COMPLETE RECORD BOOKS

A complete record, by Tony Brown

‘Complete Record’ books provide the reader with results, scorers and line-ups of every game played by a club’s first team in League and Cup.  Many volumes also include details of friendly matches and data on the players.  This article looks at the story of these books for clubs in the English Football League and Premiership. 

                The first club to appear in print were Swindon Town.  Paul Plowman covered Swindon’s record in the Third Division South in a self-published slide-bound book in September 1982.  An earlier volume had provided Swindon’s record in the Southern League, and a hard-to-find third volume took the story to 1985. 

                1984 saw a well-produced book on Portsmouth by Messrs Neasom, Cooper and Robinson.  1984 was also notable for the first ‘complete record’ published by Breedon Books, on Derby County.  Breedon went on to set the pace for books of this type, covering 45 clubs (for the first time) over the next 14 years.  Gerald Mortimer’s book on Derby set the standard for Breedon’s complete records, with sections on players, matches to remember, a season-by-season narrative and war-time line-ups.  It is worth noting that many clubs were issued in several editions, so ‘completists’ need to collect each one!  Breedon also produced volumes on Scottish clubs Aberdeen, Celtic and Rangers.

                Dave Twydell of Yore Publications recognised there was a demand for statistics on the less-fashionable clubs.  Yore’s first books were Cardiff City and Peterborough in 1992 and the series continues to this day.  16 clubs were published for the first time and the Yore series includes new editions of club histories first published by Breedon and myself. 

                Discussions at the Association of Football Statisticians led to me starting a series of ‘definitive’ club histories to try and complete the series.  I have tackled 16 ‘new clubs’ in total, from Rochdale in 1995 to Workington in 2005.

                Independent publishers have produced works on another 24 clubs.  Of particular note are ‘Home of the Shouting Men’ on Gillingham, copies of which change hands for hundreds of pounds.  Also of interest is the Southport history, a 728 page effort by Geoff Wilde and Michael Braham which ranks as one of the most comprehensive ‘complete records’ ever published.

                There are of course a number of clubs with a short League record that do not have a complete record.  The results scorers and line-ups of all clubs prior to 1952/53 are included in the season-by-season annuals produced by the AFS and myself.  Clubs entering the League since 1970 are included in Rothmans of course.   That leaves just one club, not currently in the Football League; Newport County.

                It has to be acknowledged that most ‘complete records’ are long out of print and only to be found in secondhand bookshops and on auction sites on the internet.  Revised and updated editions by Dave Twydell and myself tend not to sell as well as ‘new clubs’, so the economics of a reprint are sometimes difficult to calculate.  Also, one day we can expect to see what I call ‘the ultimate database’ on the internet, which will contain the results, scorers and line-ups for every League and Cup game since 1888.

                The following table is 'work in progress' and more details will be added in time.