Rebels for the Cause: The Alternative History of Arsenal Football Club (Mainstream Sport)

Jon Spurling has written a book that both entertains and informs. Starting with Arsenal's founding fathers, each chapter carefully pulls together the facts and faces throughout the club's history, cleverly exploring it's more colourful characters while subtely detailing the context of the club and football's changing place in society.

Thought provoking, and sometimes shocking a smile is never far away from the reader's face. It also exposes the roots of resentment for the club in both the media and other football fans.

For Arsenal fans this is simply a must read. For the rest, you hardly need any more justification for finding fault with the red and white half of north London.


A new perspective on the greatest club of all!   November 21, 2003
Mrs O F Lichfield (Gillingham, Kent United Kingdom)
27 out of 27 found this review helpful

Another excellent book from the only Arsenal author, it seems, who can be bothered to find a fresh angle on the club’s past. “Rebels For The Cause” illustrates the point which most others publications seem scared to admit – that without Arsenal’s numerous controversial players and officials – the Gunners wouldn’t even exist, let alone be the world famous club they have become. I found the earlier chapters really fascinating, as they explain how Arsenal gained the “lucky” and “Bank Of England” labels, at a time of an economic depression in Europe. The new information on Sir Henry Norris goes a long way to explaining why Arsenal are disliked by almost everyone outside their own fan base.
As a supporter who started going in the 1970s, I found the chapters on Charlie George, Peter Storey and Willie Young really revealing and quirky. Some of the drinking stories will make you laugh out loud – or you might wince with pain as Spurling describes another ferocious Storey or Young challenge. The section on the 1977 pre season tour of Australia really gets the reader into the mindset of the rebel footballers from that era. The author is at his best as he minutely dissects the decline and fall of George Graham in the early 1990s.What makes startling is just how many of Graham’s former charges queue up to put the boot into their former manager.
“Rebels For The Cause” is a good deal more lively, honest and funny than any official history of the club. Buy it now !


Rebels for the Cause:The Alternative History of Arsenal.....   September 20, 2003
Mrs. H. C. McCash (Herts. UK)
31 out of 31 found this review helpful

I read this book in just three days. In my opinion, this is the most thought provoking and intriguing history of the club to date. I had thought that it was just going to be a history lesson from Arsenal's boozy bad boys. But Spurling's conversations with Willie Young, Charlie Nicholas, Charlie George, Alan Hudson and Perry Groves adds a humorous and "laddish" edge to certain chapters.

But what makes Rebels For The Cause such a GREAT read, is the fact the Arsenal's "rebals" have come in such a variety of shapes and forms during the clubs long history.

It was facinating to read of the spectacular fall from fame of George Graham. The comments of Claude Anelka on his brothers controversial departure from the club. Plus insights into the clubs history from the players view point. I particularly enjoyed reading the fresh insight on the life and times of Sir Henry Norris, who in 1918, "bribed" the Football League to promote Arsenal, and relegate Spurs. The furore surrounding George Eastham's court case in the early sixties and the clubs 1945 match against Moscow Dynamos.

Spurling has delved deep into Arnenal's numerous disciplinary problems, his and the players' conclusions make for worrying reading. He shows that recent Arsenal manages have almost encouraged players to feel persecuted, as a way of fostering team spirt and their famed fortress mentality. This, together with the origins of the Gunners' rivalry with Tottenham and a look at the club's treatment by the tabloids makes for fascinating, if uncomfotable reading.

Rebals For The Cause is a MUST read book for ALL Arsenal fans.