Tony Book

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Tony Book
Personnel
Surname Anthony Keith Book
birthday September 4, 1934
place of birth Bath ,  England
position Full-back (right)
Juniors
Years station
1951-1952 Peasedown Miners
1952-1955 Royal Army Medical Corps
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1955-1956 Frome Town
1956-1964 Bath City
1964 Toronto City
1964-1966 Plymouth Argyle 81 (3)
1966-1973 Manchester City 244 (4)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1973 Manchester City (interim)
1974-1979 Manchester City
1989 Manchester City (interim)
1993 Manchester City (interim)
1 Only league games are given.

Anthony Keith "Tony" Book (born September 4, 1934 in Bath ) is a former English football player and coach . The sporting career of the right full-back was unusual in that he had played in lower-class amateur football at the age of 28 before he found his way into professional business via Plymouth to Manchester City . With the "Citizens" he won the English championship as team captain in 1968 , the FA Cup the following year, and in 1970 the League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup . In addition, the League Cup ( 1976 ) came again during his subsequent head coach in Manchester between 1974 and 1979 .

Athletic career

Player career

Beginning in lower-class football (1955–1964)

Born in the spa town of Bath - in the county of Somerset - Book moved to India as the son of a soldier at the age of four with his entire family, which consisted of seven boys. He grew up there for seven years before the entourage returned to England. In football, he recommended himself through school sport for the Bath City youth team . He later played in amateur football for the Peasedown Miners , where he initially took the position of the striker . When he began doing military service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in October 1952 , he became involved with the local army team and was retrained to become a full-back. The performances were promising, but a trial training session at Chelsea FC - arranged by Books Sergeant Major - ultimately did not lead to the desired entry into professional business. Instead, he hired his hometown club Bath City in January 1956 and in the following eight years his sporting perspective was reduced to occasional successes in the early rounds of the FA Cup and winning the championship in the Southern League in 1960 .

The beginning of a late professional career then marked the arrival of Malcolm Allison as the new coach of Bath City in 1962 . Book was from then on Allison's companion and when he briefly looked after Toronto City in Canada in 1964 , he took Book with him to his engagement. Although Allison returned to England only a short time later to look after an English professional club at Plymouth Argyle for the first time, Book stayed in North America for three months. There he used the probation opportunities offered to him and in winning the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League he asserted himself against world-wide established professional players; in addition, he received the award as the best Canadian full-back.

Via Plymouth to Manchester City (1964–1973)

In August 1964 Book Allison followed to Plymouth and after paying a transfer fee of 1,500 pounds Book was immediately a fixture with the "Pilgrims". Legend has it that Book cheated a little when signing the contract and presented the birth certificate so that the year of birth 1934 looked like 1936. He made his debut on August 22, 1964 against Coventry City (0-2) and in the 1964/65 season he immediately reached the semi-finals of the League Cup . In two years he missed only three second division games and the successful fight for relegation was attributed to a not inconsiderable part of Book. Even after Allison had accepted a position as assistant to Joe Mercer at Manchester City in 1965, Book kept his regular position under the new coach Derek Ufton . Characteristic of his game was a mostly clean duel and the ability to keep a "cool head" under pressure and initiate counterattacks.

In the summer of 1966, Book went to Manchester City, which had been promoted to the first division under Mercer and Allison in the previous 1965/66 season. Mercer was initially opposed to the commitment due to Book's advanced footballer age, but in the end Allison convinced his manager, not least with a subtle reference to Mercer himself, who had also switched from Everton to Arsenal once at the age of 30 . On the first day of the 1966/67 season Mercer made his debut at Southampton FC (1-1) and in the following two years he was not only a regular player, but also the team's new captain. In addition to the advocacy of Allison, he was helped by the fact that he knew teammate Mike Summerbee from the times of the Southern League, so easily integrated into the team and after the departure of Johnny Crossan the captain role became vacant - "Skip" was then to the end nicknamed his playing days to Books.

In his first year he received the club's internal award for best player and within four years he won the title in four important competitions. These included the English championship in 1968 , the FA Cup the following year and the League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1970 . On the way to winning the English league title, he was not missing in a single game; consequently, he was also in the decisive 4: 3 on the last day of the game at Newcastle United on the field, when the competitor and local rival Manchester United could be kept at a distance in the long-distance duel. In the 1968/69 season, Book paused for a good six months due to an Achilles tendon injury, and it was all the more surprising for him that he was voted England's Footballer of the Year - he shared the award with Dave Mackay of Derby County . When he won the FA Cup in 1969, he was fit again in time to lead his team in the final as captain to a 1-0 win over Leicester City . The following year he won the league cup within 53 days and a 2-1 final win against Górnik Zabrze in Vienna in the European cup winners' competition.

In November 1973, Book ended his professional career at the age of 39 after more than 300 competitive games and five goals for Manchester City. His new job with the "Citizens" was that of the assistant next to the new head coach Ron Saunders , where he had filled the vacant coaching position on an interim basis shortly before Saunders' engagement.

Coaching career

The club found itself in troubled waters after Mercer's dismissal in 1971 and after brief periods under Allison and Johnny Hart , the Saunders era lasted only a few months. A month after the league cup final defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers (1: 2), Saunders was dismissed and Book succeeded him in his office. The initial interim solution quickly turned into a permanent installation and the book, which was very popular with the players - led by Mike Doyle - formed a new team that only narrowly missed the league title in 1977 with one point behind champions Liverpool FC . New faces Book added to the squad included Joe Royle , Brian Kidd , David Watson and Asa Hartford . Under Book's leadership, Manchester City returned permanently to European club competitions and in addition, his team won the domestic league cup in 1976 .

When Malcolm Allison finally returned in 1979, Book subordinated himself to the "second rank" in the coaching staff before a downward spiral of athleticism ensured that both Allison and Book were fired in October 1980. Six months later, at the invitation of new coach John Bond , Book found his way to Manchester again. First as responsible for youth work and later in other coaching functions - including two new interim phases as coach of the senior team in 1989 and 1993 - he remained loyal to the club for another 16 years. It was not until Frank Clark released him in 1996 that Book's engagement ended 30 years after his arrival in Manchester. He was remembered by Manchester City supporters as "the best captain in the club's history" and in recognition of his many years of service, the club made him honorary president.

Title / Awards

As a player

As a trainer

  • English League Cup (1): 1976

literature

  • Ryan Danes: Plymouth Argyle - The Complete Record . DB Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-1-85983-710-8 , pp. 84 f .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ With regard to the year of birth, the literature occasionally gives a different indication of 1935.
personal data
SURNAME Book, Tony
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Book, Anthony Keith
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Bath