Everton: The School of Science

by James Corbett, Alex Young (Foreword)

In his highly acclaimed history of one of the country’s most distinguished teams, James Corbett traces the fortunes of Everton Football Club — from their humble origins as a church team to the David Moyes era. From Fred Geary to Alex Young and Dixie Dean through to such modern icons as Mikel Arteta and Tim Cahill, The School of Science takes in the stories of all the men who made the club great. Fully revised and updated to include all the action to the closing stages of the 2009/10 season, The School of Science is the definitive history of one of English football’s aristocrats; an engrossing and graphic account of the inside stories, glories and shattered dreams of ‘The People’s Club’. Written with the enthusiasm and stoicism of a committed fan, the wit of a fanzine and the authority of a historian, it is the ultimate guide to the team’s story.

Genres: Football, Nonfiction, History

581 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 17, 2003

Reviews

[Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of Everton Football Club from its informal founding in 1878 as St Domingo's Football Club to the appointment of David Moyes as manager and the beginning of Wayne Rooney's career. Thankfully the book is not over reliant on quoting match reports from old local newspapers to fill out the pages and, while it is perhaps more a book to dip into for facts and anecdotes than a cover to cover read, it is a fascinating and very well written account of people and events both behind the scenes and on the field of play.

I hope some of today's professional footballers get to read it. The book would be an education for them to understand how fortunate their profession has become. The details of the end of Dixie Dean's career – the greatest of Everton's goal-scorers – is illuminating. A transfer to Notts County, then on to Sligo Rovers in Ireland, war service followed by pub management and ending with Sir John Moores, Everton's multi-millionaire club owner, giving him a job as a security guard to avoid unemployment. There were no lucrative advertising deals or television pundit jobs waiting for Dixie Dean, no matter how much of the club's success in the 1930s was down to him.

There are lessons to be learned from this book, moral lessons on business ethics, fairness and loyalty, not only interesting footballing factoids to be retold in the pub or used in pub quizzes. I recommend it to any young person hoping to have a career in the sport and to anyone else, whether Everton fan, sports fanatic or amateur historian, who cannot resist a dose of nostalgia.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hugely informative and inspiring.