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Mister
From its late-Victorian flowering in the mill towns of the northwest of England, football spread around the world with great speed. It was helped on its way by a series of missionaries who showed the rest of the planet the simple joys of the game. Even now, in many countries, the colloquial word for a football manager is not 'coach' or 'boss' but 'mister', as that is how the early teachers were known, because they had come from the home of the sport to help it develop in new territories.
In Rory Smith's stunning new book Mister, he looks at the stories of these pioneers of the game, men who left this country to take football across the globe. Sometimes, they had been spurned in their own land, as coaching was often frowned upon in England in those days, whe players were starved of the ball during the week to make them hungry for it on matchday. So it was that the inspirations behind the 'Mighty Magyars' of the 1950s, the Dutch of the 1970s or top clubs such as Barcelona came from these shores.
England, without realising it, fired the very revolution that would remove its crown, changing football's history, thanks to a handful of men who sowed the seeds of the inversion of football's natural order. This is the story of the men who taught the world to play and shaped its destiny. This is the story of the Misters.
In Rory Smith's stunning new book Mister, he looks at the stories of these pioneers of the game, men who left this country to take football across the globe. Sometimes, they had been spurned in their own land, as coaching was often frowned upon in England in those days, whe players were starved of the ball during the week to make them hungry for it on matchday. So it was that the inspirations behind the 'Mighty Magyars' of the 1950s, the Dutch of the 1970s or top clubs such as Barcelona came from these shores.
England, without realising it, fired the very revolution that would remove its crown, changing football's history, thanks to a handful of men who sowed the seeds of the inversion of football's natural order. This is the story of the men who taught the world to play and shaped its destiny. This is the story of the Misters.
336 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 12, 2016
enjoyed this detailed book progressing english coaches aboard from the turn of the 20th century to the modern day the misters and how the english ignored them to a large degree as england lost its number one in football
June 22, 2025
Took a while to get through this but it was good! It’s probably a bit boring if you don’t like soccer but if you do there are plenty of interesting lessor known coaches highlighted that I liked learning about
February 20, 2018
Rory Smith is undoubtedly one of the finest contemporary English-football journalists, so it is no surprise that 'Mister' is so well-written. I wouldn't have bet on me enjoying a 300-page analysis on English coaches, but Smith's well-placed anecdotes made it a delight. For instance, while referring to the prevalence of match-fixing in Italian football in the 1940s, the mental image of the English coach Ted Crawford "roaring with laughter during a game as his players grew ever more desperate in their effort to concede an equalizer" is one that remains with you long after you've put the book down.
October 30, 2022
I like Rory Smith when he appears on podcasts, but I feared that a book about football coaches from a different era wouldn't interest me. As it turned out, this fear was well-founded.
The main problem I have with books on football before television is that it relies on accounts of dubious reliability, whether that's contemporary media reports or the people there, and at least Smith had interviewed a couple of his subjects. In the first chapter recounting stories from Alan Rogers he suggests that such wild tales would sound made up from anyone else, and this reader thought they had a vague relation to the truth. In fairness to Smith he considers the reliabilty of reports and stories for his other subjects, but this is quite boring to read - I certainly didn't have the same passion for these accounts as he did.
Part of that was the context - the coaches he described were introducing fairly elementary aspects of football to their teams, so their success didn't sound that remarkable to me. With the exception of Viv Buckingham and the later coaches he covered from the 1980s onwards, some of the coaches had unremarkable results when given their chance in English football. England might have been arrogant and complacent, but the famous Hungary victory was still the first loss at home to a European side. For some reason unspectacular spells at Coventry or Aston Villa led Smith to believe these coaches hadn't been given a fair crack at the English game, even if their results with foreign sides were mixed as in the case of Garbutt.
Since they were ignored at the time and most of them have died, it also meant that few of the profiles had much colour - instead they were judged on how much their actions suggested fascist sympathies under scrutiny that wasn't afforded to those who told their own tales. Some irreverent topics might have broken it up but for the earlier profiles it was mostly results and the serious aspects of becoming prisoners of war, which was noteworthy but still quite heavy.
Like Michael Calvin's books, as a reader you get the impression the author is very much on the side of his subjects, to the extent that their successes are venerated and their failures excused or overlooked. I wanted to like this, and Smith had done a lot of commendable research. However, I just didn't find the coaches as interesting or praiseworthy as the author clearly did. He also presented a picture at the end of English coaches of minor nations abroad being overlooked, or at least didn't challenge the interviewee's assertion, as though the situations of the Nepal or Brunei national teams are like those at Ipswich or West Brom. I thought this was a bit fanciful, and fit into the overall pattern of Smith over-romanticising coaches that ply their trade abroad.
The main problem I have with books on football before television is that it relies on accounts of dubious reliability, whether that's contemporary media reports or the people there, and at least Smith had interviewed a couple of his subjects. In the first chapter recounting stories from Alan Rogers he suggests that such wild tales would sound made up from anyone else, and this reader thought they had a vague relation to the truth. In fairness to Smith he considers the reliabilty of reports and stories for his other subjects, but this is quite boring to read - I certainly didn't have the same passion for these accounts as he did.
Part of that was the context - the coaches he described were introducing fairly elementary aspects of football to their teams, so their success didn't sound that remarkable to me. With the exception of Viv Buckingham and the later coaches he covered from the 1980s onwards, some of the coaches had unremarkable results when given their chance in English football. England might have been arrogant and complacent, but the famous Hungary victory was still the first loss at home to a European side. For some reason unspectacular spells at Coventry or Aston Villa led Smith to believe these coaches hadn't been given a fair crack at the English game, even if their results with foreign sides were mixed as in the case of Garbutt.
Since they were ignored at the time and most of them have died, it also meant that few of the profiles had much colour - instead they were judged on how much their actions suggested fascist sympathies under scrutiny that wasn't afforded to those who told their own tales. Some irreverent topics might have broken it up but for the earlier profiles it was mostly results and the serious aspects of becoming prisoners of war, which was noteworthy but still quite heavy.
Like Michael Calvin's books, as a reader you get the impression the author is very much on the side of his subjects, to the extent that their successes are venerated and their failures excused or overlooked. I wanted to like this, and Smith had done a lot of commendable research. However, I just didn't find the coaches as interesting or praiseworthy as the author clearly did. He also presented a picture at the end of English coaches of minor nations abroad being overlooked, or at least didn't challenge the interviewee's assertion, as though the situations of the Nepal or Brunei national teams are like those at Ipswich or West Brom. I thought this was a bit fanciful, and fit into the overall pattern of Smith over-romanticising coaches that ply their trade abroad.
November 30, 2018
I was actually pleasantly surprised by this book. I'm a football fan but didn't think coaches from the early 20th century onwards would be particularly entertaining. But it was and I learned about quite a few coaching pioneers that I never knew about (some of the biggest clubs in the world can owe some of their early successes to British coaches) and Smith's writing makes for a smooth read.
May 10, 2020
Great read. Really shows the deep history and to a degree the shortsightedness of the leaders of English football.
August 9, 2022
In some places you could see the smile on Rory's face as he met some legendary coaches. Told really well and a useful addition to any Football Library.
June 30, 2023
What is with the glut of amateurish history writing in football books..
December 23, 2016
Thought-provoking reading that takes different angles according to the characters, experiences and stories it finds, and neatly avoids becoming a parade of old codgers' war stories.
The book has a fairly damning verdict of the English football establishment's complacency, presenting it as a lesson not learned through the ages (that inspires some interesting reflections in politics, particularly this year).
For me it really lifts off when the narrative combines with tactical developments, with the story of George Raynor and Sweden, and traces them back to a few men and coaching courses.
It relates it all to the present day, and there's things the Times reporter wouldn't be allowed to write in his paper, as he has Premier League hype well under control. Particularly the brief headline-grabbing adventures of a few failed Premier League managers in European clubs.
The book has a fairly damning verdict of the English football establishment's complacency, presenting it as a lesson not learned through the ages (that inspires some interesting reflections in politics, particularly this year).
For me it really lifts off when the narrative combines with tactical developments, with the story of George Raynor and Sweden, and traces them back to a few men and coaching courses.
It relates it all to the present day, and there's things the Times reporter wouldn't be allowed to write in his paper, as he has Premier League hype well under control. Particularly the brief headline-grabbing adventures of a few failed Premier League managers in European clubs.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews