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Between them, our writers have covered more than 200 Tours – and ridden one. And, like the race itself, our collection of 14 original essays is vibrant and varied.

This special Tour de France edition is a bumper 320-page paperback book (174mm x110mm) but we have kept the price the same as volume one. We hope you’ll agree that £7.99 represents outstanding value for such high-quality writing.

If you are new to this series, we hope you will also check out volume one, which was published in November 2012.

Our aim was not to produce a Tour de France history – there are plenty of excellent examples already on the bookshelves – but to delve a little deeper and explore some of the stories and subjects that make the Tour the greatest race on earth.

We hope you enjoy reading the book as much as we enjoying compiling it. Read on to find out what we have in store this time.

The book was released in May 2013.

Follow us on Twitter @CyclingAnthol

HOW TO BUY

The Cycling Anthology 2 is available to buy from us now. Buy volume 1 & 2 and save a few quid.
Buy from our good friends at Prendas.co.uk. Prendas do free postage.
Buy from the Cycling Weekly shop

Also available at Foyles bookshops in London.

THE WRITERS
The Cycling Anthology Volume 2

‘Look How Big It’s Become’ by Samuel Abt
Félix Lévitan ran the Tour with an autocrat’s discipline. But although he was authoritarian he was also visionary. He dreamed of a truly international Tour, with a Grand Départ in New York or Moscow. He left the organisation suddenly and in controversial circumstance and was effectively exiled for more than a decade before Jean-Marie Leblanc invited him to the start of the 1998 Tour in Dublin.
Samuel Abt was cycling correspondent for the International Herald Tribune

A Life of Brian by Ned Boulting
Ned meets Brian Venner, the man responsible for putting the Tour de France on British television in the 1980s.
Ned Boulting presents ITV Sport’s coverage of the Tour de France and is the author of How I Won the Yellow Jumper and On the Road Bike: The Search for a Nation’s Cycling Soul

The Angel of the Mountains by Richard Williams
Charly Gaul, the graceful climber from Luxembourg, won the Tour de France once, in 1958. It wasn’t Gaul’s results but his daring exploits in the mountains that captured the imagination and earned him the most romantic nickname of them all. Richard explains why Gaul personified panache in a way the metronomic efficiency of Jacques Anquetil never could.
Richard Williams is a former chief sports writer of The Guardian

Nervous but Prepared by Klaus Bellon Gaitán
One of Lévitan’s dreams was to invite teams from all over the world to participate in the Tour. In 1983, the Colombians arrived and began to make waves in the mountains. Klaus charts the rise of cycling’s popularity in Colombia, remembering a time when a nation had its collective ear glued to a radio listening to the Tour.
Klaus Bellon Gaitán writes www.cyclinginquisition.com

It’s All About the Car by Brendan Gallagher
Covering the Tour is a marathon, not a sprint. During the month of July, the journalist’s car becomes his castle, mobile office and transport café. Brendan describes what it’s like trying to keep up with the greatest sporting spectacle when it keeps pedalling away from him.
Brendan Gallagher has been a sports journalist for 30 years, writing for the Daily Telegraph for 20 of those years

The Reluctant Prince by Daniel Friebe
It’s incredible to think that just six summers ago, Linus Gerdemann took the yellow jersey at Le Grand Bornand and was being hailed as the saviour of German cycling. But he did not fulfill his potential and now is without a place on a professional team. Daniel looks at what went wrong…
Daniel Friebe is the author of The Cannibal, a biography of Eddy Merckx, and Mountain High

Ça M’est Égal by Jeremy Whittle
This summer’s Tour will be Jeremy’s 20th as a journalist. In those years, the Tour has been affected by scandal as often as it has been touched by greatness. But, he concludes, despite everything, the Tour has an intoxicating charm no other event can match.
Jeremy Whittle is the author of Bad Blood and cycling correspondent for The Times

Napoleon by William Fotheringham
Cyrille Guimard can justifiably claim to be the greatest directeur sportif in the history of the Tour. He led Lucien Van Impe, Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon to victory and set Greg LeMond on the path to glory too. He was a combination of motivator and dictator, which earned him the nickname Napoleon. William explores his legacy.
William Fotheringham wrote Eddy Merckx: Half-Man, Half-Bike. His collection of work for The Guardian, Racing Hard, is on sale soon

The Greatest Show on Earth by Ellis Bacon
The 1989 Tour de France was the greatest of all time. The final-day time trial, in which Greg LeMond turned a 50-second deficit to Laurent Fignon into an eight-second overall victory, was arguably the most dramatic day in the Tour’s history but it was also the culmination of a race that see-sawed one way then the other. Ellis enjoys a nostalgic trip back to 1989 by re-watching the montage produced by Channel 4 that told the story of the race.
Ellis Bacon is the author of Mapping Le Tour, published by Collins

The Tour Winners’ Club by Edward Pickering
Edward Pickering studies two Tour winners, Jan Janssen (1968 champion) and Bernard Thévenet (1975 and 1977) and asks what it takes to achieve victory. We like to think that Tour winners are extraordinary people but wouldn’t it be more accurate to say they are ordinary men doing the extraordinary?
Edward Pickering is the author of The Race Against Time, the story of Graeme Obree and Chris Boardman’s battle for the hour record

Roche and the Rookie Reporter by Rupert Guinness
In 1987, Rupert Guinness headed to West Berlin to cover the Tour for the first time. As an Australian reporter, he hoped for a good performance by Phil Anderson. Instead, he witnessed the battle between Ireland’s Stephen Roche and Spaniard Pedro Delgado. Here, he tells the story of that race.
Rupert Guinness writes for the Sydney Morning Herald

A Guide for the Cynics and Sceptics by Lionel Birnie
The Festina Affair in 1998 did not end cycling’s relationship with performance-enhancing drugs but it almost brought the Tour to its knees. Since the fall of Lance Armstrong, it’s tempting to believe that this was the dirtiest era in the sport’s history but it was also the most transparent.
Lionel Birnie writes for The Sunday Times

The Director by James Startt
Meet Jean-François Pescheux, the man who runs the Tour every day. The former professional rider plans the route and is the judge and jury during the race itself. The 2013 Tour will be his final one before retirement and James Startt explains why he will leave a big hole for Thierry Gouvenou to fill.
James Startt writes for Bicycling magazine

A Domestique’s Tale by Daniel Lloyd
What’s it like to ride the Tour? It’s the question every fan wants the answer to. And for a professional cyclist there’s another question that is always asked. ‘Have you ridden the Tour?’ In 2010, Daniel Lloyd was called up as a late replacement to replace an injured team-mate, and rode the race as a domestique, supporting Carlos Sastre and Thor Hushovd. He tells the story of the Tour from the inside.
Daniel Lloyd rode the Tour for Cervélo in 2010. He is now a presenter for YouTube cycling channel Global Cycling Network

Volume 3: Out in autumn 2013

Hot dogs with onions, frites, cigarette smoke and the omnipresent smell of whatever it is wafting off the farmlands are all so evocative and the combination of them can mean only one thing – I’m by a Flandrian roadside in spring.

Then there is the sound of the ‘Rodania’ jingle singing out from one of the vehicles ahead of the race, which tells the spectators the riders are coming. (Rodania, a watch manufacturer, has sponsored many of the Belgian races for years and if you’ve been to see any of the races you’ll know immediately what I’m talking about when I mention the catchy, if slightly irritating, jingle.)

A hotdog from the Molenberg.

Finally there’s the sight of the lion of Flanders flag, which adheres to Goethe’s theory of luminosity and therefore dominates wherever it is waved. The black lion on a yellow flag is vivid and loaded with political meaning in a region with a keen sense of identity and, for some, a lust for separation from the rest of Belgium. When I bought a flag, at the 2001 Tour of Flanders, I had no idea of the deep, sensitive significance of the symbol and to this day cannot work out whether the man who accosted me in the bar on the Oude Kwaremont was remonstrating with me or congratulating me. Either way, since then, I’ve been wary of adopting as a short-hand way to identify with a bicycle race a symbol that clearly means a lot to many people.

The race itself is one of the most exhilarating to watch. Great editions of the single-day Classics are uniquely captivating, nuanced and subtly rewarding. British sports fans could compare a great Classic to the way a day’s absorbing play unfolds at a Test cricket match. I’m unsure whether that translates to American readers as a day at the ballpark watching baseball.

Each of the spring races has its own character and reveals itself gradually. A great edition of Milan-San Remo is like a beautifully-written novel with prose so glittering it draws you in, even though you wonder at times whether the plot is ever going to get going. Then, towards the end, there is the most fantastic twist, so cleverly delivered, that it turns on its head, yet puts into context, everything that has gone before, bringing the story to a satisfying conclusion.

Paris-Roubaix with its murderous cobbles, is sometimes like a whoddunit in which the identity of the killer is known from the outset but the joy is in finding out how he did it.

To stretch the analogy perhaps a little too far, Liège-Bastogne-Liège is more like the boardgame Cluedo. Room by room, or hill by hill, the list of suspects is narrowed down until eventually, it is Philippe Gilbert, on La Redoute, with the lead piping.

Anticipation building on the Molenberg.

But, to me at least, the Tour of Flanders is the most beautiful of the lot, or it was before the organisers changed the route last year so it lapped the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg and avoided the mythical Muur at Geraardsbergen. Perhaps it will again become the most majestic. I wrote last year that it may take two or three years for the race to settle down and the riders to adjust to the subtle but critical differences they are now confronted by.

To return to my analogy, the Tour of Flanders is like an espionage thriller, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré, perhaps. Over the course of a long afternoon, the narrative wends its way, laying little clues here and the odd mis-direction to deceive there. Just when you think you’ve worked out who the mole is, the story shifts again.

The route has always criss-crossed Flanders, finding the short, steep hills that will gradually wear down the body and mind until only the strongest and cleverest are able to exert their influence on the race.

Tackling the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg three times is fantastic for the spectators on the ground – they get three times the bang for their buck – but for the integrity of the race, the case for change has yet to be proven.

And to return to my analogy (last time, I promise) it is a little like a Hollywood company has bought the film rights to a great novel and then focus-grouped the hell out of the story, adhering to the whims of a public that thinks it wants more car chases and explosions.

Perhaps that’s going a little too far but last year’s race was spectacularly un-Flanders like. Compared to the beautifully nuanced race won by Nick Nuyens in 2011, it was a bit too wham-bam. The hills made everyone so tired that the strongest three riders in the race simply went away and the rest gave up the ghost.

That’s a perfectly acceptable conclusion to a Classic race but the fear is there’s every chance the pattern will repeat itself this year and keep repeating itself because the balance appears wrong. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

The first time I covered the Tour of Flanders, in 1999, I was struck by how passionate the people are about the race. It is in their bones. The day before the race, I was with the photographer Phil O’Connor, practicing for the following day, making sure we could get from the Molenberg to the Kwaremont to the Eikenberg and then to the finish without having to cross the race route. We stopped at a petrol station, I went in and the guy behind the counter said something in Flemish. I told him I was English and that I didn’t understand.

‘Ah. English. Tommy Simpson? Are you here for the race?’

I said I was and he carried on as the queue of people waiting to pay for their petrol grew behind me. He said his father had loved Simpson and he said that Simpson always loved the Flanders weather. It was tipping down outside and the sky was almost black even though it was only three in the afternoon.

‘Let’s hope the weather is like this tomorrow. Proper Ronde van Vlaanderen weather.’ He added: ‘It’ll be a long time before there’s another English winner.’

I paid up and went back to the car and watched through the window as he engaged the next customer in conversation – about de Ronde, no doubt.

The moment everyone’s been waiting for.

A couple of years later, I rode the cyclo-sportive, wimping out by tackling the 140-kilometre route rather than the full 260 kilometres, and that day I learned so much about the demands of the event. The dead, sapping concrete roads, the dread at an upcoming change of direction that would mean the wind would be full in the face, the fear of the wet cobbles and just how short the recovery time was between hills. From that moment, the Tour of Flanders became my favourite one-day race. When I first got interested in cycling in the mid-1980s, I thought Liège-Bastogne-Liège was the grandest of them all. Partly this was because the ‘proper’ Tour de France riders used to take it seriously, partly because I’d read of Bernard Hinault’s disapproval of the Paris-Roubaix pavé and so I tarred Flanders with the same brush.

But ever since, the Tour of Flanders has towered over the other monuments in my admiration.

So who’s going to win? Everyone will list the favourites, some of them stretching to two-dozen names in the hope of pinning the tail on the donkey. And why not? That’s what sport is all about, prediction, exposition, resolution.

But for me, the joy will be in watching how the race unfolds rather than just waiting to see the identity of the winner. Even when it looks like nothing is happening, something important is going on. Working out what effect each move has on the final outcome is part of the challenge for the spectator too. Then there is the joy in reading several accounts of the race and realising just how much I’d missed.

There may even be a British winner, although it may be a Welshman rather than an Englishman. I wonder if our man in the petrol station would appreciate the difference? I’d like to think, coming from a region that prides itself on being Flandrian rather than Belgian, that he would.

Coming soon: The Cycling Anthology, Tour de France Special Edition.
www.cyclinganthology.com

The first volume in a series of paperback books was published in November 2012 and features original writing from 14 well-known contributors.

You may recognise the names from major newspapers and specialist magazines. Between them, they’ve covered hundreds of Tours de France and written dozens of excellent books. Now, their work is showcased together for the first time.

The Cycling Anthology will build into a collectable series, with volume two celebrating the 100th edition of the Tour de France scheduled for release in May 2013. Each volume will feature original work by a team of established writers with an opportunity to break new talents as they emerge.

The Cycling Anthology is a collection of stories by people who love writing, aimed at those who love reading.

Volume I, a 272-page paperback, is priced £7.99. At 57 pence per chapter, that’s outstanding value. And when you see who we’ve got writing for us, we hope you’ll agree.

Follow us on Twitter @CyclingAnthol

HOW TO BUY THIS BOOK

The book is priced £7.99.

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Or get it online.

The Cycling Weekly Shop here

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REVIEWS

Road.cc *****
The Cycling Anthology was only the second book to ever receive a five-star review from Road.cc.
Inner Ring
“A pleasure to read… you should be rewarded by the writing and the tales within, especially if you’re hungry for detail, backstories and analysis.”
The Washing Machine Post
“…the writers’ contributions are startlingly original and a joy to behold…i’m hoping that this initial offering is so unbelievably well received, that messrs birnie and bacon reconsider their decision to publish only twice a year.”

THE PODCAST

Listen to the The Cycling Anthology podcast

THE WRITERS
The Cycling Anthology Volume I

Project Wiggins by William Fotheringham
Looking back, it’s easy to assume there was a sense of inevitability about Bradley Wiggins’s Tour de France victory. William has followed Wiggins since he was a junior and is uniquely placed to offer a point-by-point explanation of how he became Britain’s first Tour winner.
William Fotheringham is the cycling correspondent for The Guardian. His latest book is a collaboration with Bradley Wiggins called My Time
Twitter @willfoth

In Praise of Thomas Voeckler by Edward Pickering
The cliché about Thomas Voeckler is that he’s a plucky trier. Edward has watched the Frenchman for years now and doesn’t buy that for a moment. Despite studying Voeckler and interviewing him on a number of occasions, Edward still finds him an enigmatic figure.
Edward Pickering is deputy editor of Cycle Sport
Twitter @edwardpickering

The New Wizards of Oz by Rupert Guinness
After Sky and Leopard, GreenEdge were this year’s new kids on the block. For all new teams a debut season is a little like getting strapped into a rollercoaster and being prepared for the ride. GreenEdge’s season started well, but they were left explaining their lack of results at the Tour and reached the end of the campaign realising they were not immune to the fall-out from the Armstrong scandal.
Rupert Guinness writes for the Sydney Morning Herald
Twitter @RupertGuinness

Gone Biking by David Millar
David has seen a lot of his friends retire recently, forcing him to accept that one day it’ll be his turn to hang up his wheels too. Michael Barry’s retirement was more poignant than most, coming as it did just before a confession that he, like David, had used performance-enhancing drugs. Understanding what his friend was going through meant that their training rides took on a more reflective feel.
David Millar rides for Garmin and is the author of the best-selling Racing Through the Dark
Twitter @millarmind

The Cobbler Retires by James Startt
When Fréderic Guesdon won Paris-Roubaix in 1997 it was one of the modern era’s great upsets. He was virtually unknown yet he managed to clinch the toughest one-day race of them all. He spent the rest of his career trying to replicate that golden moment and then faced the ultimate race against time in order to be able to bow out at his spiritual home, the Roubaix velodrome.
James Startt is Bicycling magazine’s man in Europe

Cyclonomics by Daniel Friebe
Daniel looks more closely at the Moneyball phenomenon – so-called sabermetrics – that took the world of baseball by storm, and at the cycling team that used a similar approach to build a roster of successful riders at bargain prices.
Daniel Friebe is the author of The Cannibal, a biography of Eddy Merckx and writes for procycling
Twitter @friebos

Pendleton versus Meares by Owen Slot
Owen charts the careers of Victoria Pendleton and her rival Anna Meares. The two track sprint stars, he suggests, reached the highest echelons of their sport thanks to their intense rivalry, which reached its zenith at the 2012 Olympics. Somehow it always seemed likely they would clash in the ultimate showdown in London.
Owen Slot is chief sports writer for The Times
Twitter @owenslot

The Grand Slam by Lionel Birnie
Completing the Tour de France makes a rider a bona fide Giant of the Road. So what about a rider who completes all three grand tours in the same season? Lionel speaks to Australia’s Adam Hansen, who joined that select group of riders to finish the Giro, Tour and Vuelta, to find out the toll it took on body and mind.
Lionel Birnie writes for The Sunday Times and Cycle Sport
Twitter @lioneljbirnie

The Original Individualist by Richard Moore
Richard’s book In Search of Robert Millar, enjoyed great success as a study of a rider who, at the time of writing in 2007, was still Britain’s undisputed greatest ever cyclist. Since then the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish have surpassed the Scotsman’s achievements. With Jonathan Tiernan-Locke’s emergence as a specialist climber, Richard asks how Robert Millar might have fitted in at Team Sky.
Richard Moore is the author of Sky’s the Limit and Slaying the Badger
Twitter @richardmoore73

The Best of Luck by Ellis Bacon
Ellis ponders the role that luck plays in professional cycling and – while not even necessarily a believer himself – argues that, at the Tour de France at least, bad luck and good luck repeatedly appear to follow each other like shadows.
Ellis Bacon is author of World’s Ultimate Cycling Races and a former deputy editor of procycling
Twitter @ellisbacon

Another World? by Kenny Pryde
Kenny covered cycling in an era before the internet and Twitter changed the pace at which the narrative plays out. He was the editor of the flagship magazine Winning at a time when there was a scarcity of information for  English-speaking cycling fans. There was also a major taboo. Doping was not discussed. After 14 years away from professional cycling he returned in 2012 to a dramatically altered landscape. At times, it seems, the agenda is dominated by doping.
Kenny Pryde edited Winning and wrote for Cycle Sport before editing Superbike
Twitter @kenbobpryde

The Exile by Alasdair Fotheringham
After winning three world titles and Milan-San Remo three times, you’d think Oscar Freire would be celebrated as one of Spain’s finest ever riders. And yet in his home country, where the stage racers are the kings, Freire does not enjoy that exalted status. As Freire retires, Alasdair profiles an unsung hero.
Alasdair Fotheringham writes for The Independent and is the author of The Eagle of Toledo, a biography of Federico Bahamontes

Il Magnifico’s Return by Samuel Abt
Samuel documents Mario Cipollini’s attempts to stage his comeback, at the 2012 Giro d’Italia, while recalling the glory days of The Lion King – a true character, the likes of which the sport has not seen before or since.
Samuel Abt was the cycling correspondent for the International Herald Tribune

Bin Bag of My Dreams by Jeremy Whittle
Jeremy followed Bradley Wiggins’s build-up to Tour de France glory at the Tour of Romandy. But in light of the USADA case against Lance Armstrong, Wiggins – along with every other successful rider – is going to bear the brunt of suspicion.
Jeremy Whittle is the author of Bad Blood and covers cycling for The Times
Twitter @jeremycwhittle

Volume 2: Out in May 2013
The Cycling Anthology Tour de France special
Our writers celebrate the 100th Tour

These podcasts are not time-sensitive, so if you’ve only just discovered us, we hope you enjoy listening.

EPISODE ONE
With Richard Moore, Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie

Listen to episode one on Soundcloud

What’s in the show?
0.00
Introduction

1.27 What is The Cycling Anthology?
Lionel explains how The Cycling Anthology came about and what’s in the first volume 

A collection of brilliant writing

about the world’s best sport

Visit our pop-up bookshop at

the London Nocturne on June 6

Click to find out more

Tour de France special edition out now

The Cycling Anthology
Volume two – Tour de France special edition
ISBN 978-0-956814-5-1

Format: 320-page paperback (174mm x 110mm)
Price: £7.99

A collection of 14 original essays celebrating the Tour de France as the great race marks its 100th edition.

Available to purchase now

Find out what is in volume two

Also available from

Prendas
Cycling Weekly
Foyles bookshops
Amazon

Volume one

Find out what is in the book
Available now here
Prendas
Foyles
Cycling Weekly
Amazon

THE CYCLING ANTHOLOGY by Peloton Publishing

A series of high-quality collectable paperback books at an affordable price.

an·thol·o·gy [an-thol-uh-jee]
noun; a collection of literary writings by various authors, on the same subject

The UCI has endured a torrid year. The United States Anti-Doping Agency’s case against Lance Armstrong and others, Tyler Hamilton’s book, the cancellation of one of the UCI’s – sorry, Global Cycling Promotions’ – race in China, Pat McQuaid’s virtual disappearance from the public eye, the UCI’s attempt to sue Paul Kimmage…

Here is my interview with McQuaid from the start of the year. We covered a lot of ground. I felt it was necessary to understand who Pat McQuaid is and why he is the president of the sport’s governing body. I wanted to know why Hein Verbruggen took such steps to ensure a smooth succession by McQuaid in 2005, rather than happily accept other candidates standing for election. I asked about the UCI’s case against Kimmage and was left with a distinct impression.

The UCI runs the sport for now other reason than the UCI governs the sport. The president is selected, not elected. All the committee members are appointed. Criticism, from either inside or outside the UCI, goes down very badly. The UCI is prickly and reactive. It deals in double-speak George Orwell would be proud of. And it nestles in Switzerland, where world sport’s governing bodies enjoy freedom from genuine scrutiny.

It’s time for change.

PDF of Cycle Sport’s interview with Pat McQuaid

With thanks to Cycle Sport magazine

For those who remember the 1980s it was a touch of delightful nostalgia.

The jumping men first appeared on what was then a state-of-the-art scoreboard on the Vicarage Road end in the early 1980s.

They also featured on the cover of my book Enjoy the Game in 2010.

The T-shirts are available to order now, in black or yellow. T-shirts will be despatched when ready in a couple of weeks (approx Sept 25).

Price is £12.00 plus postage and packaging.
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Limited reprint in September 2013

Tales from the Vicarage is now on Facebook
Visit us at TalesFromTheVicarage

IN THE MEDIA
Short YouTube clip
Listen to Lionel Birnie talk about the book with Jon Moonie and Jason Bailey on the From the Rookery End podcast.

Full podcast
Lionel Birnie was a guest on the Watford FC podcast, From the Rookery End, which is available to download at iTunes. Episode: Waiting for a Lift

Q&A with editor Lionel Birnie at The Watford Observer
Lionel talks about how the book came about. 

REVIEWS
Don’t take our word for it… Here’s what others are saying about Tales from the Vicarage

• A book review from Hornets blog In the Wolf’s Mouth is here.
• Author of Golden Daze, Nick Corble, has reviewed the book here.

Tales from the Vicarage is a collection of original writing about Watford Football Club by a team of brilliant journalists and authors.

The book brings together writers from all areas of the media who have one thing in common – an affinity with the Hornets and Vicarage Road.

It will have something for Watford fans from every era and contains one or two delightful surprises as well.

So, what’s in the book? For a start, great stories and evocative writing.

David James – The Watford Family
(former Watford and England goalkeeper, columnist The Observer)

David began his career at the club and explains how those early days stood him in good stead for a long and successful, if not always happy, career. It’s a revealing look at the pressures of professional football.

Simon Burnton – All Change at Vicarage Road
(The Guardian)

Simon looks at the average football fan’s fear of change through the prism of one of the most turbulent seasons in the club’s history, 1959-60. Watford switched from blue to gold shirts and adopted a new nickname. Simon also tells the story of how the club came to be known as the Hornets and tracks down the man responsible.

Olly Wicken – Graham Taylor: The Unofficial Autobiography
(contributor to When Saturday Comes collection My Favourite Year)

What if Graham Taylor wrote his autobiography? What would it be like? Well, that’s what Olly has tried to imagine. In a manner of speaking. Olly’s chapter is touched by genius and verging on fantasy. We can’t possibly do it justice in a paragraph so you’ll have to read Graham Taylor’s incredible could-be-true story of the 1982-83 season for yourself.

John Anderson – On the Outside Looking In
(TalkSPORT, author of A Great Face for Radio)

John was born in Watford but moved away when he was young. Thanks to his career as a football reporter for radio he has often been elsewhere when the Hornets have had an important match. He’s spent most of his adult life following Watford from afar. Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Let John tell you.

Adam Leventhal – A Question of Loyalty
(Sky Sports News)

Adam has interviewed two of Watford’s recent managers – Brendan Rodgers and Malky Mackay – about their time at the helm at Vicarage Road. He looks at the nature of loyalty in the modern game and finds that while the fans demand it, managers know that there’s often no such thing. These exclusive interviews might – just might – make you regard Rodgers and Mackay a little differently.

Andrew French – We Are Premier League
(ex-Watford Observer)

Andrew was the club’s press officer when the team reached the Premiership in 1999. He was there, on the inside, behind-the-scenes during one of the most difficult seasons in the club’s recent history. For some it was the ultimate test of character. Although the campaign ended in relegation, Andrew’s account is far from doom-and-gloom but it does show what it’s like when everyone at a football club is pushed to the limit.

Kevin Affleck – Trouble at the Top
(former reporter, Watford Observer)

Kevin was the journalist covering the Hornets for The Watford Observer during one of the rollercoaster eras in the club’s history. From the incredible high of promotion to the Premier League to the brink of disaster in 18 short months, Kevin was there, documenting events and trying to get to the truth. For the first time, he tells the full story. However you remember that period, you simply have to read this account.

Lionel Birnie – The Italian Job, Part One
(The Sunday Times & author of Enjoy the Game)

With the Pozzo family at the helm and Gianfranco Zola in charge of the team, Watford’s fans have embraced the Italian revolution with perhaps a little less fervour than they did last time. Gianluca Vialli oversaw the first Italian Job in 2001 and it didn’t turn out too well. Lionel has interviewed Filippo Galli, one of the few genuinely bright spots of Vialli’s season, about how a former European Cup winner came to Watford at the age of 38 and finds out that, despite everything, he has very fond memories of his time at Vicarage Road.

Stuart Hutchison – Hornography
(BBC Sport)

If you watched Watford’s match against QPR on the BBC a couple of years ago, you will probably have marvelled at the half-time video montage telling the story of the Elton John and Graham Taylor-inspired rise to glory in the 1970s and 1980s set to Kate Bush’s spine-tingling Cloudbursting. That was the work of Stuart Hutchison, a producer at BBC Sport and Watford fan. Stuart has travelled the world covering football but he’s also spent hours trying to locate every bit of Hornets-related footage in the BBC archive. This is his story of how a profession became an obsession.

The artwork, by Simon Scarsbrook, was commissioned for the cover of the book and features a Watford team wearing shirts from down the ages. You may recognise the goalkeeper is David James, one of the authors who contributed to the book, but the other players are not supposed to be recognisable.

The poster is A2 size (420mm by 594mm or 16 inches by 23 inches) and is printed on high quality 190gsm silk paper with a luxurious matt finish.

Posters are unframed and will be despatched in a sturdy cardboard tube, ensuring they arrive at their destination in perfect condition.

The posters are £30 plus postage and package.