Welcome to this series of Short Talking Books. This volume focuses on Bob ‘Stokoe's Blackpool.' It highlights Bob’s success in winning Blackpool the Anglo Italian Cup. The book includes short profiles of the team and others who played a part in their biggest success. It is written in a conversational question and answer format. ‘The Talking Manager’s’ series is designed as a ‘on the go’ travel book. The print size offers an easier read for small devices like mobile phones. Look for others in the series.

50th anniversary edition of the story of the team that caused the last, great FA Cup upset... 'Times have changed but this book is an engrossing reminder for all fans' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'An essential piece of British football history for fans of any club. Brilliantly researched and written with an undisguised passion' Guy Mowbray, BBC's Match of the Day Today, it seems inconceivable that a team from the lower reaches of the Championship could beat the likes of Chelsea or Manchester United in the FA Cup Final. Yet, on 5 May 1973 that is exactly what happened. Six months earlier, Bob Stokoe took on an ailing Sunderland team, struggling at the bottom of the second division. But the long road to Wembley sees them beating Arsenal and Manchester City to reach the final, where they face Don Revie's mighty Leeds United in a game few expect them to win. Yet what lies ninety minutes ahead is the greatest FA Cup Final shock of all time. Sunderland's victory was, arguably, the last fairytale of recent footballing times. In STOKOE, SUNDERLAND AND '73, Lance Hardy talked with all the Sunderland players who turned out at Wembley that day and to the family of Bob Stokoe, to produce the definitive account of an unforgettable game.

Welcome to this series of Short Talking Books. This volume focuses on Bob Stokoe's Sunderland’ during a single landmark season. It briefly highlights his early years as a player, right up to him joining Sunderland as manager and leading them to the 1973 F.A. Cup final success over Leeds United. The book includes short profiles of the Cup final team. The book is written in a conversational question and answer format. ‘The Talking Manager’s series is designed as an ‘on the go’ travel book. The print size offers an easier read for small devices like mobile phones.

A fascinating and funny tell-all autobiography from a man with an astonishing football career John "Budgie" Burridge is a true journeyman pro and a hero to football fans. In a unique career spanning 30 years, Budgie played 771 league games for 29 teams, including Crystal Palace and QPR (under Terry Venables at both clubs), Southampton (alongside a young Alan Shearer), Manchester City, Aston Villa (where he would play against Barcelona in the European Super Cup), Wolves, and in Scotland with Hibernian where he was a hero in their League Cup win of 1991. That happy sojourn to Edinburgh would end in acrimony, however, as he ended up in a dressing-room fight with the manager. Highly respected as a goalkeeper, but denounced by many as an "oddball" (he admitted that he often slept wearing only his goalkeeper's gloves), Budgie was famous for his madcap antics and his pre-match stretching routines. The Burridge story was far from over when he retired in 1997 at the age of 47. He spent months in a clinic struggling with depression. He became player-manager at non-league Blyth Spartans, only to late be convicted for dealing in counterfeit leisurewear. Together with his wife of more than 30 years, Budgie moved to Oman in the Middle East to take up a coaching post with the national team. He sustained serious injuries when he was knocked down by a car in 1999, but is back in health, and ready to tell his true story.

SHORTLISTED FOR BEST SPORTS WRITING AT THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023 "Sheer joy" – Patrick Barclay "Exhilarating" – When Saturday Comes "Perfect" – Josh Widdicombe "★★★★★" – FourFourTwo Four years after the crowning glory of 1966, and a decade after the abolition of the maximum wage, a brash new era dawned in English football. As the 1970s took hold, a new generation of larger-than-life players and managers emerged, appearing on television sets in vivid technicolour for the first time. Set against a backdrop of strikes, political unrest, freezing winters and glam rock, Get It On tells the inside story of how commercialism, innovation, racism and hooliganism rocked the national game in the 1970s. Packed with interviews with the legends of the day, this footballing fiesta charts the emergence of Brian Clough, Bob Paisley and Kevin Keegan and the fall of George Best, Alf Ramsey and Don Revie, presenting a vibrant portrait of the most groundbreaking decade in English football history.

This is the extraordinary life story of Stan Ternent, one of the most outrageous managers in professional football. Celebrated for achieving a series of promotions on shoestring budgets, he has coached some of football's biggest names, including Ian Wright, Vinnie Jones, Dennis Wise and Gazza.Stan's outspoken attitude and uncompromising behaviour have been legendary within football circles for years. So have his punch-ups. Now, for the first time, the current Burnley manager - called "one of the greatest characters in the game" by the Scot who manages Man United - reveals his amazing exploits from four decades as a football icon.'If you only buy one football book this year, make it this one.' - Shoot'One of the funniest football books I've ever read' - Ian Wright'...brutally honest, a savage, wonderful read.' - Sunday Times

When Newcastle United crashed out of the FA Cup in Cardiff in April 2005, it was official: the second best-supported club in England and the eleventh richest in the world had completed 50 years without winning a domestic trophy. Since their last success - an FA Cup win in 1955 - no less than thirty-two clubs have won one of the three major prizes in the English game, but not the Magpies. In that half century, they've employed some of the biggest names in world football, yet most of their fanatical supporters have never seen them win a pot. In 2004, Sir Bobby Robson paid the price for failing to bring the holy grail to the Geordie faithful. And in 2006, Graeme Souness was next to go, the 17th manager to try - and fail - to win one of English football's glittering prizes for the longest suffering fans in the land. In Newcastle United: Fifty Years of Hurt, Ged Clarke examines this extraordinary football phenomenon with all the humour you would expect from a disappointed but dedicated United fan. He chronicles the decades of disaster and talks to Newcastle legends such as Peter Beardsley, Les Ferdinand, Jack Charlton, Bob Moncur and Malcolm Macdonald in a bid to discover an explanation for the longest losing streak in top-class football.