The identification and development of talented young players has become a central concern of football clubs at all levels of the professional game, as well as for national and international governing bodies. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive survey and assessment of youth development programmes in football around the world, to highlight best practice, and to offer clear recommendations for improvement. The book draws on original, in-depth research at eight elite professional football clubs, including Barcelona, Ajax and Bayern Munich, as well as the French national football academy at Clairefontaine. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, including psychology, coaching and management studies, and covers every key topic from organisational structures, talent recruitment and performance analysis to player education and welfare. Written by two authors with extensive experience in English professional football, including five Premiership clubs, this book is important reading for any student, researcher, coach, administrator or academy director with an interest in football, youth sport, sports development, sports coaching or sport management.

This book explores the story of one of the UK's most successful teams and its world-famous stadium. It lets you discover what part Winston Churchill, Buffalo Bill and Frank Sinatra played in the stadium's history. It is a paperback reprint of the bestselling 2008 edition. For more than 100 years, Ibrox has been the home of Rangers Football Club. It has been the scene of some of this sporting institution's greatest triumphs but also two of the worst disasters in British football. Ibrox is an imposing ground that is rich with history and tradition, while boasting state-of-the-art modern facilities that rank alongside the best in the world. Its wood-panelled entrance lobby and famous marble staircase evoke memories of a distant era, while the glittering trophy room inside the magnificent Main Stand tells the story of the club better than any words can. Though Rangers have managed to preserve the traditions of the famous old stadium, much of the Ibrox of today bears little resemblance to the ground which opened in December 1899. This book charts, in words and pictures, the history of Ibrox from the early days, through the creation of Archibald Leitch's stunning Main Stand in 1929, with its Masonic imagery, to the present-day five-star facilities. Using official records and eyewitness accounts, it tells the story of the two Ibrox disasters that claimed a total of 91 lives and tells how the second tragedy in 1971 resulted in a complete overhaul of the stadium and the creation of the most modern football ground in Britain, years ahead of its time. As well as the many football triumphs, the stadium has witnessed dozens of other events over the years, including the famous annual Ibrox Sports meeting created by the legendary manager Bill Struth. On one spectacular afternoon, seven world records were broken in one race on the Ibrox cinder track. The book also reveals the part played by famous figures like Buffalo Bill Cody, King George V, Winston Churchill, Eric Liddell, Billy Graham, Frank Sinatra and Elton John in the history of the stadium. Ibrox holds the record attendance for a League match in Britain, and it would be nothing more than a pile of bricks and mortar without the fans who breathe life into it every other Saturday. In this book, supporters recall their memories of the stadium, from starting bonfires on the vast terraces to keep warm in the depths of winter and donning customised hard-hats as protection from flying beer bottles in the 1960s, to the spectacular Champions League nights of the 21st century. The common theme is the passion of the fans and the red-hot atmosphere in the ground.

Delves into the history of Reading FC - one of the oldest clubs in the Football League. This title focuses on the various quirky tales and incidents that have befallen the club throughout the years. It features various weird and obscure sports staged by the club, the numerous (world) records set by Reading and some very strange pitch invaders.

Football is an incredibly powerful case study of globalization and an extremely useful lens through which to study and understand contemporary processes of international migration. This is the first book to focus on the increasingly complex series of migratory processes that contour the contemporary game, drawing on multi-disciplinary approaches from sociology, history, geography and anthropology to explore migration in football in established, emerging and transitional contexts.

The book examines shifting migration patterns over time and across space, and analyses the sociological dynamics that drive and influence those patterns. It presents in-depth case studies of migration in elite men s football, exploring the role of established leagues in Europe and South America as well as important emerging leagues on football's frontier in North America and Asia. The final section of the book analyses the movement of groups who have rarely been the focus of migration research before, including female professional players, elite youth players, amateur players and players families, drawing on important new research in Ghana, England, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Few other sports have such a global reach and therefore few other sports are such an important location for cross-cultural research and insight across the social sciences. This book is engaging reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, sociology, human geography, migration, international labour flows, globalization, development or post-colonial studies. "

The Third World Congress of Science and Football was held in Cardiff, Wales in April 1995. The aim of the conference was to continue to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of the various branches of football and increase the awareness of the value of a scientific approach to these games. These aims and the outcomes of the conference are reflected in this third volume of Science and Football. The volume is divided into eight parts, each part containing a group of papers that are related by theme or disciplinary approach. Metabolism and nutrition, football training, match analysis, medical aspects of football and psychology and football behaviour are just a few of the areas covered in this comprehensive, in-depth volume that has been fully edited and revised. The conclusions drawn during the congress represent an invaluable practical reference for coaches, scientists, players, managers, and all those involved in the many football codes.

Glorious Reinvention is the story of how Ajax rediscovered their mojo to compete again with Europe's best. In November 2010, after Ajax's 2-0 loss in the Champions League group stage to Real Madrid, Johan Cruyff wrote a newspaper column criticising his former club. He believed the side were poorly run, had lost their identity and been left behind by modern football. Cruyff wanted change. He wanted Ajax to rely on their academy as they once had, and he wanted former Ajax players in high positions calling the shots at the club. This was dubbed 'the velvet revolution' - a peaceful coup that would propel Ajax to once more compete with the best. A few years on, with many of the changes in place, the side reached a Europa League final and a Champions League semi-final with an exquisite style of football and methods that Cruyff would have appreciated. Ajax, now run by former club greats such as Edwin van der Sar and Marc Overmars, combined the techniques of old with modern elements.

Generazione Wunderteam is the enthralling story of the Austrian national football team of the 1930s, an innovative side that dazzled Viennese crowds and sparked a new-found passion for football both at local and international level. Although the Wunderteam was short-lived, this squad led by Hugo Meisl, one of the most prominent figures in European football, proved hugely influential. Vienna quickly became - along with Budapest and Prague - one of the world's football capitals and the birthplace of some of the greatest players of the era, including Matthias Sindelar, a centre-forward whose fame transcended football, and who was often compared to Mozart and other Viennese celebrities. Sindelar died in suspicious circumstances at age 35, after defying the Nazis. The book takes the reader on a journey through that forgotten era, examining the genesis of Hugo Meisl's side, its key figures, the historical vicissitudes of the inter-war years and the most important Viennese teams of the period.

The football industry has long been the subject of theoretical and empirical analysis by economists. A study of the economics of football throws up a range of intriguing questions - from what determines the level of attendance at football matches to how efficient football managers are in producing team performance, given the playing resources available. This important collection considers these and other questions - such as: What drives the transfer value of players? How has the changing structure of football's labour market affected sporting and financial outcomes? How effective have football leagues been in maintaining competitive balance? Do football clubs seek to maximise profits? How predictable are football matches? Is the football betting market efficient? This authoritative two volume collection pulls together the work of leading sports economists over the last five decades to answer these and other questions using consumer theory, labour economics, industrial organisation and a range of other theoretical insights combined with econometric analysis. These innovative volumes bring together a careful synthesis of applied economics that will be of interest to all those concerned with analysing the real world.

When Peter Minto first discovered the name of F N S Creek, he began to unravel a forgotten legend of British football. He soon found that there was far more to this man than it seemed...When the First World War broke out, F N S Creek found himself battling in the squalid trenches of Flanders and soon transferred into the Royal Flying Corps performing dangerous aerial reconnaissance and bombing missions behind enemy lines, eventually earning a military cross for his contributions. Despite the short life expectancy of aircrew, Creek returned to England to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, and there he first discovered his talent for football. F N S Creek quickly grew to celebrity status with his spectacular scoring ability, earning caps for England and later going on to coach the Olympic team for sixteen years. Throughout his career he revolutionised the coaching of football throughout the nation whilst also becoming a successful cricketer, writer, journalist and broadcaster. In this extensively-researched biography of a forgotten legend of English football, Peter Minto presents the remarkable life of F N S Creek.