The Mavericks: English Football When Flair Wore Flares

An interesting look at the development of hard-tackling, work ethic football in England and how it marginilized the truly gifted players. The author points to Ramsey's '66 Cup team as the beginning of the problem when Jimmy Greaves was excluded from the side. The author tells the story of Charlie George at Arsenal, Peter Osborne at Chelsea, Rodney Marsh at QPR and so on and why these players were rarely selected to play for England in internationals. England's total lack of sucess in the 70's can be chalked up to Don Revie and Joe Mercer's refusal to select these unique footballers. His traces the career of each man as they were tranfered to the smaller clubs and labelled as "lazy" and "undisiplined". The author tracks down each individual he talks about in the book and tells their story up to 1994 (when the book was written). A great book for any football fan especially those who love the English game.

Covers the true flashy stars of '70s English soccer--George Best, Rodney Marsh, Charlie George, Alan Hudson, Peter Osgood, Frank Worthington, Stan Bowles and Tony Currie. A fun read as it was the '70s after all.