{"title":"Mark Metcalf","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the thrilling world of Mark Metcalf, where suspense meets intrigue. Perfect for fans seeking gripping narratives and unforgettable characters. Discover your next captivating read here.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"origins-of-the-football-league-book-mark-metcalf-9781445640174","title":"The Origins of the Football League","description":"On Saturday 8 September 1888, League football kicked off. Twelve clubs had combined to play regular fixtures and the result was to revolutionise not only English football but virtually every nation and sport since then. In this book, the history of the Football League season 1888\/89 is told in great depth, with reports on every match and profiles of all those who played – amateur and professional – during this thrilling historic season, in which Preston were ‘invincible’ and set the standards for other great teams to follow. Key players and their skills are highlighted. 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They featured the bottom three clubs in the top flight playing the top three in the second tier.  Liverpool won the initial meeting 2-0 to gain promotion whilst Newton Heath were relegated. It was only the briefest stay, however, as the Merseysiders were immediately relegated as the two teams met for the first time in a League fixture in 1895. Those first two League matches, played within three weeks of one another, also underlined how unpredictable the form book was, something which has invariably still been the case more than a century later. Liverpool won the first League meeting 7-1 which still to this day remains the record margin of victory between the two teams. 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For a year over 100,000 members of the National Union of Mineworkers, their families and supporters, in hundreds of communities, battled to prevent the decimation of the coal industry on which their livelihoods and communities depended. Margaret Thatcher's government aimed to smash the most militant section of the British working class. She wanted to usher in a new era of greater management control at work and pave the way for a radical refashioning of society in favour of neo-liberal objectives that three decades later have crippled the world economy. \tVictory required draconian restrictions on picketing and the development of a militarised national police force that made widespread arrests as part of its criminalisation policy. The attacks on the miners also involved the use of the courts and anti-trade union laws, restrictions on welfare benefits, the secret financing by industrialists of working miners and the involvement of the security services. All of which was supported by a compliant mass media but resisted by the collective courage of miners and mining communities in which the role of Women against Pit Closures in combating poverty and starvation was heroic. Thus inspired by the struggle for jobs and communities an unparalleled movement of support groups right across Britain and in other parts of the world was born and helped bring about a situation where the miners long struggle came close on occasions to winning. \tAt the heart of the conflict was the Yorkshire region, where even at the end in March 1985, 83 per cent of 56,000 miners were still out on strike. 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