Broken Dreams, a book that tells the poignant story of Everton’s 1939 title win and how the outbreak of war destroyed the ambitions of a team that looked set to dominate English football, is the first title to be published by Toffeeopolis, a collective of Evertonian writers who are bringing their passion to print.
Broken Dreams author Rob Sawyer is joined by fellow authors Gavin Buckland, Simon Hart and James Corbett in the new imprint, which is a joint venture with Mount Vernon Publishing Group. As well as their own new material, the collective will publish titles pertaining to some of Everton’s greatest players and key moments in its storied history. It will also launch a website with regular news and features over the summer.
“Broken Dreams: Everton, The War and Goodison’s Lost Generation” takes you on a thrilling journey through an era which took the club from the depths of relegation in the early 1930s to the soaring highs of league championships and an FA Cup victory. By the close of the decade, with young stars like Joe Mercer, Tommy Lawton and T.G. Jones alongside an experienced goalkeeper in Ted Sagar, Everton possessed a squad bursting with talent and potential. But the invasion of Poland by Germany, just eight days into the 1939/40 season, suspended the dreams and ambitions of a team that looked set to dominate for years to come.
Sawyer’s previous books include biographies of legendary Everton manager Harry Catterick and the Welsh international defender T.G. Jones, which was shortlisted in the 2018 Sports Book of the Year awards. Speaking of Broken Dreams, he commented: ‘I’m delighted to have covered an incredible decade at Goodison Park, focusing on the great School of Science side of 1938/39 – and what became of the players in the wake of the outbreak of war. My father insisted that this was Everton’s greatest-ever team; my book seeks to explore just how good it was – and how it could have scaled new heights, had world events not intervened.’
Later this year the collective will publish Gavin Buckland’s latest instalment on Everton’s modern history, The End, which places the club’s late-1980s decline and difficult entry into the Premier League era into context.
