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

When Jurgen Klopp was appointed Liverpool manager in October 2015, the world took notice, and Reds fans were united in optimism for the first time in years. The charismatic German eventually took the club to European and world success, but the foundations were laid in his first two years at Anfield, and Kloppite (first published in 2017 and updated in 2020) explores how the bespectacled coach set about reigniting the LFC flame in that period - not only trying to change the fortunes of the once-dominant club, but also making the people believe again. After his successes at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund, Klopp left Germany to take on his greatest challenge as he sought to return the Merseysiders to the summit of English and European football. The hot-seat at Anfield has often been described as one of the toughest jobs in football, and Klopp was tasked with overcoming the adversity of fan expectations, competing against some of the game's best managers and biggest spenders, and turning doubters into believers.

Whether it's called soccer, football, or the world's game, soccer is fun and has been deemed the most popular sport in the world. Soccer is about motion. Physics is about the laws of motion, and it can be applied to ball games. Combining soccer and physics is one way to appreciate the high-speed aspects of the sport. In The Physics of Soccer, author Deji Badiru introduces basic mathematics and science concepts in an interesting, useful, and engaging way to enhance how the game is played.

The Physics of Soccer teaches both players and coaches how to look at soccer in a new way-beyond the physical undertaking it represents-to understand the marvels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics that give soccer its life, power, and thrills.

With a background as both a scientist and soccer coach, Badiru also examines the science behind game scenarios, field-based decisions, the geometry of field play, and strategies for assessing the implications of directional motions of opponents and teammates on the field. The Physics of Soccer is an essential resource for any team looking for an advantage that can make the difference between just playing, and winning.

The Celtic v Rangers clash in Glasgow is one of football's major events, attracting a huge TV audience worldwide. Author David Potter revels in the joy that a victory over the old rivals brings to the Celtic support, reliving some of the club's greatest ever derby-day triumphs from the 1890s right up to date. Here is an expert selection of 50 such legendary occasions, rich in detail and atmosphere, and all the topic of fervent discussion over the years. We hear of Jimmy Quinn's hat-trick in 1904, the astonishing Scottish Cup semi-final of 1925, the 7-1 Scottish League Cup Final of 1957, the 4-0 thrashing in the 1969 Scottish Cup Final, the 6-2 'Demolition Derby' of 2000, plus many landmark games of a more recent vintage. Celtic's greatest players - Henrik Larsson, Jimmy McGrory, Patsy Gallacher, Charlie Tully, Jimmy Johnstone, Billy McNeill and Scott Brown - appear frequently in these pages, as do many others who all played their part in what is traditionally the greatest party of them all, when Celtic beat Rangers!

"In this Annual, we take you closer to the team you love. There is a detailed look back at both Gareth Southgate's men's season and also the women's - including analysis of the UEFA Women's Euro 2022. We learn more about both team members through squad profiles and articles on captains Harry Kane and Steph Houghton. Elsewhere there are a variety of special features, insider looks and fun facts, as well as games and puzzles for everyone to enjoy. The Official England Annual 2023 is a must-read for England fans! COME ON ENGLAND!"

Dundee FC On This Day is a journey, in diary form, through the history of the famous Dark Blues. All the major events are covered in detail to give the reader a feel for the ups and downs experienced by The Dee since its formation in 1893. With individual entries for every day, the book includes all the club's big matches - from the joy of title wins and cup runs to the pain of relegations and administrations. Dundee FC has enjoyed a long, rich history and the book records the five major trophy wins, the runs to two European semi-finals, the Dee-Fiant season, the promotions, significant events, sensational signings and memorable derby wins over Dundee United. The Scottish League championship win in 1962 and the Scottish and League Cup victories are countered by the turmoil of relegations, missed promotions and the two administration periods which almost saw the Dens Park doors closed for good. Being a Dundee fan is a rollercoaster journey, and Dundee FC On This Day perfectly captures the thrill of the ride.

For any normal individual, a round the world trip of a lifetime would mean abandoning all thoughts of everyday life and embracing a jetset lifestyle. Not so David Blatt. While his long-suffering wife Helene embarked upon a 90,000 mile global odyssey with thoughts of ticking-off as many of the world's wonders as possible, David felt the magnetic pull of the other love of his life, Manchester United, and the prospect of a whole year without watching Eric's Disciples on Earth. As David proves in "The Red Eye", it is now possible to watch the world's most famous club from almost any part of the globe, with the honourable exception of the Galapagos Islands. From India to Brazil via most points in between, he catches The Reds on dodgy internet streams, at the back of beachside cafes, in restaurants, Aussie pubs and overcrowded hostel reception areas, while Helene plans the next day's breathtaking trip to the likes of the Taj Mahal or Machu Picchu. What emerges is a sharply humorous and insightful account of a trip across four continents with the protagonists often at odds over the purpose of the day: Magnificent Utopia or Manchester United...No contest!

Kerry's life in recent years has been bedevilled by problems with gambling, drugs and, worst of all, a prison sentence in 2015 after he was convicted of grievous bodily harm following a fight in a pub. At that point, one of football's golden boys finally hit rock bottom. This book is the honest, unflinching account of his rise and fall, and of the new life he is now slowly and patiently building. His memories of playing in a more robust era of the game, before the days of multi-million-pound salaries and all the rest of the modern football circus, will appeal to plenty of nostalgic football fans, as well as to all those who remember him as one of the game's all-time greats. Equally, his unflinching recollections of his darkest days, culminating in his time in prison, are about as far from the Beautiful Game as anyone can imagine. The world is all too familiar with tales of once-famous footballers falling from grace.Up Front, however, is unique at once for its flashes of humour in adversity, its clear-eyed reflections on a different age of football, when leading players could all too easily be treated as disposable, and finally for its humility. For Kerry Dixon, as this often moving autobiography shows, the only way is up.

This handy "how-to" food guide addresses the nutrition questions and concerns of soccer athletes of all ages and abilities to help them achieve success with energy to spare. Soccer athletes are hungry for good nutrition information. They have lots of food questions: * What should I eat before a game? * What about sports drinks? * How much protein should I be eating? Food Guide for Soccer: Tips & Recipes from the Pros will answer those questions-plus others. This easy-to-read book offers practical tips, debunks nutrition myths, and is a simple "how-to" resource for soccer players, their coaches and parents. The text is sprinkled with quotes from professional soccer players as well as recipes, sample menus, and nutrition sidebars.

In Soccer Goalkeeper Training the authors explain and show through detailed photos and coaching points the physical and technical skills required for novice goalkeepers to improve their current level with easy to follow progressions. Another topic is how to make decisions in tactical situations on the soccer field, for example using communication as a tool for organizing the field player of one's team. The authors also delve into the more advanced and scientific areas of periodization and mental preparation used by the most accomplished goalkeepers in Major League Soccer and the US National Team to achieve ultimate success at the highest levels of the game. Hereby, some psychological aspects covered by the book are the relationship between goalkeepers and their coaches and giving feedback. Also, readers will find a training guide which is divided into exercises by various themes. Whether you are an aspiring young goalkeeper or a more advanced collegiate player, regardless of the level of goalkeeper you currently coach, Soccer Goalkeeper Training will have something to help bring out the best in you and your most important player.

Who is Harry Redknapp? Football genius or football chancer? Master tactician or practical joker? How is it that even when he was facing court proceedings for tax evasion so many people were still seriously tipping him to be the next England manager? How can one man have two such diametrically opposed and incompatible career trajectories? Does the longing to have an English manager in charge of the national side warp people's thinking?

To Portsmouth fans, Redknapp was the man who walked on water and won them an FA Cup. To Southampton fans, he is still the devil incarnate who had them relegated before jumping ship to their arch rivals. Spurs fans weren't sure what he was, and they didn't care as long as he kept the team together and winning and qualifying for the UEFA Champion's League. Then he accepted the challenge at relegation threatened Queen's Park Rangers...

Sometimes he's the Messiah, at others the clown. Whoever he is, Crace is determined to find out.

The Beckham enigma continues. Since the publication of Cashmore's challenging social biography in 2003, the working-class kid from the East London has left Manchester and conquered the world. Undisputedly one of the world's most famous men, Beckham has transcended sport to become an all-purpose cultural icon for the twenty-first century.

What are the sources of Beckham's godlike status? Why does someone who looks good, but speaks in platitudes and does little but play football, command the adulation of the planet? By dissecting his life and setting it in context of the age of celebrity, Cashmore argues that Beckham has been turned into a product, a commodity that can be bought and sold like any other piece of merchandise. There is not just a person named Beckham: there are countless Beckhams that exist independently of time and space, constructions of peoples' imaginations.

The second edition of Beckham updates the original's arguments, covering the events that have shaped the Beckham phenomenon: the Flying Boot that symbolized the growing disquiet at Manchester United, the replacement of his first agents SFX with Simon Fuller (the creator of Pop Idol), the failed attempt to capture a US market, the growing presence of adidas, the sportswear giants, and the transfer saga that took Beckham to Madrid - and his influence beyond.

Among the other features of the second edition are chapters on: Manchester United, the club that provided Beckham with his first showcase; Rupert Murdoch's takeover of British football; Beckham's ambiguous sexual image and his gay following; the importance of Madonna in kick-starting the age of celebrity in which Beckham prospered; Beckham's curious relationships with the legacy of Warhol.

Completely revised and updated, the new text emphasizes the often overlooked part played by Victoria in the making of the icon and the guile with which she helped plan an enterprise that had no precedents.

Half a century on from his Wembley hat-trick, England World Cup winner Sir Geoff Hurst risks controversy as he narrows down football's finest to a select 50. Which of his 1966 teammates have earned their place among the all-time greats? Would he have had Franz Beckenbauer in his XI ahead of Bobby Moore? What are his memories of playing against Pele and Eusebio? And which England stars of later generations would Sir Geoff have loved to play alongside? With first-hand tales of former teammates and rivals, along with tributes to those he's admired from the terraces, Geoff Hurst's Greats is essential reading for football fans of all ages.

This book is about the relationship between leisure and power. More specifically, it theorizes a group of supporters' attempts to control social space within and around English football stadiums. Not only is football a popular leisure form, it is also one which has undergone a remarkable process of transformation during the last 30 years. Advance surveillance techniques, all seater-stadia, rising ticket prices, and a growing intolerance to expressive modes of fandom have all transformed the experience of watching the professional game. Through these five chapters, Ian Woolsey asks how the collective responses of travelling football supporters to these major societal currents and changes within the game; liquid modernity and the post-1989 transformation of English football, are managed via the distinct and oft-competing processes of social spacing in football. An important inspiration for the book is the work of Zygmunt Bauman, particularly his ideas on cognitive, aesthetic, and moral 'spacings' as a social production. Ian Woolsey's powerful and persuasive application of these ideas not only extends Bauman's focus on the 'politics' of power in public space to include a consideration of leisure but in so doing shows that ethnography, selectively conducted and theoretically informed, can provide data for a rich, sociological account of a football world. The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of sociology of leisure, sociology of sport, criminology, and cultural studies.

From the controversy that surrounded Aberdeen FC's first cup semi-final, through the triumphant European golden era of the 80s to their long-awaited return to glory with their League Cup win in 2014, here are 50 of the club's most glorious, epochal and thrilling games of all. Aberdeen's isolation as a northerly football outpost has helped to forge their own remarkable story, as reflected in the games covered in this book. The Dons have a rich 115-year history that has been defined by their achievements on foreign shores rather than by battling local rivals. An irresistible cast list of club legends - manager Alex Ferguson, Gordon Strachan and Joe Harper, Willie Miller, Jim Leighton and Duncan Shearer - comes to life in these thrilling tales of goalscoring feats, Hampden glory and triumphs on foreign fields. As the club enters a new era, with relocation from their spiritual home of Pittodrie edging ever closer, Aberdeen Greatest Games reflects on unforgettable moments in the club's history that are guaranteed to make any fan's heart swell with pride.

Is there anyone who conducts themselves more decently than Gareth Southgate. Win, lose or draw, he is always dignified, measured, caring and affable, so shouldn't you... be more Gareth? Here are 100 scenarios, in which Gareth would behave with impeccable calmness, such as: Gareth would compliment you on your 'Rick Astley forever' tattoo. Gareth would never have a basket containing a 9th item in the 8-items-or-fewer queue. Gareth would let you watch a double-bill of 'Mama Mia' and 'The Greatest Showman' and appreciate your efforts at singing. The words 'diving foreigners', 'worst ref ever', or 'my asthmatic grandmother could have run faster', have never been part of his post-match interview. Perfect for the footy fan in your life, and publishing just ahead of the first winter World Cup in Qatar, Be More Gareth is the fun way to celebrate a thoroughly decent man!

Got, Not Got: The Lost World of Manchester City is an Aladdin's cave of memories and memorabilia, guaranteed to whisk you back to Maine Road's fondly remembered 'Golden Age' of mud and magic - as well as a City-mad childhood of miniature tabletop games and imaginary, comic-fuelled worlds. The book recalls a more innocent era of football, lingering longingly over relics from the good old days - Blues stickers and petrol freebies, league ladders, big-match programmes and much more - revisiting lost football culture, treasures and pleasures that are 100 per cent Manchester City. If you were a Junior Blue, one of the army of obsessive soccer kids at any time from when Joe Mercer's lads won the league to the early days of the Premier League, then this is the book to recall the mavericks - Marsh and Bell, Summerbee, Tueart and White - and the marvels of the Lost World of Football.

Glasgow Rangers began the year in the doldrums - and they stayed there for a good few months, struggling to make fifth spot in a ten-team league. That was until the dramatic events of Tuesday, 8 April 1986. From that day forward, Glasgow Rangers changed forever; Graeme Souness saw to that. Fresh from Serie A - which at that time was almost certainly the toughest league in the world - Souness came home to Scotland to become Rangers' player/manager; he took the club by the scruff of the neck and didn't stop shaking until he'd made them the best team in Scotland - and by some distance. He reversed the trend of the best Scottish players heading south to ply their trade in England, and encouraged the English trio of Terry Butcher, Chris Woods and Graham Roberts to head to Ibrox. It was the year Souness gave Rangers supporters back their swagger. With new insightful interviews with the key players, chief protagonists and those who were at the heart of the turnaround, 1986: The Rangers Revolution tells the full story of what happened at Ibrox in 1986, quite a year to be a Ranger!

Inglory, Inglory Man United chronicles the travails of United in the 1980s from the perspective of a diehard schoolboy Red Devil. Warrington-born (equidistant from Manchester and Liverpool for those who might not know), young Jamie Magill could legitimately have opted for the multiple-title winners from Anfield... but where was the fun in that? Who wanted the suet puddings of league championships and European Cups when you had the souffle of Ron Atkinson that might rise in the FA Cup every now and then? And who really cared about Europe before the Champions League? This is not just a story of pills, thrills and bellyaches; tears before crispy pancakes, fizz bombs and Juliet Bravo. It also provides an insight into who you are: a glory boy or a loyal supporter? Sticker or twister? Dumb, complacent roundhead or romantic cavalier? The fluffy dice you want to roll is better than the championship medal you don't have. The 1980s were a disaster, in terms of silverware; but they were fabulous entertainment for those who were there: soap opera storylines all the way. Not convinced? These five words should entice any United fan: Michael Knighton and Ralph Milne.

This is the ultimate quiz book on Coventry City Football Club. The perfect gift for Sky Blues fans of all ages, it is sure to brighten up long match-day journeys and provide some entertaining trips down memory lane. From the earliest days of Singers FC, to the glory-filled promotion years under Jimmy Hill, from cup calamities to winning at Wembley, and from the thirty four unbroken years of top-flight football to recent relegations, all Coventry City topics are covered here. This book will test your knowledge of all shades of Sky Blue history. If you know it, or think you know it, check it out here and settle your Sky Blue scores.

Got, Not Got: The Lost World of Southampton is an Aladdin's cave of memories and memorabilia, guaranteed to whisk you back to The Dell's fondly remembered 'Golden Age' of mud and magic - as well as a Saints-mad childhood of miniature tabletop games and imaginary, comic-fuelled worlds. The book recalls a more innocent era of football, lingering longingly over relics from the good old days - Saints stickers and petrol freebies, league ladders, big-match programmes and much more - revisiting lost football culture, treasures and pleasures that are 100 per cent Southampton. If you were a Junior Saint, one of the army of obsessive soccer kids at any time from the Ted Bates era to the early days of the Premier League, then this is the book to recall the mavericks - Channon, Keegan and Stokes; Paine, Armstrong and Le Tissier - and the marvels of the lost world of football.

WINNER OF THE FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'This is a masterfully written history of the world's greatest football club. Mes que un book!' - GARY LINEKER From the bestselling co-author of Soccernomics comes the story of how FC Barcelona became the most successful football club in the world - and how that envied position now hangs in the balance. Barca is not just the world's most popular sports club, it is simply one of the most influential organisations on the planet. With almost 250 million followers on social media and 4 million visitors to its Camp Nou stadium each year, there's little wonder its motto is 'More than a club'. But it was not always so. In the past three decades, Barcelona has transformed from regional team to global powerhouse, becoming a model of sporting excellence and a consistent winner of silverware. Simon Kuper unravels exactly how these transformations took place. He outlines the organisational structure behind the club's business decisions, and details the work of its coaches, medics, data analysts and nutritionists who have revolutionised the sporting world. And, of course, he studies the towering influence of the club's two greatest legends, Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi. Like many leading global businesses, FC Barcelona closely guards its secrets, granting few outsiders a view behind the scenes. But, after decades of writing about the sport and the club, Kuper was given unprecedented access to the inner sanctum and to the people who strive daily to keep Barcelona at the top. Erudite, personal, and capturing all the latest successes and upheavals, his portrait of this incredible institution goes beyond football to understand Barca as a unique social, cultural, and political phenomenon. "I began my research thinking I was going to be explaining Barca's rise to greatness, and I have, but I've also ended up charting the decline and fall."