GET IT ON: How the 70s Rocked Football

Football became glamorous in the 70s, with the BBC and ITV in cut-throat competition for viewing figures, and commercialism making its appearance through lavish ranges of merchandise. With no action replays, the word of the referee was law and often precipitated him into the cult of celebrity. This book is not about the highs and lows of scoring, winning and relegation, but focuses on interviews with the great footballing legends of the seventies, revealing how football changed with the culture and in its turn left its own mark. It evokes the "mud-spattered glory" of the game, with its drama, controversy and slapstick. Seventies banter is often embarrassing to us now, but it is also a social record of what was taken for granted at the time. Match of the Day drew massive audiences, while numerous documentaries gave insight into the lives of superstars such as Clough, Best, Revie, Shankly, Allison, Docherty and Paisley. Spurling has a way of igniting excitement in the reader as he describes iconic matches. The 1977 European Cup quarter-final at Anfield, when Liverpool beat St Etienne 3-2 on aggregate, saw a last-minute breakthrough as the 20-year old substitute David Fairclough, thereafter known as "supersub", blasted the ball low past Ivan Curcovic. The following year Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough put Liverpool on the back foot when full-back Colin Barrett volleyed home, an experience he relived on video until his wife recorded "Who shot JR?" over it a couple of years later. Clough's 1974 interview with David Frost expressed doubts as to whether he could scale the heights at Forest, "the club everyone wants to manage", but the appointment of trainer Jimmy Gordon began to turn things round and the capture of Birmingham city striker Kenny Burns was a deciding move. When Don Revie let the football world down by resigning as England's manager, Clough was in line for the job, but they were never going to appoint a "stroppy know-all", so he became "the best manager England never had". Apart from excitement on the pitch, there is scandal when Bobby Moore was accused of stealing a high-end bracelet in Bogota and PM Harold Wilson had to intervene to get him to the 1970 World Cup on time. 24 x 16cm, 392pp, colour photos.