The issue of ownership within Scottish football is a rapdily changing landscape. Through a series of adventures, Paul Goodwin has found himself to be Scotland’s expert in buying and running football clubs. Filled with interesting stories, knowledge and insight this book is easily accesible to football fans and, indeed, future club owners. From exploring the history of club ownership, to the worldwide examples with examples from South America, Sweden and more, and an insight into the future of the Scottish football landscape this is a must read for not only Scottish fans but of fans of the game worldwide.

Paul Rance reports on all 64 matches at the 2006 World Cup in Germany - from his armchair. From Germany's sparkling opening to Zinedine Zidane's headbutt on Italian defender Marco Materazzi, the author records, in eccentric fashion, the notable moments from one of the best World Cups of recent times - complete with all of the results, goal scorers and attendances.

Those We Have Loved is an epic odyssey through the bleakest backwaters of English Football League history, the story of the 30 sides voted, or otherwise removed, from the competition between 1888-1988. Colourful contemporary match reports, in-depth background detail and modern analysis combine to tell the alternate history of English football; the story of lives lived for the most part at the lower end of the League, but every one tinged with glory and triumph alongside the final tragedies. Fully revised and updated to note the rebirth of at least a few of the clubs featured, it is a reminder that many of those we have loved are still beloved today. Featuring: Aberdare, Accrington Stanley, Ashington, Barrow, Bootle, Bradford PA, Burton Swifts/United/Wanderers, Darwen, Durham, Gainsborough T, Gateshead, Glossop NE, Leeds City, Loughborough, Merthyr Town, Middlesbrough Ironopolis, Nelson, New Brighton/Tower, Newport, Northwich V, South Shields, Southport, Stalybridge, Thames, Wigan Borough, Workington

Football. Bloody hell.'

The longest serving and most successful manager in British football history shocked the world by finally retiring in May 2013 and instantly created more column inches and twitter mentions that the death of Margaret Thatcher. And he wasn’t just the greatest, but also one of the most outspoken, engaging and witty voices from the game, as this book proves. Here is the history of his supreme verbal sparring during his years at Manchester United - the man in his own words (with a few additional thoughts from those who knew him best and crossed swords with him most).

'There's nothing wrong with losing your temper once in a while if it's for the right reasons'

'If he was an inch taller he’d be the best centre-half in Britain. His father is 6ft 2in – I’d check the milkman' On Gary Neville

'He could start a row in an empty house' On Denis Wise

'The list of gentle, naturally retiring men who have been successful in their attempts at running clubs isn't a long one, is it?

There is only one Arsène Wenger - and for the very first time, in his own words, this is his story.

In this definitive autobiography, the world-renowned, revolutionary football manager discusses his life and career, sharing his leadership principles for success on and off the field. At Arsenal, Wenger won multiple Premier League titles, a record number of FA Cups, and masterminded the historic 'Invincibles' season of 2003-2004. He changed the game in England forever, popularising an attacking approach and changing attitudes towards nutrition, fitness and coaching methods - and towards foreign managers. The book charts his extraordinary career, from his rise in France and Japan where he managed Nancy, Monaco and Nagoya Grampus Eight - clubs that also play in red-and-white - to his twenty-two years at the helm in north London.

A must-read not only for Arsenal supporters but football fans everywhere, MY LIFE IN RED AND WHITE illuminates the mystique surrounding one of the most respected managers in the world's most popular sport.

Bleed White is the story of Leeds United in the new Millennium. At the turn of the century a young vibrant team had ambitions to challenge the domination of Manchester United and Arsenal and by the 1st January 2002 they sat proudly at the top of the Premier League arguably the best league in Europe. But disaster was around the corner. Mismanagement both on and off the field saw the club fall into serious financial difficulty. Managers and players came and went and the club was relegated from the Premier League in May 2004. The downfall continued and they were relegated from the Championship in May 2007 and started in the third tier of British football for the first time in the club's history. The club had also been put into administration and to make matters worse they were forced to start the next season with a fifteen point penalty following a dispute with the Inland Revenue which caused them to break Football League rules. But the club is on the way back and after three long years in Division One, the future is looking much brighter. Ken Bates the Chairman has restored financial stability and Simon Grayson an excellent young manager who happens to be a fan and ex Leeds player has given the fans hope at last. This story is a fan's view of what happened at Leeds United Football Club during those eventful years. The book covers issues both on and off the pitch and has been written from two different perspectives - wearing a level headed business hat one minute and a passionate Leeds United baseball cap the next. Business objectivity meets football fan emotion and they hate each other.

Liverpool Football Club, in stark contrast to its competitors, remains locally owned, not a conglomerate or media business. Unlike its main rivals, the Liverpool club has been loathe to pursue global markets for merchandizing - though it attracts a huge fandom around the world - and its ambitions remain resolutely fixed on footballing success. No football club has ever had such an extended period of dominance in the English game, nor extended that dominance to Europe so effectively.
Many of the current crop of top young players are locally born and are a central feature of the city's nightlife, as well as national icons in pop/football/youth culture. But there are fears that the Club's great days have now passed. At the height of its powers in the 1980s, Liverpool FC was the site of two catastrophic crowd disasters, which effectively transformed the sport and added to wounding perceptions about the city's alleged sentimentality, fatalism and irreversible decline. The legacy of the Heysel and Hillsborough tragedies continues to shape the self-image of the Club and those who support it. A seething rivalry with nearby corporate giant Manchester United is a constant reminder of football's new order.
Addressing all of these concerns, as well as Liverpool's global reputation as the home of the Beatles and the 'Mersey sound', this book takes an original approach to the study of football by examining its links with other important popular culture forms, especially pop music, but also television and youth styles. In particular, however, it looks at the very special meaning of football in Liverpool.

Cyrille Regis' story is a compelling one on so many levels. The story of his migration from the French Caribbean to a racially divided West London in the 1960s, his development as a semi-professional footballer and his subsequent move to a top-flight Football League club, followed by national recognition and glory, while still facing racial hatred is a tale in itself. The book begins at Buckingham Palace in 2008, when Cyrille Regis received his MBE, recognition for his services to football and the community. This fascinating autobiography describes the battles Cyrille faced as a child and teenager before he turned professional and achieved great things as a footballer. As well as detailing the glorious moments in his career, it studies the impact that he and his black teammates had on the sociological outlook of football fans. The book concludes with a review of Cyrille Regis' life after he retired as a footballer and his work in the community.

Which Scunthorpe defender was tapped up in the dressing rooms by Brian Clough? Who helped get him changed on top of Princess Diana's car? What did the club's record goalscorer really think about the manager sacked in a promotion season? How does it feel to miss a penalty at Wembley? Win the European Cup? And how on earth did a future England captain manage to break the club's tractor? Throughout their 120 year-plus history, Scunthorpe United have been many things... But boring? Never! Following extensive archive research and exclusive interviews with ex-managers and players spanning seven decades, 20 Legends: Scunthorpe United is packed with stories aplenty. From breath-taking cup upsets, to the raw ecstasy of promotion, the agonies of failure, lifelong friendships, boardroom coups, and good old-fashioned fallings-out; the people in the heat of the action spill the beans like never before. Each chapter tells a different story; focusing on a legend apiece from the club's history and sharing their adventures throughout the beautiful game. Brian Laws also provides the foreword. If you really want to get under the skin of a brilliant, bonkers football club at the very heart of its community; then look no further than 20 Legends: Scunthorpe United.

The 1939 Arsenal side is firing on all cylinders and celebrating a string of victories. They appear unstoppable, but the Trojans - a side of amateurs who are on a winning streak of their own - may be about to silence the Gunners. Moments into the second half the whistle blows, but not for a goal or penalty. One of the Trojans has collapsed on the pitch. By the end of the day, he is dead. Gribble's unique mystery, featuring the actual Arsenal squad of 1939, sends Inspector Anthony Slade into the world of professional football to investigate a case of deadly foul play on and off the pitch.

He is the larger-than-life figure who bounced back from rejection at 16 and graduated from parks pitches to become a Premier League goalkeeper, and later represent his country. Paddy Kenny's career was certainly not straightforward... just like his life. In his autobiography, Kenny lifts the lid on his time on and off the football field - including dressing-room rucks, being beaten for the Premier League's most famous goal and having his eyebrow bitten off in a curry house, just days before he faced Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Manchester United. This is Kenny's story... and the gloves are well and truly off.

FIFA, the world governing body of association football, declared 'The Future is Feminine' in a 1995 press release. Since then, football has been claimed as the fastest growing participation sport for women globally. An estimated twenty million women play the game around the world, and that figure is on the rise. However, the history of women's participation goes back to at least 1895 and in our enthusiasm for the present, the memory of that longer history can be overlooked or forgotten. A Beautiful Game, supported by a two-year FIFA/ CIES Joao Havelange Research Scholarship, examines contemporary women's football internationally, with case studies from England, the United States, China and Australia. In each case study, Jean Williams considers the evolution of the women's game against a backdrop of issues, such as media representation, access to facilities, lack of resources, coaching, sponsorship, talent identification, training and professionalisation. T he author examines contentious questions, such as why women are absent from the highest levels of professional football, combining source material from archives, oral history and artefacts. A Beautiful Game analyses the status and image of the women's game from the late nineteenth century to the shifting social values of the present.

" Coach Dorrance] knows what it takes to win, and that is very rare. He makes another kind of investment in his players beyond just training: he cares about them as people. He knows what motivates certain types of players and ties it all in to team chemistry and camaraderie."

"-Mia Hamm, retired American professional soccer player and first woman inducted into the World Football Hall of Fame (2013). She trained under Anson Dorrance (1989-1993), helping the Tar Heels win four NCAA championships."

"Anson has an excellent understanding of athletes, and his theories on player development are very astute. He has had a truly remarkable career. He would be a great coach in any sport."

"-Dean Smith, retired University of North Carolina men's basketball coach (1961-1997)."Coaching legend" Smith trained several NBA players including Michael Jordan and is a Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinee (1983)."

Do you have what it takes to train champions?

"In Training Soccer Champions," leading NCAA coach Anson Dorrance shares the secrets to creating and maintaining a winning team. Dorrance explains his philosophies, provides practical lessons, and reflects on his experience, offering the invaluable perspective of one of the world's outstanding coaches.

"Training Soccer Champions" digs deep into the psychology of the female athlete and conveys the principles of coaching to benefit average and high-performing teams alike. Field strategy, motivational techniques, team dynamics, and much more are discussed in this must-have guide to coaching. With countless championship titles and numerous awards, Anson Dorrance knows what it takes to win, and now you can too.

As the 1994 World Cup Finals in the United States clearly demonstrated, football is the quintessential global game. One of the world's most popular arenas for the expression of conflict and emotion, it is virtually unparalleled as a site for cultural analysis. Players, officials, supporters and commentators all have key roles in a social drama incorporating the deeply symbolic and ritualistic. A powerful vehicle for ideals of masculinity, football also offers penetrating insights into the iconography of the body; manifestations of rivalry and conflict; discourses of knowledge; expressions of communitas and geo-social belonging; the celebration and denigration of the Other; and the inversion of power hierarchies through carnival.In bringing these themes together, this accessible and absorbing book by leading scholars of sport and leisure reveals football's differing meanings across cultures. It will be of interest to students and scholars in cultural studies, anthropology, sports sciences and, more simply, to anyone with a passion for this global game.

Although the European Court of Justice ruled in Bosman (1995) that professional sportsmen and sportswomen are free at the end of their contracts, they are still at the mercy of the clubs that employ them. Such pretexts as the "special nature" of sport publicly urged by such European eminences as Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder have institutionalized the human trafficking of players, depriving them of basic rights guaranteed under all the laws enjoyed by Europeans. They may be well-paid as long as they are in the limelight, but they have no surety. They can be, and are, bought and sold repeatedly, each time returning profits to those who trade in their athletic prowess. In this searing indictment, Professor Blanpain underscores the demonstrable illegality of the current transfer system imposed by the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA). He describes in detail the complex ramifications of FIFA's rules in the lives of players, clearly revealing how the fundamental rights of players to free movement and freedom of labour are systematically denied. He calls for the courts, from the European Court of Justice on down, to recognize this illegality and act to enforce the Bosman judgement. Professor Blanpain examines all the crucial legal issues involved. These include the following: the classification of sportsmen and sportswomen as "workers"; the nature of the contract between player and club; the legal capacity of minors to enter into an employment contract; the trade in foreign (frequently African and South American) players with no legal rights in Europe; disciplinary rules; training compensation fees; placement and status of players' agents; dispute resolution; and conflicts with competition law. An extensive array of documents, including the FIFA Transfer Regulations and material leading to the March 2001 agreement between FIFA and the European Commission, is included in a series of annexes.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023 - SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR THE OFFICIAL DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF BBC SPORTS REPORT ‘Opens the doors to one of the great radio institutions.' – Dan Walker ‘An absolute joy to read.’ – John Inverdale 'That opening tune always quickens the pulse.' – Henry Winter Sports Report is as much a 75-year history of sport as a BBC radio institution and Pat Murphy pays handsome tribute to a programme that is still followed affectionately by millions. For nearly 75 years, one BBC programme has been a constant factor in chronicling the way sport is covered, in all its many facets. It has been a window on the sporting world all over the globe – packed tightly into every Saturday evening for the bulk of the year. First broadcast in 1948, Sports Report is the longest-running radio sporting programme in the world and one of the BBC’s hardy perennials. Pat Murphy has been a reporter on the programme since 1981 and here he sifts comprehensively through the experiences of his contemporaries and those who made their mark on Sports Report in earlier decades. He hears from commentators, reporters, producers, presenters and the production teams who regularly achieved the broadcasting miracle of getting a live programme on air, without a script, adapting as the hour of news, reaction and comment unfolded. Drawing on unique access from the BBC Archives Unit, he highlights memorable moments from Sports Report, details the challenges faced in getting live interviews on air from draughty, noisy dressing-room areas and celebrates the feat of just a small production team in the studio who, somehow, get the show up and running every Saturday, with the clock ticking implacably on. --- Waterstones Best Books of 2022 – Sport

Manchester, 2018: Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho lead their teams out to face each other in the 175th Manchester derby. They are first and second in the Premier League, but today only one man can come out on top. It is merely the latest instalment in a rivalry that has contested titles, traded insults and crossed a continent, but which can be traced back to a friendship that began almost 25 years ago. Barcelona, late-nineties: Johan Cruyff's Dream Team is disintegrating and the revolutionary manager has departed, but what will come next will transform the future of football. Cruyff's style has changed the game, and given birth to a generation of thinkers: men like Ronald Koeman, Luis Enrique, Laurent Blanc, Frank de Boer, Louis van Gaal, and Cruyff's club captain Pep Guardiola and a young translator, Jose Mourinho. The Barcelona Legacy is a book in part about tactics, about how the theories that underpin the modern game were forged by Cruyff and his successors, but also about the people and personalities who gathered at the Camp Nou for what was effectively the greatest coaching seminar in history, about their friendships and rivalries and, in one case, an apocalyptic falling out that continues to shape the game today.