Notts County: On This Day by Tim Evershed - Book Review

Football is a game with an incredibly rich history and, as many of you reading this will be aware, Notts County are part of parcel of the sport’s annals. The main identifying trait with this historic institution – a tagline, if you will – is that it’s “the world’s oldest professional Football League club”.

With a history stretching all the way back to November 1862, the Magpies were formed during a time when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, Abraham Lincoln was still President of the United States of America, and Charles Darwin’s magnum opus “On The Origin Of Species” was only three years old.

Charles Dickens had not yet released “Great Expectations” and the London Underground had not yet come into existence. “History of football” and “Notts County” are virtually synonymous.

In fact, Notts County are so rich in tradition that you can write a book chronicling a significant event in the club’s history for every single day of the year. How do I know? Because it has been done – and how.

“Notts County: On This Day” is the brainchild of Nottingham freelance journalist Tim Evershed, a meticulously researched 192-page book containing key events from each day in Notts County’s history that succeeds in educating and enthralling at the same time. Some entries are entertaining, others are upsetting, but all are incredibly engrossing.

Nothing is whitewashed in this book – it’s about as definitive as you can get in terms of capturing the history of the club. The sheer level of research that has gone into this book is staggering. Events that took place in the 1860s are written with the same accuracy and detail as those that happened in 2014.

I can pretty much guarantee that anyone reading this book, from the Generation Z teenager to the veteran multi-decade season ticket holder, will discover things they never previously knew about the Magpies. Just to give you an idea of how thorough the book is – it talks about Albert Iremonger in as much detail as Roy Carroll.

It’s almost baffling to think that there was a period in time when the Magpies not only graced the same pitch as Barcelona, but were able to beat them every time, including a 10-3 thumping, or that a Notts player was responsible for an incident similar in vein to that of Luis Suarez in the 2010 World Cup that would eventually lead to the game-changing decision to introduce penalty kicks in football. Did you know these facts? Me neither.

No qualms about it – “Notts County: On This Day” is an absolute gem of a book, and if you’re a Magpies fan, this book needs to become part of your library as soon as possible.

Notts County: On This Day
by Tim Evershed
Available on http://www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
ISBN-10: 1785310402
ISBN-13: 978-1785310409
RRP: £9.99

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