Lawrie McMenemy's book .....

Your memory is obviously playing tricks with you again then because Watford finished 2nd just once while Liverpool won the league 8 times between 1980 and 1990. Even with all the money they currently have, I doubt that Man City will ever be that dominant. In the last 5 years, 4 different teams have been champions and 4 different teams have finished runners-up.

Hey, hey, save it for the Saints Dating sub-forum.

What is certainly true is that in World football, just as much as in England, a handful of super rich and super powerful clubs have always dominated. The elite clubs like Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Ipswich Town, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and Liverpool plus more recently Chelsea, Manchester City and PSG are all able to dominate leagues and bully smaller clubs with their financial muscle.

This has just been posted on The Ugly. Is this FF it is from??

 

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One of the guys who was involved with the Club historians and programme stories etc is not impressed as from his post on Facebook shown below

 

Could it be that I am the first person to read Lawrie McMenemy: A lifetime's obsession from cover to cover? Am I going to be the last person to read Lawrie McMenemy: A lifetime's obsession from cover to cover? It is likely. It is anything but compulsive reading.

 

However, I am a Saints’ historian and it’s an obligation to keep up with any relevant "literature". It was while working my way through the chapter devoted to the many alleged betrayals of Terry Paine that I stumbled across my own name, as the T-shirt says, on page 152. Amazing!Lawrie McMenemy has, I am happy to say, nothing good to say about me, all of which is half-truths and utter ********, triggered by what he reckons to be “offensive comments” I made about him in the Saints’ programme last season.

 

A nine-year-old, on reading the article in question, could have told Lawrie that I was not being pejorative, merely pointing out that, following relegation in 1974, his credentials to manage Southampton FC were called into question in some quarters. Something that Lawrie acknowledges himself. Evidently, Lawrie didn’t have a nine-year-old to hand when he took umbrage.

 

Facebook is not a suitable medium for book reviews, but I will be discussing A lifetime’s obsession elsewhere in the not too distant future. In the meantime, regarding the usefulness of this tome to even the most enthused of Saintly bibliophiles, it is worth bearing in mind that he devotes more space to erroneously trashing me, the best part of a page, than he does Alan Ball’s managerial career at The Dell or that of Dave Merrington. This is all the “Big Man” has to say about Merrington, conceded during a brief reflection of Alan Shearer’s development: “… one of the best youth coaches in England. Dave went on to manage the club.” That’s yer lot!

 

Dave Merrington rates greater attention than many other individuals who played key roles at Southampton Football Club during Lawrie’s three tenures but me, humble, innocent, little old me, I rate 350 words.

 

In short: a work of psychotic subjectivity, egregious cant and Homeric pusillanimity.

It seems that you have to be bitter and narcissistic to be a football historian.

Having read the book, twice, the writer makes a very fair and valid point. I'm a big 'fan' of LM but he isn't without fault.

Having read the book, twice, the writer makes a very fair and valid point. I'm a big 'fan' of LM but he isn't without fault.

Agreed, but I think that's what made him so successful. He certainly had to be a character to handle some of the big names and rogues he had in his teams, and to be able to make them into a team.

Having read the book, twice, the writer makes a very fair and valid point. I'm a big 'fan' of LM but he isn't without fault.

Who is?