Books: The Winds of Change: Managing Celtic FC, 1991-2004 (2015)

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Title: The Winds of Change: Managing Celtic FC, 1991-2004
Author: Alex Gordon
Published: 6 Nov 2015

SynopsisBooks: The Winds of Change: Managing Celtic FC, 1991-2004 (2014) - The Celtic Wiki

THE WINDS OF CHANGE is CQN’s new book and is definitely the best one yet! It is the follow-up to last year’s best selling Caesar and the Assassin which many of you will have read and enjoyed!

After taking us through both of Billy McNeill’s stints as manager, with Davie Hay’s time as Celtic boss in between, Alex Gordon this time charts the years of Liam Brady, who, of course, took over from McNeill in 1991, through to Martin O’Neill leaving in 2005.

In between, there are the seven years of Lou Macari, Tommy Burns, Wim Jansen, Jozef Venglos, John Barnes and Kenny Dalglish.

THE WINDS OF CHANGE is both absorbing and in-depth with some remarkable insights on the club before and after the arrival of Fergus McCann.

Review

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(review by joebloggscity)
It’s going to be one difficult winter season this year as this is competing with a spate of great Celtic reads for the Xmas market, including Uniquely Celtic and Celtic The Early Years. All covering a different era in their own way but all capturing the spirit of our club.

In this one, you have got to hand it to Alex Gordon. He has achieved quite a feat with his latest ‘The Winds of Change’, charting the slump & faltering resurgence of Celtic back in the 90s to the golden age under MoN.

This is now the third or fourth book I’ve read by Alex, and he gets really better each time. This is an excellent read, and the book is arranged in chapters of manageable lengths which rather than just regurgitate match reports & line-ups, each begin with the most notable event of the era, and then the author elaborates on the events that got us there. Alex comments on match reports in a refreshing way so to make them almost come to life. It’s a fine way to write and keeps your interest.

Beginning with the fraught years under Brady and the shambolic Macari etc, Alex takes us on a guided tour up through the one-in-a-row Jansen season, the emotional Burns, the undervalued Venglos, the comical Barnses/Dalgeish season and then the MoN golden era. Quite a lot but a lot is ram-packed into Alex’s mighty tome.

It’s quite a credit to him that he has incredibly managed to achieve making reading about Celtic through the hellish years, i.e. the bulk of the nineties, a surprisingly enjoyable read. I thought I might either have to read it through my fingers or quickly skip past much of it but I didn’t and this is all due to the skilful way that Alex has put this together.

When you get to the Jansen season and then later the MoN seasons in the book, it doesn’t half raise your spirits, and despite much having already been written on those successful periods, you’ll still much enjoy this write-up. The write-ups on the Jansen & MoN are excellent but are already heavily covered previously. The greatest value is the focus on those such as Barnes, Venglos and Brady, who have previously been overshadowed (Jansen, Barnes) or mostly ignored (Brady).

This brought back a lot of memories, and Alex doesn’t simply concentrate on the glory parts (not that there were many during the 90s). The pivotal 4-2 defeat by Rangers in 1994 which was a landmark defeat under Macari and hastened the demise of the old board, is given due attention. It is chapters like that one in the book which helps to build up to explain to piece together for the younger readers and outsiders why the golden years under MoN were to be so special. The Tommy Burns era is well captured too as are the characters of the time, and little will be better written to explain the painful league title failures of the time.

Much is written concisely which makes this accessible, but sadly there can be areas that deserve further elaboration but don’t get them. Then again the book would have been way too large to be manageable, so it’s a balancing act somewhere.

This is one of those books in which you have to accept some frustrating sacrifices. The only criticisms I’d give are that the Celtic Takeover is glossed over too readily, whilst Frank Connor is deserving of far greater attention (at least 3-4 pages in the book) than the footnote that he is given. The supporters can be often sidelined in the retrospectives but maybe this is as Alex has a media background where supporters generally are kept at arms-length. It doesn’t really detract from the book and the final result is still great.

Alex as a former journalist has been close to many of the figures he writes about, which helps with some of the anecdotes such as Derek Whyte stating that it was “like a kicks in the balls” over his transfer talks with the old board. Maybe, Alex could have been more critical of some figures he writes about, for example Liam Brady gets off a bit too lightly (maybe as he is close to Brady as Alex often admits). Then again maybe this wasn’t the book for a full blown analysis.

It’s still a damn fine read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’d recommend it very much to all.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 450 pages
  • Publisher: CQN Books; Second edition (6 Nov. 2015)
  • ISBN-10: 0993436013
  • ISBN-13: 978-0993436017
  • Product Dimensions: 16 x 4 x 24 cm

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