The Design, Meaning and Symbolism of World Football’s Most Famous Club Badges, Bloomsbury Sport, 2018, 255 p. First published by Pintxo Förlag, Sweden, 2016.

This book does exactly what its subtitle suggests, exploring the history of football club crests (that is what are called badges in the UK) or club emblems used on shirts, programs and stationery.

The contents are divided by country. There are 27 English club emblems discussed in detail, 12 each from Spain, Italy and Germany, 9 from France, 20 from the rest of Europe, 6 US clubs, 3 Australian and 5 South American. The entries give a potted history of the badge and (some of) its variations – many clubs have not kept a history of the changes – that club’s date of founding, its present stadium and capacity, its nicknames plus names of selected historic players, along with illustrations and descriptions of the relevant badge’s evolution.

As an addendum 126 “notable crests” are illustrated with the relevant badge, founding date, stadium and capacity, nicknames and country.

Sadly, despite its historical importance as the first outright winner of the Scottish League* and its badge depicting an elephant with a castle on its back Dumbarton FC’s striking emblem is not included. I note that Coventry City’s badge also has an elephant and castle and is given as one of the notable crests.

Manchester United’s historic players’ list contains Bobby Charlton and George Best but does not include Denis Law (though he appears with Derek Dougan in a photo on the Wolverhampton Wanderers pages) Sunderland’s list misses out Len Shackleton (I know a Mackem whose favourite, oft-repeated, football tale relates to him.)  Tottenham’s omits Danny Blanchflower. I first supposed the author is perhaps too young to be aware of these illustrious forebears but Charlie Buchan is in Sunderland’s list and he predates Shackleton by twenty plus years.

One of Aberdeen’s nicknames – along with ‘the Dons’ and ‘the Reds’ – is said to be ‘the Dandies’. I must confess that I had never heard of this though it does appear on the club’s Wikipedia page.

This is an agreeably idiosyncratic way of discovering something of the histories of the various clubs discussed.

*Neither is that of the first winners of the (English) Football League, Preston North End, though that too is fairly distinctive.

Pedant’s corner:- The author is Swedish and the book’s first publication was in Sweden so it is perfectly understandable that some infelicities should occur. No translator is listed so the author may have performed that function himself.  I noted a misplaced comma, “the claret and blue colours was the main motive” (the claret and blue colours were the main motif,) “the 1997 Champions’ League sinal” (final,) “forceably relegated” (forcibly,) “(1963/640” (1963/64,) “the Ukraine” (just ‘Ukraine’.) Arguabaly (Arguably,) “one star resembles ten titles” (one star represents ten titles.)

So 2020 continued to be a miserable sod right till the end, when it took Tommy Docherty away from us.

The Doc was probably most famous for being manager of Manchester Uinted though he had previous spells at Chelsea and other clubs, plus as Scotland manager. After Man U he managed seven more clubs.

His senior playing career began at Celtic but he could not displace Parkhead legend Bobby Evans from the team and moved south to Preston North End and later Chelsea.

He played for Scotland 25 times including in the 1954 World Cup (but we’ll swiftly draw a veil over the 7-0 defeat to Uruguay – I read once of a player’s recollection that the Scotland team were in heavy woollen jerseys as if playing in winter rather than the heat of a Swiss summer and were shod in big old-fashioned boots – with the Uruguayans in more modern footwear he described as like slippers in comparison. We were lucky it was only seven was the verdict.)

It was as a manager that The Doc made the most impact, taking over a very declined Man United and not able to turn the club’s fortunes round till after a relegation but leading them to a swift – one season – return to the top flight and then to an FA Cup win against Liverpool (denying that club what would have been a first ever treble by any English side.) Who knows what might have transpired if The Doc had not had an affair with the wife of the club’s physio Laurie Brown and as a consequence got the sack? (I note from the obituaries that Docherty was still married to Mary Brown when he died.)

Despite plying his trade mostly in England Docherty, like most of his ilk, remained a proud Scot.

There was a tale told – I think it was of Joe Donnelly, Dumbarton’s perennial substitute in the 1971-1972 season (only one sub allowed in those days and that for injury) that the player had once been involved in an altercation with an English team mate who had called him a “Scottish b*****d.” Docherty, as their manager, took them into his office, got them to settle the matter reasonably amicably then let the Englishman leave the room. Whereon he immediately turned to Donnelly and said, “You didn’t hit him hard enough.”

A character, then.

Thomas Henderson (Tommy) Docherty (The Doc): 24/4/1928 – 31/12/2020. So it goes.