The Mavericks: English Football When Flair Wore Flares

In this book, Rob Steen recreates the early 70s, the era when football joined the vanguard of English youth culture. This personal account revolves around seven Englishmen who followed in the trail blazed by football's first tabloid star, George Best—Stan Bowles, Tony Currie, Charlie George, Alan Hudson, Rodney Marsh, Peter Osgood, and Frank Worthington. Proud individuals amid an increasingly corporate environment, their invention and artistry were matched only by a disdain for authority and convention. During their heyday, they were largely ignored by a succession of England managers, none of whom were able to assemble a side competent enough to qualify for the World Cup finals. Against a backdrop of increasing violence on the field and terraces alike, of battles between players and the Establishment, this book examines an anomaly at the heart of English culture, one that symbolized the death of post-Sixties optimism, and the end of innocence.