Stand by your Reds

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About the Book: 

Stand By Your Reds, written by award-winning sports journalist Bryan Cooney, takes readers to locations where few have ventured – notably, the sacrosanct dressing room and those secretive corridors of power. This engaging narrative, built from a chronology of forensic interviews, ranges from the fifties to the present and tells the stories of an idiosyncratic team and an inveterate fan. Although it never neglects the triumphs, it refuses to ignore the turbulences. Cooney features:

The incendiary reign of Eddie Turnbull, manager, martinet;
Stuart Kennedy – the first player to front up Furious Fergie;
Why Jim Bett was unable to forgive the directors;
Steve Paterson makes an extraordinary drinking debut;
Leigh Griffiths – why he was the one who got away;
The loneliest, most intimidating sacking of Milne’s life;
and McInnes reveals what makes him really see red.

Stand Free. Stand By Your Reds. Enjoy.

Reviews: 

Waspish, insightful and in turns affectionate and critical of his club Bryan Cooney's Stand By Your Reds is an unashamedly biased, informed and boisterous account of one fan's decades-long marriage to the Dons. MICHAEL GRANT, The Times

I was attracted to this book because, not only does it chart the history of the Dons through the words of those who have been close to the action since the 1950s - eg: an enlightening meeting with Bobby Wishart - it is set alongside the remarkable and often chaotic career of a journalist who reached the very top in his chosen discipline. Bryan Cooney's incisive and penetrating questions to a wide range of former players, as well as to the club's current chairman Stewart Milne and manager Derek McInnes, are honest and the producers of revelatory answers. Cooney may be a fan, but he is not one to fall for the sanitised version of events nor the answers the PR men would rather went into print. For all that, there is a clear love from the author for a team he has followed since childhood and his clear expertise as an interviewer offers us an intriguing and entertaining read. This is an important addition to the best books on Scottish football. FRANK GILFEATHER, Sky Sports

About the Author:

BRYAN COONEY was Head of Sport at the Daily Mail until 2001. Before this he worked for various Fleet Street newspapers, which included a ten-year stint as Chief Sports Writer for the Daily Star. Since taking early retirement, he has written for the Sunday Herald and picked up three Sports Journalist of the Year Awards. As a broadcaster, he completed six interview series for BBC Radio Scotland, one of which took a bronze at the Sony Awards. He also narrated an edition of Radio Four’s celebrated Archive Hour. He has written three previous books: George Connelly, Celtic’s Lost Legend; Fingerprints of a Football Rascal; and most recently Gerry Rafferty: Renegade Heart.