Leon Barton – författare
Visar alla böcker från författaren . Handla med fri frakt och snabb leverans.
2 produkter
2 produkter
Häftad, Engelska, 2017
204 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Little Wonder is the story of Brian Flynn, the stylish yet tenacious midfielder from Port Talbot who, in the 1970s and '80s, enjoyed a successful top flight playing career with Burnley and Leeds United - where is still held in great affection by fans of both clubs - before moving on to Cardiff City, Doncaster Rovers, Bury, Limerick and finally to Wrexham as player manager.Flynn also won 66 caps for Wales and played a pivotal role when the rejuvenated national team reached the quarter-finals of the 1976 European Championships and were denied a place at the 1978 World Cup by Joe Jordan's infamous 'hand of god' at Anfield.Lovingly crafted by Leon Barton, Little Wonder is also the story of Flynn's 12 years as a club manager with Wrexham where, with solid team-building and cup heroics, he left a legacy that was subsequently squandered, and his two-year spell at Swansea City when he saved the club from relegation from the Football League and whose immense contribution was subsequently built upon to stunning effect.It is Brian Flynn's managerial legacy to Welsh international football, however, that has won him the plaudits of fellow managers, former teammates, the players themselves, and the Welsh nation when, as intermediate team manager under John Toshack, Flynn identified, nurtured and developed the 'golden generation', a group of talented teenagers and Welsh 'Anglos' who went on to become, at Euro 2016, most successful Welsh team in 140 years. Brian Flynn may only stand at 5 foot and 4 inches, but this small man from the town of steel has made a giant contribution to football and Little Wonder is his story.
Häftad, Engelska, 2026
272 kr
Kommande
The world’s third oldest national football team, Wales played an international match for the first time in 1876 and for the next 80 years the team competed without a manager. Since Jimmy Murphy's appointment in 1957, just thirteen men have held the position on a permanent basis. The first book to chronicle the fortunes of Wales’s national managers, What’s Welsh For Gaffer? explores how the role has evolved over the decades; from the days of the team being picked by committee, to modern-day full-time managers who impose their own football philosophies on the national team.Author Leon Barton explains how four managers – Jimmy Murphy (1958), Chris Coleman (2016), Ryan Giggs (2020) and Rob Page (2022) – led their teams to the finals of international tournaments, and Mike Smith (1976) whose team reached the quarter-finals of the European Championships when the tournament itself was restricted to the semi-finalists. He also investigates why, in the 1980s and ‘90s under Mike England, Terry Yorath and Mark Hughes, Welsh sides stacked with world-class talent, failed to qualify for a single tournament, and assesses the huge contributions of John Toshack and Gary Speed who laid the foundations for others to succeed.How did Englishman Mike Smith oversee a dramatic upturn in Welsh pride under his tenure? How did Jimmy Murphy and Terry Yorath deal with the shocking tragedies that occurred during their time in the job? Why did the Manic Street Preachers sing “Bobby Gould Must Go” before the maverick manager resigned in 1999, and how did Chris Coleman turn a team that was humiliated in a 6-1 loss to Serbia into European Championship semi-finalists in less than three years? Discover these stories and more as the men in charge of Wales are profiled, and their legacies examined, in this fascinating new book.