature cost him his job. In his place Moores wanted a man in his own image to lead the club forward and he soon found him: Harry Catterick. Catterick was little over 40 years old, and had been an Everton player himself only ten years before. But as a boss he exuded an aura that demanded respect and obedience from his players. It was a characteristic that won him few fans but plenty of trophies, and across the decade Everton reasserted themselves as one of English football's powerhouses, winning two league titles and an FA Cup. Catterick's ability to nurture young products of the club's youth set-up such as Colin Harvey and Joe Royle was trumped only by his mastery of the transfer market, allowing him to sign the great Howard Kendall from Preston North End and World Cup winner Alan Ball from under his rivals' noses. Harvey, Kendall and Ball would soon form the club's greatest midfield trio, and their brilliance would underpin the 1969/70 title win, a victory for free-flowing football in an era of cynicism. That trophy would be Everton's last major honour for 14 years. In Money Can't Buy Us Love, Everton's official statistician Gavin Buckland tells the tale of how Moores and manager Harry Catterick took the so-called 'Mersey Millionaires' to the summit of English football, in the context of the major cultural changes of the time. The book provides a forensic character study of both Catterick and Moores, and also delves into the archives to provide a definitive account of the incidents that rocked the club in a fruitful but turbulent decade, including allegations of doping in the 1962/63 campaign, the 1964 match-fixing scandal which signalled the end of Tony Kay's career and the shock sale of Alan Ball. Money Can't Buy Us Love offers fascinating insight into how strong personalities can take a team to the very top, but can also cause in its ultimate downfall.

Jonathan Wilson and Scott Murray provide a forensic analysis of ten key Liverpool games that have shaped the club's fortunes over the last century: from the long-lost triumphs of Tom Watson (a 19th-century Bill Shankly) to 1970s European triumphs over the likes of Borussia Monchengladbach and the mind-blowing 2005 comeback against AC Milan. Aston Villa v. Liverpool April 1899 Wolves v. Liverpool May 1947 Liverpool v. Leeds FA Cup final, May 1965 Liverpool v. Crvena Zvezda November 1973 Liverpool v. Borussia Mönchengladbach European Cup final, May 1977 Liverpool v. Roma European Cup final, May 1984 Liverpool v. Nottingham Forest April 1988 Everton v. Liverpool February 1991 Roma v. Liverpool February 2001 AC Milan v. Liverpool Champions League final, May 2005