PROUD MAN WALKING.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Complete number line 1.] FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj. Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,colour illustrated dw/dj with white lettering; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corner tips,appears unread - apart from my own collation.Publisher's bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered, original plain blue cloth boards with bright,crisp,blocked silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain pale grey endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,vipp+1- 300pp [paginated] includes verso of contents list/table,11 chapters,Claudio Ranieri Factfile,16pp contemporary autobiographical colour photographs in 2 blocks of 8pp apiece,between pp88/9 and pp216/17 respectively,plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,reverse of contents list/table a Special Note (thanking Massimo Marianella for help,and Claudio donating all earnings from book sales to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children) with a blank verso.and to the rear; blank, photographic acknowledgements with blank verso and 8pp blanks.
We rejoiced with him.We laughed with him.And we cried with him.Claudio Ranieri's final season as manager of Chelsea Football Club resembled a soap opera to rival anything that had gone before or since on the Fulham Road.
Beginning with Chelsea's last-gasp qualification for the Champions League in May 2003,Ranieri's first-hand account unfolds with the arrival of billionaire Roman Abramovich and the £120 million shake-up that saw incoming overseas stars uniting with the best of young British talent at a new-look Stamford Bridge.
In what tuned out to be a fascinating 2003/04 season for 'the Blues',he describes how he moulded this exciting yet disparate group of individuals into a team,and how his tactical methods compared with principal adversaries Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.Along the way,Ranieri analyses the key games in the battle for the Premiership title and Champions League glory,and the controversial moments that shaped Chelsea's season - all told with typical wicked humour and Monty Python-esque sense of the absurd for which he has become renowned.Behind the scenes,as the 'Tinkerman's' tactics came under increasing scrutiny,Ranieri reveals his own feelings about the way the club handled his position,how he first came to be aware that his contract would be terminated and how the players reacted to their manager's predicament.Occasionally puzzling,often eccentric but always captivating and refreshing,Claudio Ranieri's farewell to English football unveils the glamour and the mystery behind one of the most talked about clubs in the country and a much-loved character in the game. Please contact seller @ rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk , for correct shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page! N.B. ALL buyers please note,stocks' actual shipping/P+p costs are adjusted and any difference is refunded,after order's receipt and before the order's despatch,especially if the item(s) are offered either P+p included/FREE.
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