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Into the Red
Into the Red
Nov 17, 2024 6:00 AM

Author:John Williams

Into the Red

After a decade in football wilderness, weighed down by the legacy of unmatched domestic and European successes in the 1970s and ’80s, Liverpool Football Club – under new French coach Gérard Houllier and forward-looking chief executive, Rick Parry – face up to the huge challenge of building a new team and a successful modern club at Anfield fit for the twenty-first century.

But change is never easy and a rough ride lies ahead. Hard-headed and controversial, Houllier and his policies are proving contentious: changing the dressing-room culture which has been central to the club’s earlier successes and his policy of player rotation, to name just two. So how does this new coaching guru, with a strong personal attachment to both the city and the club, see the future of the game and Liverpool’s place in it? And do the fans of the club – its lifeblood – share Houllier’s vision of a borderless international football squad and a more pragmatic, less flamboyant approach to playing the modern game?

Into the Red charts the place of football in the city of Liverpool, along with some of the reasons for the club’s dramatic fall from grace. It also reports on the extraordinary ‘revival’ season for Liverpool FC in 2000–01 as the club battled, uniquely, in Europe and at home for honours across four different fronts, and on season 2001–02, a dramatic one for Houllier in particular. It includes comment from some of the key protagonists at Anfield as Liverpool FC begins to build, on and off the pitch, an exciting new footballing era for the club, dragging it into the new millennium and ultimately challenging the great football epochs of the team’s history under legends such as Shankly, Paisley and Fagan.

Reviews

Articulate and affecting... There is a hard core of ambition and self-belief that has helped him to thrive, without spoiling his unfledged charm when viewed among seasoned professionals

—— When Saturday Comes

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

—— Lindsey Davis

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

—— Simon Callow

P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit

—— Christopher Hitchens

For as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day

—— Marian Keyes

Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists

—— Susan Hill

It's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him

—— John Humphrys

Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already

—— Lynne Truss

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

—— John Julius Norwich

P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection

—— Julian Fellowes

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

—— Kathy Lette

My only problem with Wodehouse is deciding which of his enchanting books to take to my desert island

—— Ruth Dudley Edwards

P.G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive

—— Olivia Williams

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

—— Jane Moore

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

—— Simon Brett

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

—— Joseph Connolly

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

—— Adele Parks

To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language

—— Ben Schott

A genius ... Elusive, delicate but lasting

—— Alan Ayckbourn

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

—— Stephen Fry

Fascinating...it covers most levels of Wiggins existence – cyclist, team leader, husband, father, son – during the most important years of his life, with the candour that has become his trademark...co-written by Guardian sports writer, William Fotheringham, who helps to tell the story in the direct but eloquent tone that Wiggins watchers will recognise countless radio and television interviews. It is an absorbing read that covers Wiggins’ career from his departure from Garmin to his latest Olympic success. Cycling fans will relish the horse’s mouth accounts of the triumphs they have watched unfold this year, while newcomers to the sport, attracted by the man’s performances this year, both on and off the bike, should find more to enjoy

—— Timothy John , Road Cycling UK

If you love cycling, this makes a very welcome change from the rather saturated market of ‘cyclist doping confessions'

—— Cycling UK

What makes the book special for me is the love of cycling that comes through. His passion for the sport, for its history, his awareness of where he stands in the pantheon of Lycra-clad heroes, and his inability to truly comprehend his achievements all come across in waves. And in typical Wiggins fashion, he doesn’t dodge the difficult bits. He talks openly about the latest drugs scandal and the unwelcome role of moral enforcer which has been forced onto him by his newfound standing as Tour winner

—— Freewheeling France (blog)

A speedy guide to cycling success

—— The Times

Like the man, it’s engaging, modest and likeable, with the section on the Olympics especially fascinating

—— Simon Evans , Choice

An album of fascinating snapshots of Hemingway

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Paul Hendrickson writes with a great deal of passion…

—— Nudge

A terrific and fresh approach to the man

—— Daniel Woodrell , Financial Times
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