Sometimes you love a soccer team not only for their strengths, the splendor of
their play, and the appealing thrust of their character, but also for the
haunting possibility that their best hopes may never be fulfilled. This has
rarely been demonstrated so vividly as by the Manchester City team, who briefly,
but unforgettably, illuminated the late sixties. And no one was more caught up
in their struggles and their triumphs than James Lawton, a young sportswriter
starting out on a career that would take him to all the great events of world
sports. Yet still, fifty years after Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison began to
shape