Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Two Years Later and it Still Reads Wonderfully, 17 May 2007
With Athens looming, I pulled this out recently to try and help relive some of the memories of Liverpool's last Champions League victory, and I had forgotton just how good it really was. Every single aspect of that remarkable and unforgettable season is captured and even two years after the events of that amazing night in Istanbul, the book has lost none of its appeal. The inevitable end of the Houllier campaign, the Michael Owen transfer saga and all the other comings and goings, the arrival of Rafa Benitez, the Carling Cup final, the early FA Cup exit, the very poor league campaign and the night of May 25th are all covered with honesty, humour, integrity and passion. Paul Tomkins is clearly a man who loves Liverpool Football Club. I have read opinions before that claim this to be a problem. Yes, there is a bias towards the club, but I don't recall reading the line where he claims to be anything other than a passionate supporter. In fact, one of the most remarkable things about this book is that despite this bias, the book is very balanced. He remains very objective and doesn't shy away from any of the problems that had to be addressed. Nor does he see the problems that were at the club at the time as been akin to an end-of-the-world scenario. He puts the shortcomings of that season into perspective and explains his faith in the manager's abilities. Since the book was written, Liverpool have won an FA Cup, had their highest ever Premiership points tally and are now less than a week away from a second European Cup Final appearance in three seasons, which to me proves that he was right to display the level of faith he had in the club's direction; the proof is there for all to see.
Obviously, fans of Liverpool Football Club will find more to enjoy in this book than most. But I would also suggest that anyone who has any interest in a story, well told, about triumph in the most unlikely of circumstances, should also have a read. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
I can not recommend this highly enough..., 13 Jun 2005
'Golden Past, Red Future' chronicles the recent, somewhat turbulent history of Britain's most successful football club. Thoroughly researched and with an excellent turn of phrase, Tomkins' and Swain's analysis of the transition from the Houllier era to the stewardship of Benitez, with its subsequent highs and lows, makes for excellent reading.The authors' passion and insight into the events surrounding their favourite club are plain to see, while they retain objectivity, and the self-deprecating sense of humour that Liverpool supporters are renowned for. Extremely entertaining and informative, I cannot recommend this book highly enough to any Liverpool fan, or football supporter in general. Superb stuff.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
A brilliant and absorbing read, 13 Jun 2005
Reader - I beseech thee - Do NOT dismiss this book as the work of a bandwagon jumper written in haste after the European Cup Final. The author, Paul Tomkins - a consistently excellent and prolific columnist at www.redandwhitekop.com - began penning this magnum opus as dawn was breaking on the 04/05 season. In his own words, "A book I'd chosen to write last autumn about a season of transition had been gradually turning, since February, into a book documenting the lead-up to the most amazing night in the club's history (and over the years there has some competition for that honour)." I managed to pick up one of the very few pre-press copies floating around, and boy am I glad I did.The book, mirroring the main events of the last 12 months for Liverpool Football Club, is split into three sections - a short section detailing Houllier's and Owen's leaving of Liverpool, the main body of the book detailing the turbulent and ultimately victorious first year of Rafa Benitez's reign, and concluding with a look at what the future holds for Rafa's reds and for that magnificent cathedral of football, Anfield. An excellent account of the final in Istanbul acts as an emphatic epilogue. You the reader may feel that, amply supplied with information by newspapers and the wider media ov | |
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