Power, Corruption, and Pies brings together a collection of articles to have appeared in the superb When Saturday Comes magazine during the past ten year. Where Volume One of this book covered the first ten years of the magazine’s existence and focused on how the game slowly awoke from its slumber in the 80’s only to awake and come kicking and screaming into the 90’s thanks to Sky TV and their bags of cash.

The 90’s introduced English football to Richard Keys and his hairy hands on Super Sunday, an influx of exotic sounding foreign players, and the sudden appearance of football-related stories (often scandals) splashed across the front of newspapers.

The Sky generation had well and truly arrived, but at what cost? What started way back then when Rupert Murdoch decided to make the Premier League the main selling point of his satellite TV venture has continued to escalate to this day. As put in the book, “The bandwagon has become more of a juggernaut, apparently with no one at the wheel.” The second volume of Power, Corruption, and Pies continues the story and the theme of money is central to many of the articles.

The standard of writing is exceptional and often delivered in a humorous and articulate way while often addressing serious issues within the beautiful game that can sometimes be extremely ugly when looked at too closely.

As previously mentioned, Sky TV and the financial side of the game is often the main talking point within many articles. The pieces on the way Sky TV has “rebranded” the modern game is dealt with and argues how the media giants’ advertising campaigns often feature face-painted youngsters happily waving flags while blowing some ridiculous horn when the reality of just a couple of years earlier was some fat bloke standing in a freezing terrace dribbling Bovril down himself.

Sky’s domination of the game is discussed as is the ever-increasing wages paid to players and the pressures of attracting sponsorships and other corporate deals.

To read through this book reminds you of some of the events that happened during the past decade and how they affected the game for better or (more often) worse. The ITV Digital collapse, Bruce Grobberlaar’s court case, the Roy Keane/Mick McCarthy bust-up, and Malcolm Glazer’s Man Utd takeover are just a handful of big news stories featured in the book.

What is perhaps most appealing about this book is the pieces focusing away from the multi-million pound superstars and their clubs. Subbuteo, the appalling half time “entertainment” witnessed at most grounds nowadays, and one contributor’s fascination with traditional floodlights all feature and offer a nostalgic reminder of the days before Sky got their grubby hands on the game and “pimped” it for all it’s worth.

Reading pieces from the mid-90’s highlight’s that many issues and fears from back then are still present today. The concern surrounding the astronomical amounts of money the players make, talk of a break-away “European Super League”, bribes, corruption, re-introducing terracing, are all discussed as they are still today.

A piece from 1999 was of particular interest as it looked at the refurbishment of Wembley Stadium. “Next year it will be pulled down, and by 2002 or thereabout only the famous twin towers are likely to remain of the present structure.” I don’t think when they said “thereabouts” they quite meant 2007 and a few hundred million quid over budget.

A great read and a reminder of some of the major events and scandals from the previous decade of English football, let’s just hope someone can retake the juggernaut’s wheel and prevent an all mighty pile-up before it’s too late.

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