Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1159 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
Excellent --Vic Gill, son-in-law of Bill Shankly

Review
A unique analysis of the club's managers, which is no mean feat ... informative... another perspective on the last 50 years.

Synopsis
Fifty years of unparalleled success: an incredible 35 major trophies in five decades. But how was that success achieved? And how can those successes (and failures) be measured against one another? "Dynasty" sets the context for such analysis, examining the obstacles each manager faced and the fortune they had along the way. Which manager did the best job? What situation - and what players - did each inherit? What state was the club in, politically and financially? How expertly were they assisted by their coaching staff? How much did they spend, in relative terms? How did each of their signings pan out? What legacy did they bequeath? How dominant, rich and/or well-managed were rival teams? In addition to all this, there's a look at each Liverpool manager's record in the main competitions, as well as what they, and other key personalities, had to say, all of which make "Dynasty" the most complete assessment of the club during the ups and downs of the last fifty years.

Customer Reviews

An excellent book on LFC's last 50 years
Having read a pre-release copy of Dynasty, I can say that this is an excellent book for LFC fans. It puts into context each manager's reign since the days of Bill Shankly - the teams they inherited, the players they signed, and the opposition of the day. It certainly surprised me to see how often LFC's spending on player transfers has been far below that of their big rivals, even at times when they were dominating English football.

I thought this book was well considered, and the combination of statistics and the expertise of a number of LFC journalists and fans to evaluate the players over the years was particularly inventive.

Essential Reading
Given the volume of material available on the unique history of Liverpool Football Club, it was difficult to imagine that a book celebrating 50 years of `Shankly's Liverpool' could offer such a fresh view of the goings-on at the club throughout that period. This idea of the book is not simply to discuss the many, many events that helped shape the `Dynasty', but to focus on the main people involved, and how each of them have contributed in their own way, to compare and contrast the reigns of each of the eight men in charge, but also to compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the rivals at each time and put the successes and failures into their historical context.

Each of the managers are analyzed in an extremely comprehensive manner in several different categories, including the strength of the team they inherited, their record in the transfer market, their record on the pitch and, ultimately, their legacy. In order to help contrast the transfer records of the managers, he uses what I found to be a superbly detailed scoring system which helps to rank the best and the worst of each manager. Also on offer here is key information relating to spending power of the club as well as that of their rivals during each reign which leaves the reader with no doubt as to the difficulties facing each manager, without ever stopping to use the greater financial power of other clubs as an excuse for relative failure.

Another key point of the book is that none of the men under discussion are ever glamorized. While the strengths are discussed, so too are the weaknesses, none of which slip under the radar in a bid to compare one manager favourably against another. Despite the large quantity of data and statistics on offer in this book, it's main strength is in the narrative. Never does the reader feel weighed down by the data coming their way, rather, the facts and figures come in a manner that is extremely easy to follow and at times utterly fascinating. The structure of the book leads to a very comfortable read that I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in football.

Dynasty - a brilliant read
I've got all of Paul Tomkins' book and I have to say this is my favourite by far. Where previous books like Golden Past, Red Future and Red Revival used specific seasons as the background topic, Dynasty uses a few decades from the start of the Shankly era to the present day. I make a living working in statistics and whilst this book uses stats as evidence behind every point I particularly enjoyed this book purely as a review of the last 40 odd years in Liverpool history. Well written and nothing like as annoyingly partisan as a lot of books written by Liverpool fans this is a great read, one that I'd highly recommend