Excellent and revealing account of small town footy - Rated 
Ian Ridley, a football writer on the Mail on Sunday, decided - as his mid-life crisis (sort of) - to try and help the non-league club he had supported as a boy - Weymouth FC - 'turn around.' The aim, over five years, was to deliver Football League status, to get better facilities and a 'feel good' factor.
In this painfully honest memoir, Ridley links his project with his father. Their main point of shared reference was the club and as the older Ridley succumbs to cancer, the prose is moving.
Ultimately Ridley's time at Weymouth is a cautionary tale. At the end, he resigns, sickened by what he sees as non-footballing money men taking over the 'dream.' Of course it's more complicated than that. When Ridley - a big time football writer with a bulging contacts book - arrives to be saviour of the club, not settling for the offered vice-chairman role, you can almost feel the resentment of the 'old guard.' I'm not sure I'd feel differently.
Ridley appoints Steve Claridge as player-manager and the team, and attendances, improves.
But there are dark clouds on the horizon. Squabbling over jobs and, most pressingly, money issues dominate every waking thought for Mr Ridley. Eventually he gets suckered into allowing in a local hotelier, who claims he will stick in loads as a benefactor, but actually - apparently - fancies having assets like the ground on his books.
Ridley is left angry and, the worst part of the book, rather obsessed with the ins and outs of the profitability of his time at Weymouth.
But there is an irony here. Throughout the book, there are justifications for more and more players being brought in. On a small scale, it's like Newcastle. One more Asprilla, one more Shearer, one more Owen - and we'll win the league. I believe it is this focus - natural as a fan - that led to frantic worry about cash and the subsequent, apparent, dropping of the ball re the benefactor.
The funniest line for me was when Ridley bemoans the fact that the new regime brings in a third strip which has a 'green flash.'
'No true fan of the club would ever incorporate Yeovil Town's colours," roars Ridley, edging towards absurdity.
This is a fascinating and well-written book which, although partial, gives a wonderful overview of what it's like to support a team and be up to your neck in trying to make it better. Many points - valid ones - are made in the conclusion about the bigger teams allowing foreign owners in who just don't care about football at all - just the brand. However the joy of this book are the characters - Ridley himself, Steve Claridge, the scaffolder who was briefly 'Ridley's muscle' and then took to texting threats and, lastly, Martyn Harrison - the hotelier who takes over.
Fantastic read; fantastic book, buy it.
Good, not great - Rated 
An intriguing insight into running a club in towards the bottom end of the league pyramid, with terrific detail and a wonderfully personal perspective. Ridley undoubtedly loves his club, and, it would appear, cares much more for the future of the club than a number of the other characters involved. However, towards the end, in an effort to put this point across, the book becomes something of a way of justifying his actions against those of his "enemies". It seems that when writing this book, rather than telling the story of running a lower league football club, Ridley is using this book to tell his side of the story to the fans of Weymouth. Still a fantastic read though, I'd love to read a similar book by Martyn Harrison!
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