The ten most momentous days in the history of Scottish football, by ten of Scotland's best historians and journalists. several of whom are award winners.

Berwick Rangers, England's only expatriate football club, have been ploughing a lone furrow in the Scottish league for more than a century. In The Lone Rangers, journalist and lifelong Berwick fan Tom Maxwell explores the confused national identity of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its unique football team - a side for whom every fixture is an international. With a foreword by Jim Jefferies and featuring exclusive interviews with a host of Berwick legends, as well as former international stars such as Gary Lineker, Ally McCoist and Trevor Steven, The Lone Rangers is one of a kind.

The inspirational story of an amazing group of soccer-playing South African "grannies". In rural South African, beloved humanitarian "Mama Beka" defied social convention and started a soccer team for the women in her community. The Soccer Grannies, as they came to be known, won over their families and villages who at first rejected the idea of older women playing soccer, and that single team quickly grew into dozens. Soon, the strength, tenacity, and pure joy of the Soccer Grannies had captured the attention of the world. In Soccer Grannies: The South African Women Who Inspire the World, Jean Duffy, a soccer-playing mom herself, recounts how she and her team set to work to bring the Soccer Grannies to the U.S. after hearing their incredible story. Despite many obstacles that stand in their way, the Soccer Grannies finally arrive, and Jean describes the wonderful friendships and cultural exchanges that follow. But Soccer Grannies tells more than just the physical journey of the South African women; it also details the Grannies' personal journeys, sharing poignant insights into the realities of women living in South Africa. Life beyond the pitch has not been easy for the Grannies. They have persevered through apartheid, rampant poverty and unemployment, the loss of children to AIDS, domestic abuse, and more. But with the friendship and support of their fellow Soccer Grannies, these women face life's challenges with dignity, humor, and hope. Their stories show to the world the power of sport and its unique ability to bring people and cultures together.

Coventry City Miscellany collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about the Sky Blues. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. Heard the one about the substitute who scored on his debut after just 26 seconds? How about the FA Youth Cup winners who were signed by Kenny Dalglish? Or the media pundit who scored in six successive top-flight matches? Do you know what Des Bremner and Gilles de Bilde have in common with Steve Ogrizovic? Which was the last side to win a League game at Highfield Road? And who was the only Irishman who didn't know where Dublin was? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia - essential for any Coventry City fan who holds the riches of the club's history close to their heart.

The worlds best soccer players are incredibly fit, fast, lean, and strong. Achieving this level of athleticism requires a rigorous soccer fitness training program applying the most effective drills, exercises, and core training methods. In Soccer: Functional Core Training, the authors present numerous drills for this training. Based on the latest the findings in sports science and on the authors long-term coaching experience, they present an extensive practical guide to help you improve your teams performance through core training, soccer specific exercises, and drills. The exercises can be used for amateurs and professional players, youth and adults alike. Your players can learn how to score the most exciting and acrobatic goals, how to tackle without fouling, and how to avoid injuries. The drills in the book create typical match situations to help your team prepare for the game and stay motivated. Many of the fitness exercises require no extra equipment and rely only on bodyweight, thus targeting many different muscles at once. The book is easy to use on the pitch and the ideal tool to turn youth players into the next Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, or Bastian Schweinsteiger.

Derby County On This Day revisits all the most magical and memorable moments from the club's rollercoaster past, mixing in a maelstrom of quirky anecdotes and legendary characters to produce an irresistibly dippable Rams diary - with an entry for every day of the year. From the club's formation in 1884 through to the Premier League era, the black-and-white faithful have witnessed Football League and Cup triumphs, hard-fought derby matches, European adventures and heartbreak - all featured here. Timeless greats such as Dave Mackay, Jackie Stamps and Steve Bloomer, Kevin Hector, Stefanio Eranio and Charlie George all loom larger than life. Revisit 29 March 1975, when Roger Davies scored all five against Luton (and had two disallowed). 1 June 1967: the arrival of young boss Brian Clough from Hartlepools United. And 28 April 1996: when a Robin Van der Laan goal pipped visitors Palace to automatic promotion to the Premier League.

A Sprinkle of Magic tells the fascinating stories of non-league clubs who defied the odds and dared to dream big in the world's oldest cup competition. When August rolls in, so do the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup as non-league sides from across the land bid to make the first round proper and pick up a potential dream tie. Stretching back to the 2009/10 season, the stories include FA Cup runs from Bath City, Redbridge, AFC Totton, Stourbridge, Hendon and of course history-makers Lincoln City, who became the first non-league side to reach the quarter-finals in more than a century in 2017. Featuring colourful tales galore, A Sprinkle of Magic brings the magic of the FA Cup alive with some of the biggest upsets of recent years.

Sheffield Wednesday Miscellany collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about the Owls. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. Heard the one about the former player who was wrongly presumed dead for 95 years? How about the time the lads were drawn away from home in the Cup on ten consecutive occasions? Or the ex-Owl whose playing career wound up in Greenland and the Falkland Islands? Do you know which Wednesday winger drove to matches in an ice-cream van? The result of the 'secret' match played under the new Hillsborough floodlights? Or the depth of the floodwater on the pitch in 2007? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia - essential for any Wednesday fan who holds the riches of the club's history close to their heart.

Compelling, entertaining and refreshingly honest, One in a Million is the autobiography of Trevor Francis, the subject of the first GBP1 million transfer fee in football history - a record for all time. As a 16-year-old, Francis set a record as the youngest player to score four goals in a match, an early indication of an exceptional talent. And so his unique career journey would continue to unfold, encountering a seemingly endless succession of superlatives, larger-than-life characters and astonishing events. Trevor played professionally not only in England but also in the USA and Scotland, in Italy and Australia. He gained 52 England caps, and won the European Cup on his debut in the competition. He played his part in the English revolution at Glasgow Rangers and managed QPR, Crystal Palace, Sheffield Wednesday and Birmingham City. Thrillingly, Trevor takes the reader with him into dressing rooms, into boardrooms and on to the field of play. He has a true gift for memorable detail, providing a wealth of revelations and remarkable stories.

A Financial Times Sports Books of the Year 2018

Cristiano and Leo is the fascinating account of the lives and rivalry between two of the best footballers to ever play the game, Ronaldo and Messi by Jimmy Burns, the bestselling author of Maradona: The Hand of God.

The rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi has defined football to a generation of fans – everyone has an opinion on who is the greatest.

Do you prefer Ronaldo whose work ethic and physique have been honed for one purpose – scoring goals. Or Messi, whose superhuman natural talent means he can do the seemingly impossible with a football.

Between them they have scored over 1300 goals, won the Ballon d’Or ten times, and taken the beautiful game to even greater heights. But statistics alone cannot do justice to their skill, athleticism and dedication to stay at the top for so long of one of the most competitive sports in the world.

Cristiano and Leo tells their definitive story, from children kicking a ball halfway around the world from each other to facing each other in the epic clash El Clásico, between Real Madrid and Barcelona. This is the essential book to understand one the most compelling rivalries in sporting history.

In Entre Nous Grant Farred examines the careers of international football stars Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, along with his own experience playing for an amateur township team in apartheid South Africa, to theorize the relationship between sports and the intertwined experiences of relation, separation, and belonging. Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy's concept of relation and Heideggerian ontology, Farred outlines how various relationships-the significantly different relationships Messi has with his club team FC Barcelona and the Argentine national team; Farred's shifting modes of relation as he moved between his South African team and his Princeton graduate student team; and Suarez's deep bond with Uruguay's national team coach Oscar Tabarez-demonstrate the ways the politics of relation both exist within and transcend sports. Farred demonstrates that approaching sports philosophically offers particularly insightful means of understanding the nature of being in the world, thereby opening new paths for exploring how the self is constituted in its relation to the other.

*Middlesbrough Memories - Scores of candid interviews illuminate Boro's proud history * Boro legends - From Lindy Delapenha and Graeme Souness to Juninho and Gareth Southgate, heroes reflect on their Boro days. * Bossing the game - Illustrious managers speak out on life in dugout * Captain Marvels - Inspirational skippers on leading from the front * The Road to Glory - The inside story of Boro's Carling Cup success * Small Town in Europe - the unforgettable march to Uefa Cup final * Heroic failure - detailed account of heartbreaking 1996-97 season * Back from the brink - the battle for survival in the mid-80s * Life behind the scenes - as told by unsung heroes. * Young guns - A celebration of the Academy's astonishing success * A club in transition - From Ayresome Park to the Riverside * Match for anyone - the stories behind Boro's biggest ever games * Unseen photographs from players, club and local media archives * Political and social landscape - Teesside's former mayor Ray Mallon on wider context as club prospers in face of economic recession.

Wolves On This Day revisits all the most magical and memorable moments from the club's rollercoaster past, mixing in a maelstrom of quirky anecdotes and legendary characters to produce an irresistibly dippable gold-and-black diary - with an entry for every day of the year. From founder members of the Football League through to the Premier League era, the Wolves faithful have witnessed title triumphs in every division from One to Four, promotions and relegations, breathtaking Cup runs and European nights - all featured here. Timeless greats such as John Richards, Mike Bailey and Steve Bull, Billy Wright, Andy Thompson and Ron Flowers all loom larger than life. Revisit 25th March 1893, when Wolves won the FA Cup before an overflowing crowd in Manchester. 17th May 1972: the UEFA Cup final decider against Spurs! Or 13th December 1954, when Wolves came back to beat Honved, helping to restore national pride into the bargain!

Aberdeen FC Miscellany collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about the Dons. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. You may be rightly proud of the only Scottish club that have won two European titles and have never been relegated in their 111-year history; but did you know they also boast two players who scored six goals in a match? And did you know Pittodrie's dugouts were the first in Britain? Have you heard the one about the Dons' keeper who wore waterproofs and used an umbrella? Or how about the time Aberdeen (playing as the 'Washington Whips') were crowned champions of America? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia - essential for any fan who holds the riches of the Reds' history close to their heart.

The Jimmy Greaves We Knew celebrates the life and career of a national treasure through the memories of friends, family, team-mates, the media and fans. They recall a goalscoring great, a TV celebrity - most notably as one half of the legendary Saint and Greavsie - a newspaper columnist, comedian and raconteur who battled alcohol addiction. The modern game also pays tribute to this charismatic, friendly, down-to-earth, witty individual who built a reputation for hitting the back of the net playing for Chelsea, AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and England. Greaves set a European record of 357 goals in 516 top-flight games and netted 44 in 57 full international appearances. Tragically, Greaves suffered a stroke in 2015 and died on 19 September 2021, when two of his former clubs, Spurs and Chelsea - plus 60,000 fans - gave him a minute's applause before they played each other at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The love and affection is as strong as ever.

Zurich, 2 December 2010. Sepp Blatter pulls the name of Qatar from the envelope. The accusations fly and the recriminations start. And once it s all sunk in, we start looking at maps and temperature charts and try to scrape together any fragments of knowledge about kingdoms in the Arabian desert. The Armchair Guide looks underneath some of the myths and preconceptions and tries to provide the average fan if there s any such thing with some sound information about what a World Cup in the desert might look like. Was the bidding process corrupt? How many people actually did die building stadiums? How hot will it really be? Can I go there with my mates and have a drink anywhere? What will the legacy be both in the region and for the global game? A light-hearted, sideways glance, Armchair Guide uses stories from within and beyond the game to cover everything about the 2022 Winter World Cup. It can t boast that it will pick a winner, but it ll go some way to shedding light on football s place in a changing world.

A dozen Wolverhampton Wanderers legends come together to tell the stories behind their favourite ever games for the club - enabling Wolves fans of all ages to relive these magic moments through the eyes and emotions of the men who were there, playing their hearts out for the old gold shirt...Bert Williams and Sammy Smyth recall 1949 FA Cup glory, recounting stories of the spirited semi against Manchester United, topped off by Wembley victory over Leicester; Bill Slater opts for the international friendly against Honved that saw Wolves crowned unofficial 'Champions of the World' in 1956. John Richards waxes lyrical about his Wolves debut at the Hawthorns, while Derek Parkin selects the 1980 League Cup Final against Forest. Molineux legends Roy Swinbourne, Ron Flowers and Steve Bull also turn in characteristic star performances, winding back the clock to relive treasured memories of the Match of Their Lives for the Wolves.

Wimbledon Football Club was founded in 1889, and from then until now it has had a history like no other in football. From being the only team to have won both the FA Cup and FA Amateur Cup, to having the club controversially snatched away from its fans, only for them to reform the club, and for AFC Wimbledon to rise again through the leagues and re-establish itself as a Football League side. Vinny Jones, John Fashanu and Dennis Wise ... the Crazy Gang of the 1980s was an intimidating team that used its physicality to overcome opponents, but it could play as well, under the leadership of Dave 'Harry' Bassett. When you dig deeper you realise there was more to this side than the sensationalist headlines. In AFC Wimbledon On This Day, you'll find facts and figures, famous games, managers and players who have made an indelible mark on the club's legacy. Even under the current guise of AFC Wimbledon, the team continues to write new chapters in its illustrious history.

Plymouth Argyle On This Day revisits all the most magical and memorable moments from the club's rollercoaster past, mixing in a maelstrom of quirky anecdotes and legendary characters to produce an irresistibly dippable Pilgrims diary - with an entry for every day of the year. From the club's Victorian foundation as Argyle FC through to the 21st century, the green-and-white faithful have witnessed League Cup and FA Cup semi-finals, Second and Third Division titles, play-off thrills and relegation battles - all featured here. Timeless greats such as Paul Mariner, Kevin Hodges and Sammy Black, Jack Chisholm, Tommy Tynan and Mickey Evans all loom larger than life. Revisit 16th May 1963, when a record crowd of 100,000 watched Argyle play Legia Warsaw in Poland. 14th April 1984: the Pilgrims take on Watford looking to book a date at Wembley. Or 3rd May 1930, when Third Division (South) title celebrations involved a giant pasty!

The Arsenal Companion collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about Arsenal FC. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. Heard the one about the glam rock single, 'A Love Song For My Lady', recorded by Charlie George as 'Charlie Gorgeous'? How about the linesman's injury that led to commentator Jimmy Hill running the line at Highbury? Do you know which former full-back managed the club for the shortest ever spell? Which 80s star advertised fitted kitchens and a white leather suit for Top Man? Or which 60s stopper was known as 'Sponge' due to his ability to soak up pressure? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia, essential for any fan who holds the riches of red-and-white history close to their heart. Featuring a foreword by Frank McLintock.

Final Third: The Last Word on our Football Heroes serves up another batch of funny, absurd and jaw-dropping tales discovered within more than 300 footballer autobiographies. Author John Smith has pored over the memoirs of the great and the good - as well as the not so good - so you don't have to. You're welcome. Final Third paints an intimate picture of our favourite football figures, using their own stories to show what makes them tick, what unites and divides them and exactly what they are prepared to share with us. They've seen things you wouldn't believe! The eye-opening stories include a defender deliberately driving a golf ball into Jimmy Hill's house, a goalkeeper confronted by a witch doctor in his penalty area, one football legend asking another to scale a church tower to stop the bells ringing, a manager who was like catnip to the wives of his directors and the England captain who drifted down the Thames. It all adds up to a fun third volume of the definitive digest of the autobiographies of our football heroes.

Recounted candidly In His Own Words: Life On the Inside looks back on the footballing life and times of Peter Mendham, Norwich City's larger-than-life former midfielder. He offers a no-holds-barred account of football in the 80s - and also of the incident that led to a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of his girlfriend. Peter gives his viewpoint on some of the stars he has played with and against, and on a decade in football characterised by falling gates, hooliganism and poor television coverage for fans who didn't follow the fortunes of the game's biggest clubs. The Mendham case remains one of the highest-profile trials ever to have involved a British footballer - his punishment and fall from grace standing in stark contrast to a playing career at the highest level, winning medals at Wembley for two clubs. Peter recounts his experiences in football and his time endured at Her Majesty's pleasure in a frank, occasionally blunt manner that will give readers an insight into a life of ups and downs.