Tony Book obituary
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Manchester City captain who brought the team four trophies in three years before going on to manage it. The most remarkable aspect of the gilded footballing career of Tony Book was that until his fourth decade he was still earning a living as a bricklayer. Supplementing his wages by playing part-time non-league football, it was only at the age of 30 that he was swept into the full-time game. Within two years he had become the nationally admired captain of Manchester City, holding aloft the 1968 league championship trophy, followed soon by the FA Cup, the League Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
![[The European Cup Winners Cup semi-final, first leg, FC Schalke 04 v Manchester City, April 1970, with, from left, Joe Corrigan (Manchester), Manfred Pohlschmidt (S04), Mike Doyle (Manchester) and Book (Manchester).]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/395f3e39cfc94e78ca02962716b9a68e3610ab67/0_401_3861_2316/master/3861.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In a reversal of that late entry into top level football, Book, who has died aged 90, then became an early starter in management, leading City to a League Cup trophy in 1976 and a league runners-up spot in 1977. He presided over an entertaining era of football at Maine Road, and was manager for seven years before moving on to backroom duties over the next couple of decades that included two spells as caretaker manager.
![[Manchester City training at Maine Road, with goalkeeper Alan Oaken, left, and Tony Book centre, in December 1969. (Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images) football]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7d1bc5eda13ee5e6d09623d60dd9cb735df64992/0_27_3210_3211/master/3210.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Tony was born in Bath. When he was four, his father, Charlie, an army officer, was posted to India, where the family lived for seven years before returning when Tony was 11. At West Twerton secondary modern school in Bath, he revealed a talent for football, playing for Somerset schoolboys and the Peasedown Miners Welfare club. Leaving school at 16 in 1950, he began a bricklaying apprenticeship with a building firm, Mortimers, where he remained for more than a decade.
