Colin Whelan
I am a part-time civil servant, and a first-time writer of a book; I am also a life-time devotee of football. I'm more obsessed with my early involvement in football, as it’s the era where my passion was at its greatest and where the interest metamorphosised into the obsession. My early wonderment at colour tv can never be understated, either.
Sports, non-fiction
Super Squad - the trilogy
Super Squad
This book tells of those 23 footballers in the 60s and 70s, who had the greatest influence on English football; and how that influence laid the path for football as it is today.
The book deals with the huge significance of the abolition of the ‘maximum wage’ and the almost immediate effect it had on the game, not just with salaries, but with transfer fees, too.
It also touches upon the utter joy of seeing these players you had only ever read about in the ‘papers, on our new TV screens. And should you have wanted to view the next version up - “unconfined joy” - you should have seen the look on our faces when the tv man came to our house, carrying a colour tv.
We also saw the two greatest-ever English players; the two greatest-ever Scottish players; and the greatest player the UK has ever produced. And we did all that, in one sitting over a 10-year period.
This isn’t just the story of those very best players. This is also the story of those players we may not have noticed, those we mocked unfairly, those we forgot. But those players left their own lasting legacy on the game, and this book seeks to honour that legacy.
