Close Quarters

An Extraordinary Season on the Brink and Behind the Scenes

Neil Harman

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785317156
• Year: 2020

Close Quarters is the inspirational, against the odds story of Wycombe Wanderers, the poorest club in League One, and how it shapes into a side that sustains a nine-month challenge for promotion before the global pandemic stops the team in its tracks. When the season restarts, Wycombe finds itself in the play-offs behind closed doors, an unprecedented opportunity through unprecedented turmoil. Led by the longest-serving boss in professional football, the charismatic Gareth Ainsworth, this becomes an astonishing campaign, witnessed up close by award-winning sportswriter Neil Harman thanks to his special access. Harman gets to the heart of the team, joins them in the dressing room, on the coach, in the medical room and in team meetings to chart this unparalleled challenge. He gets the inside story of Ainsworth's rise from a working-class upbringing on the back streets of Blackburn, through a rumbustious playing career, to a one-club manager moulding Wycombe while dealing with an American takeover that could make the difference between the club's life and death. Close Quarters is a book that resonates, not just with Wycombe supporters, but fans of underdog clubs everywhere.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The Madness Awaits
• 2. The Boys from Bolton
• 3. The Life of Darius
• 4. When Wycombe went Top of the Table
• 5. Balderdash
• 6. Going Dutch
• 7. The Jump Start
• 8. Up (and Down) for the Cup
• 9. The Peaks of Performance
• 10. Mind the Gape
• 11. A Singular Goalkeeper
• 12. The Rock and the Glue
• 13. Red, White, Black, Yellow and Cerise
• 14. The Disciples
• 15. The Kashket Chronicles
• 16. A Matter of Life and Death
• 17. Mr Barton’s Boys
• 18. They Think It’s All Over
• 19. It Is Now
• 20. Fasts, Philosophies and Variables
• 21. A Game of Integrity
• 22. The Fourth Quarter
• Photos