Bible of the British game in need of a saviour
The much-loved Football Yearbook may have lost its title sponsor but Rob Bagchi hopes the internet has not killed it off
Forty-eight years on, it can still claim to be the authoritative seasonal review
We used to sound the trumpets at Sportspages bookshop on Rothmans Football Yearbook publication day.
For those of us who worked in the late John Gaustad’s havens for sports fans and bibliophiles on Charing Cross Road and St Ann’s Square, it was our annual feast day. We could not open the boxes swiftly enough to shorten the queues and when we locked up on those midsummer evenings we would have sold 400 copies and treble that by the time the Charity Shield kicked off a few days later.
The news yesterday that its latest title sponsor, Sky Sports, which took over from the jet-setter’s oily rag of choice in 2003, has ended its deal and is likely to lead to the demise of the publication two years short of its half-century, is a shame indeed.
It may not have been as resonant as the call of the first cuckoo of spring, but it served a similar, symbolic function as the herald of a new season.
Looking now at my own shelves tells its own tale, the early editions with those paperback spines fractured and random pages sprouting from the top, but more recent ones in virtually pristine condition, habitually collected though no longer an essential aid to our trade.
Unlike the primrose Wisdens with their breadth of elegant, insightful writing that could transform a minor diversion into a daydestroying riffle up and down the decades, its football counterpart’s core component is the comprehensive detail of its data.
Forty-eight years on, it can still claim to be the authoritative seasonal review, even if all the statistics you may ever want are available online. It encouraged a communality among its readers, nurturing a wider appreciation of the English professional game. Ipswich Town and Leicester City may have spent many years apart from Leeds United in the past, but we are always neighbours in the Yearbook and, as such, frequently by mistake but often a rewarding one, I have delved among the Colin Viljoens and Steve Lynexes either side.
Precision is easier on a website but you can learn surprising things from a reference book by not knowing exactly what it is you are seeking.
Its siblings, the rugby union, rugby league and snooker yearbooks, have long predeceased it and its former stablemate, the pocket-sized Playfair Football Annual, gave up the struggle five years ago, so I suppose its extinction has an air of inevitability about it.
Online bookselling (as well as huge rents) killed Sportspages and now the internet has done for our bestselling product.
Value for money is no selling point compared with a version of the same thing for nothing.
Squad numbering from 1992-93 onwards did make one of its greatest features, the numerical line-up grids, difficult to follow. Knowing Wayne Rooney had the No 10 shirt on whether he played in midfield one week and up front a month later in his outings for Manchester United last season could not paint as vivid a picture as tracking George Best in the 1969-70 season, with a fingertip running down the page as he moved from No 7 to 11 with stops at eight and 10.
But we were still able to consult a single page with a team’s league results on it, their scorers and, crucially, the attendances which provided the perfect summary. On the internet we need to be our own collators even if we cannot be bothered.
A new title sponsor could still rescue it, though the time it takes to compile means it will soon be too late. A part of football heritage is at stake. Losing the bible will not wreck the game, but it will further corrode its fabric.