It aint lit crit
It's an annual tradition of mine to buy the Sky Sports Football Yearbook. There was a time I was first in the queue on the day it came out (well, the day after, given that almost everything takes an extra day to reach this backwater burgh of mine) but now that boyhood fire is no longer in my blood I tend to wait until around this time as by now Waterstone's (they can drop the apostrophe all they want, I'm leaving it in) have usually knocked a fiver off the price and when you're living under the yoke of brutal monetarism you need every penny.
In recent years the grand old annual has begun to look a little creaky as problems have sneaked in and, having got my copy a few days ago, I regret to report that it shows no signs of improving but rather is getting worse. The standard gripe about the book is the fact that they list all winners of the Football League as a single entity, relegating the achievements of all those clubs that were champions of England before 1992 to the same level as those that won the second tier afterwards. It's probably not worth bothering about that though as, even when it was the Rothmans, Jack Rollin was adamant he wouldn't stop doing that and there is no chance of it changing now that it is part of Rupert Murdoch's hype machine. All real supporters know that Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough getting promotion are not comparable to Huddersfield's trio, Liverpool's umpteen or the rest, but it still causes needless confusion with regards to Newcastle United, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Portsmouth, the five clubs to win both "versions" of the First Division.
But as I say, not worth worrying about as that won't change no matter how much people want it to do so. Besides, there are plenty of other problems with the book that could be fixed. Time was I could flick through the yearbook to find out who finished where in, say, the United Counties League but those days are gone. Coverage, perfunctory at best, ends with the top divisions of the the Northern Premier, Southern and Isthmian leagues with all other parts of the pyramid, along with the leagues under the auspices of the Amateur Football Alliance (admittedly of no interest to me personally, but others may well care), jettisoned, presumably to make way for the line-ups of every Champions League match to have taken place in the previous season. Perhaps I'm just out of step with what the modern consumer of football wants but for an almanac of British football surely it is much more important to include the final table for NPL Division One South than it is to include the full line-ups for AIK Solna v Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. By all means include the line-ups for the British teams in Europe and their opponents but the rest is a waste of space and I'm sure in no way connected to Sky Sports holding the rights to the Champions League.
The length and breadth of the book clearly makes it a massive undertaking so errors are inevitable but some of them are simply chronic. A lot of the information for the Scottish clubs seems badly researched, with the record transfer fees in particular looking rather outdated in a number of cases, but there are some pretty basic goofs. Livingston have apparently never had a player capped at full international level whilst at the club, something that will come as a surprise to Marvin Andrews, Horace Stoute, Gustave Bahoken, Chérif Touré Mamam and the other Livvy Lions to have represented their respective countries whilst on the books at Almondvale. Player records are also prone to problems. I was surprised to learn that I apparently dreamt Marc-Antoine Fortuné's 2009 spell at West Bromwich Albion as, according to the yearbook, he went straight from AS Nancy to Celtic. I would love to know who that was that scored two in the 3-1 win over Wigan then as he didn't half look like the big Guianese.
The inconsistent approach to best wins and worst defeats is also somewhat maddening. My understanding was that "Record League Victory", "Record Cup Victory" and "Record Defeat" meant in senior competition but this only seems to be observed in some cases. Fleetwood Town have, of course, only completed one season in the Football League but listing their record victory as 13-0 makes no sense when it was against Oldham Town in the North-West Counties League. Compare this to fellow relative newcomers Crawley Town, whose record victory is given (correctly) as 5-2 v AFC Wimbledon in League Two. Are we supposed to believe that big spenders like Crawley never managed better than a three goal win in non-league circles? Bollocks they didn't! Fleetwood's record victory should have been given as their 4-0 against Morecambe otherwise the book is using different standards to judge different clubs and creating pointless inequality. Stevenage's 7-0 record defeat against Southwick and Elgin City's 18-1 record win over Brora Rangers are among other results that should follow the Fleetwood one into the bin. Alternatively go through the history of every club and list their genuine biggest wins and worst defeats, taking in every bit of non-league they have ever played. Personally though I think the former solution is much more sensible but even the latter would be an improvement on the current mix and match approach.
The "did you know" features added to each English club page were also pretty lacklustre this year. Albion's duo this time out were one about the Chambers brothers becoming the first twins to represent England at any level (widely reported at the time but probably forgotten outside the Hawthorns now, so fair enough) and the fact that in 1888 FA Cup holders Albion lost 4-1 to Scottish Cup holders Renton in a match billed as the "Championship of the World". You don't say? As football trivia goes this is possibly the best-known titbit about the Victorian game going and anybody with even a slight knowledge of the history of the sport in Britain (which, let's face it, is everybody who buys the book) will know this like the back of their hand. If it continues in this vein we can expect the Manchester United page next season to have as its "did you know" that they once had a manager called Alex Ferguson who won some trophies.
It pains me to write this stuff in many ways as I love the Rothmans like my own sweet life and want it to continue forever. But in this day and age of online databases and instant access to the most minute of football information it is important for it to stay relevant and not drive people away with sloppy work and pointless stubbornness. If the Sky Sports Football Yearbook dies because, despite all efforts, it just can't compete with the internet then that would be a disappointment but if it dies because of neglect then that would be a crying shame. Time to pull your fingers out and rescue this design classic from the doldrums before it's too late.
In recent years the grand old annual has begun to look a little creaky as problems have sneaked in and, having got my copy a few days ago, I regret to report that it shows no signs of improving but rather is getting worse. The standard gripe about the book is the fact that they list all winners of the Football League as a single entity, relegating the achievements of all those clubs that were champions of England before 1992 to the same level as those that won the second tier afterwards. It's probably not worth bothering about that though as, even when it was the Rothmans, Jack Rollin was adamant he wouldn't stop doing that and there is no chance of it changing now that it is part of Rupert Murdoch's hype machine. All real supporters know that Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough getting promotion are not comparable to Huddersfield's trio, Liverpool's umpteen or the rest, but it still causes needless confusion with regards to Newcastle United, Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Portsmouth, the five clubs to win both "versions" of the First Division.
But as I say, not worth worrying about as that won't change no matter how much people want it to do so. Besides, there are plenty of other problems with the book that could be fixed. Time was I could flick through the yearbook to find out who finished where in, say, the United Counties League but those days are gone. Coverage, perfunctory at best, ends with the top divisions of the the Northern Premier, Southern and Isthmian leagues with all other parts of the pyramid, along with the leagues under the auspices of the Amateur Football Alliance (admittedly of no interest to me personally, but others may well care), jettisoned, presumably to make way for the line-ups of every Champions League match to have taken place in the previous season. Perhaps I'm just out of step with what the modern consumer of football wants but for an almanac of British football surely it is much more important to include the final table for NPL Division One South than it is to include the full line-ups for AIK Solna v Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk. By all means include the line-ups for the British teams in Europe and their opponents but the rest is a waste of space and I'm sure in no way connected to Sky Sports holding the rights to the Champions League.
The length and breadth of the book clearly makes it a massive undertaking so errors are inevitable but some of them are simply chronic. A lot of the information for the Scottish clubs seems badly researched, with the record transfer fees in particular looking rather outdated in a number of cases, but there are some pretty basic goofs. Livingston have apparently never had a player capped at full international level whilst at the club, something that will come as a surprise to Marvin Andrews, Horace Stoute, Gustave Bahoken, Chérif Touré Mamam and the other Livvy Lions to have represented their respective countries whilst on the books at Almondvale. Player records are also prone to problems. I was surprised to learn that I apparently dreamt Marc-Antoine Fortuné's 2009 spell at West Bromwich Albion as, according to the yearbook, he went straight from AS Nancy to Celtic. I would love to know who that was that scored two in the 3-1 win over Wigan then as he didn't half look like the big Guianese.
The inconsistent approach to best wins and worst defeats is also somewhat maddening. My understanding was that "Record League Victory", "Record Cup Victory" and "Record Defeat" meant in senior competition but this only seems to be observed in some cases. Fleetwood Town have, of course, only completed one season in the Football League but listing their record victory as 13-0 makes no sense when it was against Oldham Town in the North-West Counties League. Compare this to fellow relative newcomers Crawley Town, whose record victory is given (correctly) as 5-2 v AFC Wimbledon in League Two. Are we supposed to believe that big spenders like Crawley never managed better than a three goal win in non-league circles? Bollocks they didn't! Fleetwood's record victory should have been given as their 4-0 against Morecambe otherwise the book is using different standards to judge different clubs and creating pointless inequality. Stevenage's 7-0 record defeat against Southwick and Elgin City's 18-1 record win over Brora Rangers are among other results that should follow the Fleetwood one into the bin. Alternatively go through the history of every club and list their genuine biggest wins and worst defeats, taking in every bit of non-league they have ever played. Personally though I think the former solution is much more sensible but even the latter would be an improvement on the current mix and match approach.
The "did you know" features added to each English club page were also pretty lacklustre this year. Albion's duo this time out were one about the Chambers brothers becoming the first twins to represent England at any level (widely reported at the time but probably forgotten outside the Hawthorns now, so fair enough) and the fact that in 1888 FA Cup holders Albion lost 4-1 to Scottish Cup holders Renton in a match billed as the "Championship of the World". You don't say? As football trivia goes this is possibly the best-known titbit about the Victorian game going and anybody with even a slight knowledge of the history of the sport in Britain (which, let's face it, is everybody who buys the book) will know this like the back of their hand. If it continues in this vein we can expect the Manchester United page next season to have as its "did you know" that they once had a manager called Alex Ferguson who won some trophies.
It pains me to write this stuff in many ways as I love the Rothmans like my own sweet life and want it to continue forever. But in this day and age of online databases and instant access to the most minute of football information it is important for it to stay relevant and not drive people away with sloppy work and pointless stubbornness. If the Sky Sports Football Yearbook dies because, despite all efforts, it just can't compete with the internet then that would be a disappointment but if it dies because of neglect then that would be a crying shame. Time to pull your fingers out and rescue this design classic from the doldrums before it's too late.