автор: Tony Matthews

Tony Matthews was born in West Bromwich during World War II and was an amateur footballer with West Bromwich Albion before playing as a semi-professional in Switzerland. He also had trials with Cliftonville (Ireland), Coventry City (under manager Jimmy Hill), St Johnstone, Walsall and Shrewsbury Town. Tony has served in the Birmingham Police Force, was a sports master for 10 years and ran a football programme shop in Handsworth (within walking distance of The Hawthorns). From the late 1960s until 2002, he was the official statistician and historian of West Bromwich Albion FC, opening the club»s first museum at The Hawthorns in 1995. Tony»s personal collection of one million football programmes, including a copy of every single one produced by the Albion (from 1905), resides in the club»s archives, along with some 8, 000 Baggies» photographs, cigarette cards and trade cards, also collected by Tony.As player/manager of the West Bromwich Albion Old Stars (1979-89) Tony has organised hundreds of quizzes over the last 35 years, raising more than £125, 000 for various charities. He has also completed two marathons. Tony has written numerous books on football, the first of which, Albion At War, was published in 1976. This second book about Cyrille»s career is the 120th book compiled by Tony himself, although he has been involved in the production of a total of 150 books. Over the last 40 years, Tony has covered 25 different clubs, in one form or another, and has written about several top names in the game, including José Mourinho, Steven Gerrard, Alan Shearer, Ryan Giggs and Ronnie Allen, the former WBA and England centre-forward (who managed the Baggies and other several other clubs). Tony lives in Spain where he is the sports correspondent for Spectrum, the English-speaking radio station, and a columnist for the Euro Weekly News and Sol Times. He also contributes to the Black County Bugle, a weekly newspaper, produced in the West Midlands.