An accessible history of Southend from prehistory to the present day highlighting the city's significant events and people

Murphy's Mission is a rollercoaster ride through the life story of a journeyman, football manager, legend, and self-styled bard of the beautiful game. From a career with 15 different clubs from the 1970s to the early 2000s, Colin Murphy's biography is crammed full of dressing room high jinks, boardroom bust-ups, rescue missions, and scouting for non-league gems. Described by John Inverdale as 'one of my favourite people in sport ever', Murph was called The Saviour (Lincoln City), The Unsung Hero (Hull City), and The Mad Man (Southend United). As national coach of Vietnam he was hero-worshipped by a nation. Murph's catalogue of clubs from his 35 years in professional football management includes: Nottingham Forest, Derby County, Notts County, Lincoln City, Stockport County, Al-Ittihad (Saudi Arabia), Leicester City, Luton Town, Southend United, Shelbourne, Vietnam national team, Tottenham Hotspur (youth academy), Myanmar national team, Cork City and Hull City. An antidote to the excesses of the Premier League, real football fans will love this meticulously researched story of hard graft and survival against the odds. Extracts from Murph's madcap programme notes, and original interviews with former colleagues, including Roy Hodgson, David Pleat and Howard Wilkinson, bring the wit and wisdom of this much-loved character to life.

There has been an explosion in the quantity of sports history literature published in recent years, making it increasingly difficult to keep abreast of developments. The annual number of publications has increased from around 250 to 1,000 a year over the last decade. This is due in part to the fact that during the late 1980s and 90s, many clubs, leagues and governing bodies of sport have celebrated their centenaries and produced histories to mark this occasion and commemorate their achievements. It is also the result of the growing popularity and realisation of the importance of sport history research within academe. This international bibliography of books, articles, conference proceedings and essays in the English language is a one-stop for the sports historian to know what is new.

Volume three of a bibliography documenting all that has been written in the English language on the history of sport and physical education in Britain. It lists all secondary source material including reference works, in a classified order to meet the needs of the sports historian.