Books published by De Coubertin Books

Kanchelskis was one of the stars of the first great side Sir Alex Ferguson built at Old Trafford, the team of warriors, built around Peter Schmeichel, Roy Keane, Mark Hughes and Eric Cantona that won the Double in 1994. He tells the inside story of his departure from Old Trafford the following year that was dogged by persistent accusations it was engineered by the Russian mafia. He reveals why his agent presented Ferguson with a box containing £40,000 and what it was like to be the nearest player to Cantona on the night he leapt into the crowd at Selhurst Park. After leaving Manchester United, Kanchelskis tells what it was like to play alongside Duncan Ferguson at Everton and Gabriel Batistuta at Fiorentina and how in Florence he witnessed a real-life mafia murder. His move to Rangers ensured he would be the only man to score in a Manchester, a Merseyside and a Glasgow derby. After a fall-out with the Rangers manager, Dick Advocaat, he returned to Russia via a spell at Manchester City and in Saudi Arabia. Kanchelskis explains what life was like as a foreigner in Saudi Arabia and how he was playing chess in the desert with a member of the Saudi royal family as a murderous Al-Qaeda attack shot up the centre of Riyadh. With Russia due to be the centre of the football world when hosting next year's World Cup, Kanchelskis examines the sad decline of one of the game's great powers told through his time as a manager in his native land, a story of ignorance and corruption.

In the last years of the nineteenth century an American tobacco company, Allen and Ginter, began inserting plain cards called 'stiffeners' into packets of cigarettes to protect their products from being crushed. What seemed at the time like an inconsequential product development was swiftly exploited for commercial purposes: to advertise other products and then illustrate the cards with popular personalities. These collectables swiftly became a phenomenon and crossed to the other side of the Atlantic. These cards were decorated by many different subjects: politicians, actors, writers, poets and sporting personalities, most significantly footballers. A craze that lasted for more than half a century was born. In an era before the widespread use of photography in print media and when the game was seldom captured by motion film, cigarette cards were often the most enduring portrayal of football's stars in the early twentieth century. Small boys would collect these cards from family and friends. Teams would be formed and, in a forerunner of today's fantasy football games, the cards would be swapped and traded to see who could assemble the best team. Today they provide a compelling insight into a bygone era. Now, in The Redmen of Liverpool FC, Rowlands has shared his passion. Featuring every single Liverpool player featured in this medium, along with biographical details and contextual notes, Rowlands tells the story of the cigarette card craze. Presented in full colour, Redmen is a richly illustrated and deeply evocative window into one of football's bygone eras and an essential reference for every Liverpool fan.

More than a century after the Easter Rising, football in Ireland -- like the country itself -- remains divided. At the Euro 2016 finals in France, the country sent two teams -- the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Both teams did well -- each managed by a man called O'Neill, each resplendent in emerald green and backed by noisy, good natured supporters -- but still they were as much divided as they were united. Green Shoots examines why, almost a century after one Irish Association became two, this is still the case. It traces the overlapping stories and individuals in both associations, beginning with the tale of the boy on the front cover, Johnny Brown, a Belfast Protestant who played for Eire. Brown is the author's great uncle. This is only one strand of the broader story of Irish football. Green Shoots returns to the gures, often overlooked, who contributed so much to the growth of the game in Ireland and who made such an impact in England and Scotland too. Men such as William McCrum from Armagh, who invented the penalty-kick, and Billy McCracken from Belfast who changed the offside law in 1925 are brought back to life. A chronological thread leads from those men to Peter Doherty in the 1950s, George Best in the 1960s to Liam Brady in the 1980s and on to modern day players. Blending original archival research, travel writing, and interviews with many of the game's defining characters, Green Shoots looks at Irish football domestically and internationally. World Cups and European Championships are recalled and re-examined not just in sporting terms, but as defining moments in the country's modern history. Green Shoots is the engrossing account of the inside stories, dramas and dreams of the game in Ireland. Above all it is the definitive history of a footballing nation and its many paradoxes.

At the beginning of April 2015, newly-promoted Leicester City were seven points adrift at the foot of the Premier League. What happened next was truly extraordinary. Not only did Leicester pull off one of the great escapes to survive in the top flight but they continued their form into the following season. With four games remaining, they stand on the edge of history. This is the story of their season as seen through the eyes of the supporters who have followed them up and down the country with an increasing sense of wonder.

David Fairclough started just 92 games in an eight year Liverpool career yet his standing as one of the most famous goalscorers in the club's illustrious history is without question. Another 66 appearances as substitute boosted his Anfield career total and it was for his role as Liverpool's number 12 for which he is best remembered. Fairclough was, and always will be, the original 'Supersub'. Yet, it is a moniker he loved and loathed in equal measure and one he felt ultimately held him back in his career. In this refreshingly candid autobiography Fairclough relives the highs and lows of a colourful career. He recalls his meteoric rise to stardom and the priceless contribution he made to the Liverpool's remarkable success under Bob Paisley. From his key role against St Etienne on arguably Anfield's greatest night, through a career that witnessed 19 major trophies, Fairclough lifts the lid on what life was really like for him in the Anfield dressing room of that time, his often fraught relationship with Paisley and explains the psychological burden of being cast as 'the outsider looking in'. In an evocative collaboration with journalist Mark Platt, Fairclough's story is at once a compelling insight into one of the greatest teams in football history, populated by the great players whom David played with and against, and the gripping and characteristically honest memoir of one of Liverpool's most popular sons.

Liverpool's 2013/14 campaign was no ordinary football season. It was the season when everything changed. A year of hope, fantasy, adventure; where joyous reclamation met crushing disappointment and won. A season defined by many individuals, moments, goals and memories. A time when the brand of heroic and daring football - and footballers - that seemed consigned to the sepia toned era of the game's past returned. It was a season when millions of Liverpool supporters dared to dream again.Make Us Dream is the story of that season.

In 1948 AS Roma launched an audacious bid to make Everton's elegant Welsh international centre half T. G. Jones one of the first foreigners to play in Serie A. Jones, who was dubbed The Prince of Centre-Halves by his adoring fans, bestrode the First Division in an age of uncompromising defensive 'stoppers'. A forerunner of football immortals like Bobby Moore and Franz Beckenbauer, he was, according to Dixie Dean, 'the best all-round player' he had ever seen. The Eternal City seemed a fitting stage for this most stylish of players. And yet the move faltered at the twelfth hour and Jones returned to Everton, where, unappreciated by the club's management, his playing career petered out to a disappointing conclusion. A decade later his countryman John Charles found adulation in Italy as Il Gigante Buono and Jones was forever left pondering what might have been. Jones, however, had left his own indelible mark on British football in the 1930s and 1940s. With a blend of defensive brilliance, skill and playmaking ability, his regal style won him admirers across the land. To his fans he truly was 'The Uncrowned Prince of Wales.' In this, Jones's centenary year, author Rob Sawyer, uncovers the true story of this enigmatic football legend. Utilising a mixture of archive material and interviews with those who knew Jones and saw him play, Sawyer paints a compelling picture of a brilliant footballer and outspoken and complicated man. Rebel, pioneer and football genius this is the definitive story of one of the game's forgotten heroes.

Ask any Everton fan whose allegiance stretches back to the 1950s to name their favourite player and the answer will be familiar and enthusiastically uttered: Dave Hickson. Hickson, the only man to turn out for all three Merseyside teams, captivated the city during the decade with his outrageously brave centre forward play. A swashbuckling cavalier, he played like a human battering ram, running through opposing defences with the verve of a Boy's Own hero. With his trademark blond quiff, he looked the part too. In the final months of his life, Hickson finally sat down to record his life story. From being scouted by the legendary Dixie Dean, playing in front of 70,000 plus crowds and vanquishing the mighty Manchester United, to being kicked out of an FA Cup semi final and playing under Bill Shankly this is a compelling and evocative tale of one of football's bygone era. Hickson lovingly recalls a world in which heroes lived alongside their fans and on a Saturday gave everything to bring them pride and joy. With contributions from friends and former teammates, The Cannonball Kid is a beautiful and absorbing story that, like the great man himself, is full of good humour, charm and class.