Kicking Off Again: Football’s Greatest Season by Brian Halford – Review

By Karl Hornsey

This outstanding release by Brian Halford tells so many stories in the space of its 320 pages that each chapter brings a joy all of its own, while never forgetting the seriousness of the era it’s describing.

This is the story of the 31st August 1946. Nothing overly remarkable, you may feel, about that particular date, but for anyone around at the time, especially those who were football fans, it was like all their Christmasses rolled into one.

While the game, in some shape or form, still took place during the Second World War, football, like everything else, became inconsequential compared to the gravity of global events. And it wasn’t until August 1946 that the new Football League season kicked off, offering a further glimpse of normality to the lives of millions around the country. What Halford has so cleverly constructed here isn’t the tale of the season, which may have been the easy option to take, but instead he has researched the story of all 44 matches to take place in England that day, plus six from the Scottish leagues.

Thus, the importance of the opening day of the season becomes the same whether that be at Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool, or the likes of New Brighton, Carlisle United and Barrow. It simply didn’t matter how big the club was – football was back.

“A truly unique tale”

The realisation that this is now something that happened 80 years ago is one that hits you, and of course the sport has moved on so much since, but this unique day in history was one that brought communities together, as they tried to get bomb-damaged stadia fit for use again, with clubs fielding sides hugely different to the last time they took to the field seven years previous, all at a time when rationing was still taking place.

It’s remarkable to note that this was also the day that the great Sir Matt Busby first took charge of Manchester United, albeit facing Grimsby Town at the home of their local rivals Manchester City, with Old Trafford still out of action due to damage sustained during the war. Halford brings that time to life so well and finds the humorous tales of the time, drawing heavily upon local newspaper reports of the time, not just describing the football action, but also the quirky stories that were making the news across the country on that day. He perfectly finds the balance between the gravity of the time and the stoic ability of millions of Britons to carry on as normal.

Some of the clubs no longer exist, or have become variations of themselves, and Halford has clearly put a huge amount of time and effort into tracking down these stories to tell a truly unique tale, which should be of interest to any football fan, along with those simply interested in how another piece in the jigsaw of normality came to pass, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

‘Kicking Off Again: Football’s Greatest Season’ by Brian Halford is published by Pitch Publishing