Mucky Boots – Kevin McCabe with Peter Beeby
Published by Pitch Publishing 2024
This was a very interesting and informative book written in a style that was easy to read and follow.
It covers Kevin McCabe’s journey with Sheffield United since an early age, living in Sharrow, Sheffield, the area in which Bramall Lane is situated.
The most fascinating time was when he was Chairman and Joint Chairman of the club. A period of promotion to the Premier League, subsequent demotions, and then a rise again to the top division.
The journey is littered with the hiring and firing of managers of the team and club when results on and off the pitch did not match the investment put in. But there were fantastic managerial successes on the pitch with Neil Warnock and Chris Wilder and off it with Dereck Dooley.
I gained the opinion that he was often too loyal to people who let him down and with him living for a long period of time abroad, was too trusting of some. While hands on in his very successful property business he wanted and needed some one to trust or perhaps he was unable to let decisions be made by others.
What is fascinating are the major events that occurred during his reign and caused Sheffield United to have been high up in the public limelight for off field events rather than on the pitch. The best examples of these are the Carlos Tevez affair that the FA favoured West Ham and meant United were relegated, the Ched Evans court cases that generated a lot of bad press and finally the lost court case with Prince Abdullah, who Kevin McCabe had brought into the club to effect an exit for himself but ended up in a disappointing end to his involvement. There is also a chapter on the expansion into owning other international clubs which depending on your view were a success or a distraction.
Kevin McCabe comes across in the book as passionate about the club, the area in which it resides and the city of Sheffield. He left United with a Premier League stadium, although not finished to his original plan, as the number one team in the city, and boasts training and academy facilities that are fit for the current age. My own view was that he created a family club that respected the fans’ ability to pay and responded to individuals’ hard times in the community. It also gave them sorrow, joy and a sense of belonging.
A book well worth reading even if you are not a Sheffield United fan to enable you to understand why individuals get involved in investing money in football clubs when they have no chance of ever getting it back. It may also be an epitaph to this kind of chairman with many of our clubs now owned by corporations, syndicates, often from abroad who do not have the tie in to the local community that Kevin McCabe certainly did have.
payonthegate 