Product Description

Charles Buchan's Football Monthly was Britain's first ever football 'glossy'. Packed with hand tinted photographs and celebrity articles, its arrival on the bookstands in September 1951 brought colour and glamour to the nation's football hungry public after years of wartime deprivation and austerity. At its peak in the late 1960s the magazine was sellilng 254,000 copies a week.

The Best of Charles Buchan's Football Monthly has been a best seller since its publication in 2006. Charles Buchan's Liverpool Gift Book promises similar treats.

After an introduction by Simon Inglis, editor of the Played in Britain series, Liverpool FC historian Stephen Done sets the scene: it is the early 1950s and despite being League champions in 1947 and Cup Finalists in 1950, Liverpool are humiliatingly relegated. In Billy Liddell they have a national star, but not until Bill Shankly arrives in 1959 does the script change. Just as the Merseybeat starts to dominate pop culture, Shankly and his cohorts in the famous Anfield `bootroom' lead the Reds to the League title in 1964 and FA Cup victory in 1965, thus laying the foundations for four decades of thrills at home and in Europe.

Flying wingers Peter Thompson and Ian Callaghan join hotshot Roger Hunt, a hero of the 1966 World Cup. Stalwarts Ron Yeats, Tommy Smith and Ian St John become role models for emerging youths Emlyn Hughes, Steve Heighway and Kevin Keegan. The book ends in 1974 as Football Monthly folds and, by coincidence, the great Shankly retires. And so a unique record of a unique era, told through the pages of the magazine that was the fans' Number One.

Simon Inglis, editor of the Played in Britain series, has many titles to his name. Engineering Archie (English Heritage) was runner up for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year Award in 2005. His earlier book, The Football Grounds of Great Britain (Harper Collins) was selected by the Guardian's Frank Keating as the best sports books of the 20th century.

Stephen Done knows Liverpool FC from the inside out as curator of the club museum at Anfield. His books include The Official Liverpool FC Illustrated History (Carlton Books) and a detective novel, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Hastings Press), set in late 1940s Britain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44440 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

stowelld
excellent for all liverpool fans,especially those who remeber the good all days when you could pay at the turnstiles and the pies had meat in them.