Pitch Publishing Re Print-Author's Proceeds Going To Charity

Never Had It So Good, written Tim Quelch, a long-standing Burnley fan, was originally published in 2009 by a now defunct publishing firm, Know the Score Books. The book has been re-printed by Pitch Publishing in order to draw wider interest to how Burnley FC achieved its incredible Football League title triumph in 1960. For those who have yet to realise just how amazing this feat was, try imagining:

• A professional football club from a town the size of Hastings, Hartlepool, Selby or Kettering winning today's Premier League.

• A small town club side matching the best teams on the continent and flummoxing them with their tactical innovations - their dead ball ruses, their fluid formations & mesmerising movement.
• A financially modest club winning the premier English league title having spent only £600,000 in today's values in assembling its team. Burnley's greatest rivals, Spurs, spent ten times more on their 1961 double-winning side.
• A small town club side supported by over a quarter of its local population which was struggling to contend with an accelerating recession in the local major industries - cotton and coal.  
• A club that was prepared to invest in its young recruits, guaranteeing each one of them at least a five-year apprenticeship, featuring top-class coaching, & supported by induction into a manual trade of their choice which they could fall back upon should their football careers not take off. For example, John Connelly, one of Burnley's 'home-made' stars heard of his first senior England cap in 1959 while still working part-time as a joiner at a local colliery.
• A club that took its loco parentis responsibilities very seriously, maintaining close liaison with its young recruits' parents in ensuring that their young men's standards of behaviour both on and off the pitch were irreproachable, even going so far as to vet their choice of girlfriends.
• A mutually supportive club where the players' wives helped one another make ends meet by exchanging knitting patterns and cheap recipes.

  This is the incredible story of Burnley Football Club in 1959-60 as told by those who played, managed or watched, set in the context of a very different Britain yet to exhibit the trappings of a modern celebrity culture. As proof of that, in the autumn of 1959 a local cinema cancelled a planned live concert by Frank Sinatra having found that the venue had already been booked by the Colne swimming association.  

• The re-printed version benefits from a more eye catching cover (see above) and a bigger and better presentation of evocative shots of the players in action, the ground and town over half a century ago.  All of the author's proceeds will be donated to Cancer Research UK. £1,000 of royalties from the first edition were donated to Burnley FC Youth Development schemes.

 Underdog! also written by Tim Quelch was first published in 2011. Pitch Publishing have reprinted the book now in order to attract a wider audience.   The principal theme of the book is that football's appeal is not confined to those clubs playing in the fast lane. Thankfully, passion still thrives in humble locations. Underdog is the author's fifty-year odyssey following the fortunes of a variety of small British clubs - both League and non-League, united in their defiance of unappealing odds in making their presence felt on bigger stages, demonstrating that major surprises, so necessary for sustaining the game's interest, are still possible particularly when inspirational leadership, a modicum of talent, guile and unrelenting drive are brought together in intoxicating combinations, as has happened under Sean Dyche's management, here at Burnley.   In Underdog there are tales of:   

• The 'Grand Old Duke of York' clubs: Northampton Town, Carlisle United and Swansea which rose from abject obscurity at bewildering speed only to fall, like Icarus, from the bright lights as rapidly as they rose.
• The punitive prices paid by little clubs who embraced dodgy benefactors in their imprudent pursuit of unsustainable success as was the case at Hastings United, who were once bankrolled by a Soho 'porn king', heavily embroiled in the corruption engulfing the Metropolitan Police force during the sixties, and at Oxford United which was formerly run by 'bouncing Czech', Robert Maxwell.
• Those who lived the dream only to endure the nightmare as happened at Bristol City, Brighton, Aldershot, Burnley and Wimbledon.
• Amazing league and cup feats by unfancied sides including Norwich City, Huddersfield, QPR, Celtic, Hereford, Berwick, Colchester United, Watford, Wimbledon, Leyton Orient, Ipswich and Matlock Town.

   The book also includes a substantial section on Burnley's 'Team of the Seventies' with observations of Paul Fletcher, Colin Waldron, Geoff Nulty and Martin Dobson. Underdog! contains vivid vignettes of and copious quotes from many of those who took part in massive feats achieved by other clubs including Jimmy Greaves (of Chelsea, Spurs and England), Ray Crawford (of Ipswich, Colchester and England), Vinnie Jones (of Wimbledon and Wales), Graham Taylor (manager of Watford and England) plus the observations of many of those who watched them - both fans and journalists.    All of the royalties received from the sales of this paperback edition of Underdog! will be donated to the Alzheimer's Society in Burnley as was the case with the first hardback edition. 

Incidentally, Pitch Publishing are also bringing out Tim's latest cricket book in September titled Stumps and Runs and Rock 'n' Roll. It is a 60-year personal retrospective of following the England Test cricket team 1952 to 2012 with all of his royalties donated to Cancer Research UK.