Tom van Hulsen’s book about Blues legends Arnold Mühren and Frans Thijssen, Game Changers, has been named on the shortlist for the prestigious 2018 Coutts Football Writers’ Association Football Book of the Year award.
Game Changers, the English version of Het Geheim van Ipswich (The Secret of Ipswich), which was initially published in the Netherlands in 2016, recalls Mühren and Thijssen’s time with the Blues under Bobby Robson.
Dutch journalist and Town fan van Hulsen interviewed Town figures from that era for the book, including former captain Mick Mills, ex-press officer Mel Henderson and Pat Godbold, secretary to every Town manager from Scott Duncan to George Burley, and also spoke to every member of the UEFA Cup-winning team.
Game Changers is the story of two ground-breaking pioneers in English football, how they helped to turn the Blues into one of the top teams in Europe and paved the way for the many fellow Dutchman who followed them into English football. Game Changers is available from TWTD here.
The British Sports Book Awards ceremony is set to take place at Lord’s Cricket Ground on 7th June.
The other five other titles on the Football Book of the Year shortlist are Sir Matt Busby by Patrick Barclay, Quiet Genius (Life of Bob Paisley) by Ian Herbert, Brave New World by Guillem Balague, From Delhi to the Den: The Story of Football’s Most Travelled Manager by Stephen Constantine with Owen Amos and James Montague’s The Billionaires Club.