Turncoat is the light-hearted story of one disillusioned Arsenal fan’s quest to find a new team while rediscovering the simple joys of watching football. From sneaking out of bed to see Michael Thomas’s winner against Liverpool, to holding a season ticket for 16 years, Matt Coughlan was a dedicated Arsenal fan. Then came the move to a new ground, kick-off times always being shunted around and the goalposts being moved when billionaires injected vast sums into rival teams, so the height of ambition became finishing fourth. He became disillusioned with the modern game and drifted away from it, but he missed being part of the conversation in the pub and correcting friends on points of trivia. He started to watch non-league football and searched for a new team to follow. On his journey, Matt rediscovers a love for the sport, gets into club boardrooms, talks with officials, finds out about community-owned clubs, learns about some historic old clubs and watches a mixed bag of football. But does he find a new team to support?

Football managers are at the center of today's commercially-driven football world, scrutinized, celebrated and under pressure as never before. This book is the first in-depth history of the role of the manager in British football, tracing a path from Victorian-era amateurism to the highly paid motivational specialists and media personalities of the twenty-first century.
Using original source materials, the book traces the changing character and function of the football manager, covering:
- the origins of football management - club secretaries and early pioneers
- the impact of post-war social change - the advent of the football business
- television and the new commercialism
- contemporary football - specialization and the influence of foreign managers and management practices
- the future of football management

"The Football Manager" examines the influence of Britain's traditionally pragmatic and hierarchical business management culture on British football, and in doing so provides a new and broader perspective on a unique management role and a unique way of life.
For those interested in the history of football and for those interested in management more generally, this book is a valuable new resource.

Major sporting events hosted by Germany have historically been highly charged and culturally significant occasions. 2006 sees the Football World Cup return to Germany, where much has changed since the previous Finals there in 1974. This collection, edited by an internationally regarded sports sociologist and German Studies scholar, examines the history and significance of football in German culture and society. Includes discussion of: The cultural history of football since its popular German origins during WWI The effects of Unification, European integration and immigration in contemporary Germany The German football economy Women in German football and society Germany's role in the politics of global sports institutions Media coverage and perceptions of German identity and Germany's relationship with traditional 'enemies' Media representations of football and changing fan cultures...

"The Work of Professional Football: A Labour of Love?" presents unique long-term studies and provides rare insights into to the precarious careers and ordinary working culture of professional soccer footballers. Away from the celebrity-obsessed media gaze, the work of a professional footballer is infrequently glamorous and for most players a career in football is insecure and short-lived.
As a former professional soccer player turned academic, Martin Roderick's familiarity with the world of football is foundational to this privileged research into a world that is typically both 'closed' to the public gaze and ignored by media reportage and academic research which prefers to focus on a small, unrepresentative group of elite players. Key themes explored within the text include:
- The culture of work in professional soccer football
- The changing identity, orientation and expectations of players during their career
- The fragile and uncertain nature of careers in professional sport
- The performance and drama of a career under public scrutiny
- The role of relationships with managers, owners, support staff and partners
- The insecurities inherent in a football career such as injury, aging, performance and transfer
The text deals with a wide range of issues for sports students and academics, particularly those with a focus on the sociology of sport but also including sport development, sport management and coaching studies. The text will be of interest to researchers in sport studies, careers, industrial relations and the sociology of work.

***** Shortlisted for International Autobiography of the Year in the Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2021 'This account is often poetic and sometimes haunting.' - FourFourTwo Triple European Footballer of the Year. Once World Footballer of the Year. European Champion two UEFA Super Cups, European Champion with the Dutch National Team in 1988 and numerous national championships with both Ajax and AC Milan. Marco van Basten is known as one of the greatest footballers of all time, but his personal life has always remained somewhat of a mystery, until now. Basta is the raw, honest, but above all gripping autobiography of Marco van Basten. It's the unfiltered story of his rise to fame, from being under the wing of Cruyff and experiencing life as an Ajax player to being propelled into the spotlight following Euros '88 - and scoring the greatest goal ever to win a major final - and playing for AC Milan at the peak of Italian football's popularity. But despite countless successes, Marco van Basten experienced many low points, including losing a childhood friend, battling with pain after his numerous fluffed operations, and ultimately coming to terms with life after playing football. Basta is his story.

As the digital revolution continues apace, emergent technologies and means of communication present new challenges and opportunities for the football industry. This is the first book to bring together key contemporary debates at the intersection of football studies, leisure studies, and digital cultural studies. It presents cutting edge theoretical and empirical work based around four key themes: theorizing digital football cultures; digital football fandom; football and social media; and football (sub)cybercultures. Covering topics such as transnational digital fandom, online abuse, and gender, Digital Football Cultures argues that we are witnessing the hyperdigitalization of the world's most popular sport. This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers working in leisure studies, sports studies, football studies, and critical media studies, as well as geography, anthropology, criminology, and sociology. It is also fascinating reading for anybody working in sport, media, and culture.

Football managers are at the center of today's commercially-driven football world, scrutinized, celebrated and under pressure as never before. This book is the first in-depth history of the role of the manager in British football, tracing a path from Victorian-era amateurism to the highly paid motivational specialists and media personalities of the twenty-first century.
Using original source materials, the book traces the changing character and function of the football manager, covering:
- the origins of football management - club secretaries and early pioneers
- the impact of post-war social change - the advent of the football business
- television and the new commercialism
- contemporary football - specialization and the influence of foreign managers and management practices
- the future of football management

"The Football Manager" examines the influence of Britain's traditionally pragmatic and hierarchical business management culture on British football, and in doing so provides a new and broader perspective on a unique management role and a unique way of life.
For those interested in the history of football and for those interested in management more generally, this book is a valuable new resource.

Appealing to a wide audience, this ground-breaking handbook takes an in-depth look at soccer match analysis, highlighting the latest in match analysis research and the innovative technologies now being used by professional soccer clubs around the world.

Bridging the gap between research, theory and practice, these methods can be used by coaches, sport scientists and fitness coaches to assess and improve:

• styles of play, technical ability and physical fitness
• objective performance feedback to players
• the development of specific training routines
• use of available notation software, video analysis and manual systems
• understanding of current academic research in soccer notational analysis.

This is the first book to focus exclusively on football, and is based on the authors' extensive experience in academic and professional match analysis.

The word disaster is much used in the world of soccer - conceding a penalty, a sending off, an untimely defeat. Comparing these with real life disasters puts things into perspective and the results of the games become insignificant. Soccer is not more important than life or death!
For the first time, real life tragedies in the world of soccer are explored in one volume. From the loss of life of talented young players in the Munich and Zambian air disasters to fatal overcrowding at Hillsborough and Moscow. During the history of the game, fans and players alike have been the victims of negligence, complacency and misfortune. The causes, consequences and legacies of these and other disasters are examined in this book that reveals frightening parallels and important lessons.
A powerful book suitable for students of sociology, sports studies and social history.
This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Sport in the Global Society.

The Hibs are Here is the follow up to Ian Colquhoun's previous book on Hibernian Football Club: From Oblivion to Hampden. That culminated in the club's successful League Cup winning season in 1991/92. This next volume is subtitled Miller to Millennium and charts the period from 1992 through to 1999. With fresh insight via exclusive interviews with a number of the club's players, coaches and managers, Colquhoun threads these together with a fan narrative and analysis of that iconic decade. He relives the joy of a UEFA Cup run, reaching another cup final and an historic third-placed finish in the Scottish Premiership; the highs and lows of an instant promotion following relegation; and the heartbreak of losing that final and two semi-final defeats. From the pen of a passionate Hibs fan who was there for it all, The Hibs are Here is a wonderful trip down memory lane for any Hibernian supporter.

The story of the creation of Britain's national game has often been told. According to the accepted wisdom, the refined football games created by English public schools in the 1860s subsequently became the sports of the masses. Football, The First Hundred Years, provides a revisionist history of the game, challenging previously widely-accepted beliefs. Harvey argues that established football history does not correspond with the facts. Football, as played by the 'masses' prior to the adoption of the public school codes is almost always portrayed as wild and barbaric. This view may require considerable modification in the light of Harvey's research. Football's First One Hundred Years provides a very detailed picture of the football played outside the confines of the public schools, revealing a culture that was every bit as sophisticated and influential as that found within their prestigious walls. Football, The First Hundred Years sets forth a completely revisionist thesis, offering a different perspective on almost every aspect of the established history of the formative years of the game. The book will be of great interest to sports historians and football enthusiasts alike.

Portsmouth's 6.57 crew were the most talked about casual football firm of the 1980s and 1990s. This notorious gang took their name from the time of the train they caught to games, following their team around the country with the kind of dedication - and violence - that only a true hoolifan knows. Now, for the first time ever, the amazing story of the firm is revealed.

According to the accepted wisdom, in the 1860s the football games created by public schoolboys were transplanted from these elite foundations, rapidly becoming the sports of the masses. But has this history ever been challenged or explored? Football, The First Hundred Years, provides a revisionist history of the game, challenging previously widely-accepted belief. The book argues that established football histories do not correspond with the facts. Football, as played by the 'masses' previous to the public school codes is almost always portrayed as wild and quite barbaric but Harvey shows evidence suggesting this view to be a serious over-simplification. Football's First One Hundred Years provides a very detailed picture of the football played outside the confines of the public schools, revealing a culture that was every bit as sophisticated as that found within their prestigious walls. Indeed, the administrative body created by public schoolboys, the FA, rapidly collapsed and by 1867, it was the intervention of working class representatives from Sheffield who saved soccer. offering a different perspective on almost every aspect of the established history of the formative years of the game. The book will be of great interest to sports historians and football enthusiasts alike.

What does it take to get to the very top - to become truly 'World Class'? We are The F2 and we're going to show you what separates the Messis from the masses, the Kanes from the can'ts and the Neymars from the no-mores. We're going to show you how to elevate your game to the World Stage.

Our book reveals the secrets of your favourite footballers as we show you how to improve your fitness, add focus to your mentality and supersize your skills. We'll prove to you that you don't have to be born great to become great. So when the big day comes around, you'll be ready to unleash your inner winner.

We've also made you a free app where you can see exactly how it's done. So, if you want control like Coutinho, power like Pogba or swaz like Sànchez, you know what to do: read, download, grab a ball and we'll see you on the pitch.

Love, peace and tekkers, Billy & Jez, aka The F2

The word disaster is much used in the world of soccer - conceding a penalty, a sending off, an untimely defeat. Comparing these with real life disasters puts things into perspective and the results of the games become insignificant. Soccer is not more important than life or death!
For the first time, real life tragedies in the world of soccer are explored in one volume. From the loss of life of talented young players in the Munich and Zambian air disasters to fatal overcrowding at Hillsborough and Moscow. During the history of the game, fans and players alike have been the victims of negligence, complacency and misfortune. The causes, consequences and legacies of these and other disasters are examined in this book that reveals frightening parallels and important lessons.
A powerful book suitable for students of sociology, sports studies and social history.
This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Sport in the Global Society.

For three months every year football clubs buy and sell people. They spend more than £4 billion a year on footballers, and for good reason; the right deal can help you win the game's top prizes while the wrong deal can cost you your job and bankrupt your club. It is a fast-paced, at times murky and cutthroat world worth billions, which largely operated behind closed doors - until Jim White and Kaveh Solhekol stepped in, that is. In Deadline Day, Jim and Kaveh, two of the world's leading transfer experts, take us behind the scenes of this uniquely tense, make-or-break element to the game. They talk of the world's most famous players, managers and agents - Jose Mourinho, Sir Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola amongst others - to get to the heart of the most significant deals in history, as well as the ones that got away. But has the time come for football to slam shut the transfer window for good? Is it, after all, more scandal than strategy? Perceptive, entertaining and dynamically told, Jim and Kaveh reckon with questions integral to the future of the game in this definitive, never-before-told inside story of football's transfer window.

El Más Grande is the story of Argentina's biggest and most successful football club, River Plate. From their humble origins in the southern districts of Buenos Aires, River grew into one of the largest clubs in South America, earning the nickname 'The Millionaires' as they established themselves at the iconic Monumental Stadium. Over the years, River have propelled some of the greatest talents on the continent to fame, whilst enchanting generations of fans with their stylish play. The book journeys back to the 'máquina' team of the 1940s, arguably the most attractive club side of the pre-television era, with its fabled frontline of Moreno, Loustau, Pedernera, Labruna and Muñoz. It takes us through the great sides of the 1950s, 70s and 90s right up to the all-conquering reign of present coach Marcelo Gallardo. Along the way, we discover the great players who have worn the distinctive white shirt with the red sash - from Bernabé Ferreyra, Alfredo Di Stéfano and Enzo Francescoli to Manchester City's new signing Julián �lvarez.

The 1870 Education Act that opened up elementary education for all children contained no provision for outdoor games. This book explains how teachers, through the elementary school football association, introduced boys to organised football as an out-of-school activity. The influence and significance of this work, insofar as it relates to the elementary school curriculum and the growth of professional and amateur football are explored in detail, including:
* How ideological commitments and contemporary concerns for the physical welfare of children in cities may have led teachers to promote schoolboy football when it was not permitted during school hours.
* The extent to which out of school organised football may have led to outdoor games being accepted as part of the school curriculum
* How elementary school football in London in the late nineteenth century influenced the development of the amateur game
This is a fascinating account of the origins of schoolboy football and the factors that have influenced its development and the consequences and benefits that have followed not only for school football but for sport in schools and communities as a whole.

Manchester United is a football club like no other. The most popular sports club in history, it has an annual turnover of over pound]130 million and a stock market value that has topped pound]1 billion. Its triumph as an international commercial venture matches its success on the pitch in the UK's Premier League and in stadiums throughout Europe. At this time in late capitalism when the boundaries between cultural and commercial concerns have become increasingly invisible, Manchester United, the football club, provides us with a fascinating study in the evolution of sporting, social, cultural and economic change. In this, the first book to offer a rigorous, theoretically grounded treatment of the Manchester United phenomenon, leading academics from diverse backgrounds have written chapters, each interrogating a particular aspect of our central theme, Manchester United FC. The result is a unique contribution to our understanding of Manchester United in particular, and, perhaps more significantly, of contemporary sporting and popular culture in general.

The 1870 Education Act that opened up elementary education for all children contained no provision for outdoor games. This book explains how teachers, through the elementary school football association, introduced boys to organised football as an out-of-school activity. The influence and significance of this work, insofar as it relates to the elementary school curriculum and the growth of professional and amateur football are explored in detail, including:
* How ideological commitments and contemporary concerns for the physical welfare of children in cities may have led teachers to promote schoolboy football when it was not permitted during school hours.
* The extent to which out of school organised football may have led to outdoor games being accepted as part of the school curriculum
* How elementary school football in London in the late nineteenth century influenced the development of the amateur game
This is a fascinating account of the origins of schoolboy football and the factors that have influenced its development and the consequences and benefits that have followed not only for school football but for sport in schools and communities as a whole.

The 1930s saw the birth of the football idol - prototype for today's powerful media sport stars.
The players of the 1930s were the first generation of professionals, yet until recently the life and careers of footballers of this generation has been little studied.
In 1930s Britain, football became increasingly commercialized, and the rise and development of both local and national media enabled players to become widely recognized outside of their immediate local context for the first time.
Tracing the origins, playing careers and 'afterlives' of several First Division players of the era, Graham Kelly's revealing history explores the reality of living in Britain between the wars and draws interesting comparisons with lives of the modern football hero today.

Football in the New Media Age analyzes the impact of media change on the football industry, drawing on extensive interviews with key people in the media and football industry. It examines the finances of the game; the rising importance of rights and rights management in the industry; and attempts by clubs to develop their own media capacity. At the core of the book is an examination of the battle for control of the game as media, business and fans all seek to redefine the sport in the twenty-first century. Football is rarely out of the headlines, with stories about star players misbehaving, clubs facing financial meltdown, or TV companies battling over broadcast rights dominating much of the mainstream news and current affairs agenda.The impact of the vast amounts of money paid to elite footballers, and the inability of young men to cope with this when combined with their media-fuelled celebrity status, have frequently made headlines. At the core of this process is the battle to control a game that has exploited its position as a key 'content provider' for new media over the last decade, and this book provides the examiniation and analysis to study this problem.

This book explores various aspects of intranational elite football in Africa, drawing on the expertise of notable scholars from across the world. Africa's Elite Football focuses on an area largely ignored by current scholarship on African football, where interest has focused on international migration. In exploring the intranational, the book is written in two parts. The first is a general focus on the continent, and the second is an examination of country cases. The general focus of the book is on the nature of elite tier leagues, the relationship between politics and football, the media, youth academies, intranational migration and fans. Notably, chapters on topics such as intranational migration present groundbreaking scholarship in this area. Currently, football discourses on migration focus on international migration of footballers, yet the majority of migration in African football is intranational. Thus, by addressing the intranational, this book brings attention to an area that is underrepresented in the current academic discourse. The second part of the book, which focuses on country cases, covers Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The topics explored in those cases include religiosity, health, women's football, media and management. The coverage of health-related issues is particularly important given that several books on African football rarely broach such a topic. With its unique approach to African football, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of sports history, African studies, politics in sports and African sports.

'The most important (thing) is to play,' Srna said, 'to show the world that we are still alive, that we are fighting, that we are living, that we will have a good future.' In 2014, the conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine began - and top football club Shakhtar Donetsk has since been in exile. This book tells their story; inevitably a story of the conflict and the recent Russian invasion but also a testament to the power of the game and the will of the players. It is ultimately a footballing story, exploring the experience and meaning of being a Shakhtar player through the lens of a country in the shadow of a huge aggressive neighbour. There are moments of direct impact (such as when a youth coach was killed by Russian shelling earlier in 2022) but also what it means to just go out on the field and play, freely. Andy Brassell is a European football expert and has followed this story for years; he regards Shakhtar as the 'Barcelona of Eastern Europe'. This book celebrates the team and its achievements, while paying tribute to an occupied nation.

Black and White Knight: How Sir Bobby Robson Made Newcastle United Again is a story of rebirth and redemption. Fractured, disillusioned and second bottom in the Premier League, the Magpies were heading one way under Ruud Gullit: down. The magic of Kevin Keegan's 'Entertainers' era was a distant memory, but in September 1999, Sir Bobby Robson, a son of County Durham, returned home and became a catalyst for change. Talisman Alan Shearer was smiling and scoring, and everyone was dreaming again. Three years later, Newcastle qualified for the Champions League, where they went toe-to-toe with the likes of Inter Milan, Barcelona and Juventus, making history on an amazing journey and playing a brand of football full of energy, verve and attacking intent. A genius in man-management, Sir Bobby's experience and aura gave the club its soul back; Black and White Knight details how he mended divisions and massaged egos to make Newcastle everyone's second favourite team once again.