I Believe In Miracles (2015)

Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough by Duncan Hamilton (Harper Perennial 2007)

He wasn't satisfied with the eulogies written about Taylor. Not because each one did not describe him generously, but because in Clough's eyes none did Taylor sufficient justice or apportioned enough credit for the work he had done in the partnership. It was as if he'd become the guardian of Taylor's posthumous reputation.

'Your obit on my mate was crap, utter crap,' he yelled at me, his face flushed, the voice rising in protest. 'You're all the same, you journalists - crap. Every paper missed the point, the real story. No one showed him the way he was. No one managed to give him the send-off he deserved. He was funny - you know that. He was intelligent - you know that too. He had a football brain - everybody could see it. And he was my mate. And we had some great times. And now . . .'

Clough slumped into a chair. He seemed to be stringing together in his mind all the bright days he had shared with Taylor.

'What a waste,' he said after a long pause. 'All those years when we could have been sitting together having a beer. All those years when he could have come, as an honoured guest, to watch us play. All those years without the laughter he was capable of providing. No one - absolutely no one - has made me laugh like him. I always missed that, and now . . . he's gone. I can hear his voice . . . telling joke after joke. But all we did at the end was slag one another off. Oh, fuck.' He shook his head slowly, his eyes staring at the floor.

The Damned Utd by David Peace (Faber and Faber 2006)

I get on the coach last and make Allan Clarke shift so I can sit next to Billy Bremner again. I try and make chit-chat. To break the ice. But Billy Bremner doesn't give a fuck about President Nixon or George Best. He's not interested in Frank Sinatra or Muhammad Ali. He doesn't want to talk about the World Cup, about playing against Brazil. Doesn't want to talk about his holidays. His family full stop. Bremner just looks out of the window and smokes the whole way down to Birmingham. Then, as the coach pulls into Villa Park, he turns to me and he says, 'If you're looking for a pal, Mr Clough, you can count me out.'

The Damned United (2009)

H'Elland Road

You can't get the novel in the States so I'll just have to wait for the film . . . and then, of course, the book will be published in the States as a movie tie in. That figures.

After playing Tony Blair twice - on both the small screen and the big screen - Michael Sheen's just happy that he finally got to play the part of a Labour Party supporter.

Btw, any chance of Denise Mina working on the follow up to Peace's book, 'Jock Stein - was it 44 or 45 days?'?

Addendum

Impossibilist Bill penned a review of the novel on his blog a couple of years back. Jump over to see what I'm havering on about.