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Former Daily Mirror Chief Sports Writer Harry Harris and Paul Trevillion, the acclaimed artist behind Roy of the Rovers and ‘You Are The Ref’, have combined forces to produce a personal history of Chelsea FC. Paul featured Chelsea players heavily in his illustrations for Fleet Street and wrote a column with battering ram centre-forward Ian Hutchinson in the early 1970s that regularly included legends such as Peter Osgood, Ron Harris and Alan Hudson.
Harry spent much of the 1980s and 1990s reporting on the club at close quarters following Ken Bates’ purchase of the Blues for £1 in 1982 and he had a front row seat for the unfolding boardroom battle between Matthew Harding and Bates a decade later that almost tore the club in two.

The success of the years that followed are featured heavily here as are the fondly remembered teams of earlier periods as well as Chelsea’s recent takeover and the incredible success of the women’s team.

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Art by Paul Trevillion
Words by Harry Harris
Foreword by John Terry
ISBN: 9781915616159 - 320pp
FULL COLOUR
LIMITED EDITION HARDBACK
CONTAINS OVER 300 PIECES
OF ORIGINAL TREVILLION ARTWORK
£25 - Published: November 2024

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With over 150 years of following the ups and downs of the Lilywhites between them, former Daily Mirror Chief Sports Writer Harry Harris and Paul Trevillion, the acclaimed artist behind Roy of the Rovers and You Are The Ref, have combined forces to produce a personal history of their beloved club.

On The Pitch and Off The Drawing Board is packed full of anecdotes and behind the scenes stories from Spurs’ past, from the time Harry Harris challenged then manager Terry Neill to a race around the White Hart Lane pitch to Paul helping Gazza with his shooting training at Wembley just months before that free-kick in the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal.

This book is a must for all Tottenham fans and a treat for football fans of all stripes.

Duncan Edwards, who hailed from Dudley in the Black Country, played for Manchester United and England. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young, brilliant united team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid-1950s. Even in such esteemed company Duncan stood out, noted for his skill, physical strength and toughness.

Tragically he was one of the eight players who died as a result of the Munich air disaster in February 1958. Many of Duncan’s contemporaries described him as the best player they had played with, played against, or had seen play.
David Barratt who, like Duncan, is from the Black Country, has spent a lifetime researching Duncan’s history.

He brings together in this book – with the help of his lifelong friends David Harrison and Alan Hughes – the outstanding, but sadly brief, life of the great footballer.

FACTORY
FAIRY-TALES

THE REMIX

Updated with new images and a further two chapters, this is the story of one of Manchester music’s forgotten men.be the unluckiest man in Manchester music.

500 LIMITED EDITION SIGNED
AND NUMBERED HARDBACKS

NOT AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!

GIGSLUTSZ REVIEW

In his final round-up of singles by decade, following The Original Soundtrack, which covered the seismic 1970s and A Part of No Tribe, which took in the reactionary 1980s, Ian Moss looks at an era of splintering genres and confusing alliances in the 1990s.

Indie music went corporate, while rap and dance music moved off street corners and out of bedrooms to dominate the charts. Eighties stars such as Madonna, U2 and Michael Jackson were quick to adjust while record companies desperate to cash-in on a wave of indie bands attempted to reproduce the 1960s with a chart battle between Blur and Oasis (only one of whom are reviewed here).

Rap, house, garage, shoegaze, Britpop, big beat, grunge, drum ‘n’ bass - Ian gives his final opinion on all of the quality music from a decade that often valued style over substance.

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THERE HAS NEVER BEEN AN ARTIST quite like Chris Sievey or his 'fantastic' comedic alter-ego, Frank Sidebottom. Whether pushing for chart action while fronting his former band The Freshies or allowing the bombastic Sidebottom to wreak anarchy and chaos on television, radio or with the Oh Blimey Big Band, Sievey's mischievous muse seemed to obey no boundaries. Yet it was only after Chris's untimely demise in 2010 that the extent of his influence became fully apparent.

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Arthur Rowe was a post-war football visionary in an era when the English game was wedded to outdated tactics and thinking. After taking over at Second Division Spurs he won promotion as champions and then the League title in successive seasons, a feat never repeated since. Yet it wasn’t so much the trophies that marked Rowe’s reign as much as Tottenham’s football. His ‘team of no stars’ played the ball first time along the floor and moved as one unit forward and back - a tactic that pre-dated Total Football by two decades and tiki-taka by half a century.

As Norman Turpin’s extensive illustrated biography makes clear, the tactics of Gusztáv Sebes, Rinus Michels, Johann Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp can all be traced back to Arthur Rowe - a forgotten English visionary whose ideas were taken up enthusiastically by European coaches yet continually overlooked by his countrymen to the detriment of the national game.

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Manchester United have won every major honour available - yet for supporters of a certain vintage their favourite season of all was spent not battling for top honours but in the second flight of English football. Following a spectacular decline following the break-up of the 1968 European Cup winners, United were relegated in April 1974 and the following season was supposed to be a humiliation for the club. Instead, the reds responded by re-inventing themselves for a new era and attracting a whole new generation of supporters.

As Wayne Barton discovers, the modern day Manchester United was born during their sojourn in the second tier. From training pitch to boardroom and under the guidance of wise-cracking manager Tommy Docherty, the club moved on from a state of post-war stasis and shaped itself for the next quarter century. Without the pressure to maintain a place in the top flight, The Doc helped reinvigorate a club still struggling to come to terms with the modern era.

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"To most people the perception of the life of a music journalist is one of hanging out at parties with rock stars, partying until the early hours of the morning, jetting off to far away locations and indulging in all the glamorous benefits that come with hanging with that sort of crowd. This perception couldn’t be further from the truth."

Joe Matera has been on both sides of the musician/critic divide. A childhood obsession with music led to an early career in a covers band and a day job as a guitar teacher but it was the advent of the internet that opened up the possibility of writing about his first love.

'Backstage Pass' takes the reader to that holy of holies, the artist's dressing room as they prepare to entertain the masses and in some cases face their demons.

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“Each one of the punches that landed put me in a different place; a club, a pub, a brothel -
scattered memories of crazy nights out,
flashing images; the whiskey, cocaine and the countless girls... What the hell was I thinking?”

Michael Gomez was a talented featherweight with the world at his feet but his meteoric rise through the world rankings was derailed by his activities outside the ring.

If his life had been fictionalised, people would believe it far-fetched; he was charged (and later acquitted) of murder, spent 48 seconds clinically dead after being stabbed, attempted suicide and saw his long-suffering wife finally give up the ghost and leave him.

Perhaps the question should be how he is still here at all...

Acclaimed sports writer John Ludden has brought to vivid life Gomez's dramatic life and ghost written one of the most compelling stories in British sporting history.

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£10 INCLUDING UK POSTAGE HERE

THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

MY LIFE THROUGH ONE THOUSAND
7" SINGLES - VOLUME 1 - 1970-79

by Ian Keith Moss - Foreword by Marc Riley

The Original Soundtrack traces the development of Ian's musical taste during his teenage years as a self-confessed 'misfit'. The records selected here provided him with 'an escape from humdrum routine' before teenage emotional crises made them take on even more importance as the 'oxygen' keeping him alive, later admitting that 'without music I was nothing'. This first volume covers Ian's growth from callow teenager to young adult during the golden years of popular music.

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The first black African team to qualify for a World Cup suffered casual racism and horrific stereotyping in the western media, were accused of throwing games by opponents and learned they were being conned out of bonuses by their own countrymen mid-tournament and as a result ended with one of the worst records in the tournament's history - conceding 14 goals in three games while scoring none in reply.

Zaire '74 traces the fortunes of the most colourful finalists in World Cup history who blazed a trail for the likes of Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana in subsequent decades yet suffered as a result of the corruption of the Mobutu regime.

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“A blockbuster from the Sleazebuster gives astonishing insight into the dark side of the Beautiful Game. A must-read.”
Henry Winter, The Times.

When Graham Bean was appointed the Football Association’s first Compliance Officer, he was instantly nicknamed ‘The Sleazebuster’ by the tabloid press. After leaving the FA Graham started his own business ‘Football Factors’ which represented players and managers summoned to appear before an FA Disciplinary Hearing. Among his stellar list of clients were Alex Ferguson, Rafa Benitez and David Moyes.

Graham went on to take up senior positions inside football clubs including working for Leeds United under notorious owner Mario Cellino during one of the most turbulent reigns in football history.

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BY JOHN WHITE - FOREWORD BY NORMAN WHITESIDE

The history of any football club boils down to one thing: great matches; be it a significant win, a great performance, a notable debut, an incredible moment or a disastrous defeat, the big games and historic turning points are what supporters remember. The Making of a Football Dynasty tells the story of one hundred of Manchester United’s most significant games and traces the birth and growth of the club from its humble origins as a railway works team to the biggest football club in the world.

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WERE YOU THERE?

BY RICHARD LYSONS

Manchester's Free Trade Hall was the most important popular music venue in Great Britain. After several incarnations, the current building was constructed in the wake of the Manchester Blitz and opened in 1951 as the new home of the city's esteemed Halle Orchestra. Yet it was popular music which would secure the venue its fame as it responded to each wave of popular music from trad jazz and skiffle, through rock 'n' roll and folk to prog, punk and heavy metal. From Billie Holiday to Blondie, Duke Ellington to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd to Happy Mondays, Rolling Stones to The Beach Boys, David Bowie to The Smiths and Suede, just about everyone who mattered played there. The Free Trade Hall was also the venue for incendiary gigs by Bob Dylan and the Sex Pistols which changed the course of music history.

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From being the butt of football jokes to domestic treble winners, Manchester City fans have endured more ups and downs than most supporters over the past 30 years as they journeyed down the divisions before bouncing back in spectacular style under a new owner with unlimited wealth.
Yet throughout this long rollercoaster journey City fans stayed loyal to their club averaging over 25,000 most seasons when other large clubs have seen attendances slump well below that in bleak times.

What emerges is a support still in disbelief that after years of their team being the punchline for jokes by their neighbours and rivals they now rule the roost in English football.

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For someone who is seemingly afraid of almost everything Garry Stanley is something of a genius, for he has an innate ability to entertain people or more specifically to understand exactly what will entertain Mancunians sufficiently to make them throw a quid or two in a guitar case.
Garry is the inspiration and emotional glue who holds the most famous busking band in the UK, the Piccadilly Rats, together.

Each of the Rats has led a colourful life on society’s margins; there is former friend of the Krays Ray Boddington, whose pavement performances were so beloved of Mancunian audiences that his untimely death was commemorated on the front page of the Manchester Evening News and bass player Heath whose personal journey led him to cross three continents before finding his spiritual home on the corner of Lever Street and Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre.

ON GRANADA REPORTS
 
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BY EAN GARDINER

Most Manchester United fans know one of the founding fables of the club... of how Harry Stafford and his Saint Bernard dog helped save the club's forerunner, Newton Heath, and pave the way for the formation of the new club. But what became of United's saviour?

In his ground-breaking biography of United's founding father, Ean Gardiner traces Harry's life from cradle to grave and discovers a world of blacklegs, brown envelopes and red herrings inhabiting a ripping yarn of bribery, bigamy, suicide, poisoned beer and a footballing elephant.

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David Hardy’s early literary endeavours comprised writing poems for friends and recording daily happenings and flights of the imagination. Covering a broad range of subjects, his work is infused with humour and pathos, light and dark. An occasional contributor to the American Music Magazine, Rock at Night, David is currently building up a following on the open mic circuit in Greater Manchester. He lives in Marple, Cheshire, and he enjoys both community activities and ‘soaking up’ the solitude in the Peak District.

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WHISPER MY
LAST GOODBYE

Harpur Murray is devastated when her heroin addict brother Brady commits suicide. But why can't her mother talk about the night her son died?

Meanwhile, an internet romance with an old fl ame makes her question if she ever really loved her husband, Neil. Was he just a safe rebound following a violent relationship?

In Karen Woods' labyrinthine Mancunian thriller, Harpur's family seem to hold the secrets to her son's death but will she ever learn the truth?

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BANG UP

While Mikey Milne is locked up, his shoplifter mother Rachel is forced to fend for herself. Her life is soon in danger when menacing local gangster Davo fi nds out that Mikey ripped him off for £10,000 and gives her 48 hours to pay up.

Mikey's girlfriend Sarah is from a nicer part of town; as green as grass, she doesn't seem to realise the extent of her boyfriend's involvement with local gangsters or that her well-connected family have threatened to have him bumped off if he ever goes near her again. She's smitten with him and hopes he can change...

In Karen Woods 15th novel, prison walls can't keep the outside world at bay forever as dark family secrets come back to haunt fearless Mikey Milne.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mother of four Karen Woods uses her experiences growing up on a Manchester council estate in her writing. Having left school with no qualifications, she spent her formative years raising children and suffering domestic abuse.

Karen has been snapped up by a leading literary agent and her first novel, Broken Youth, was staged at the Lowry Theatre, Salford in June 2013. She was recently awarded the Learning for Work Individual Award for 2013.

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