Have you ever wanted to visit the most scenic, historic or important football grounds in Britain, but weren't sure where to start or what to include? In British Football's Greatest Grounds, Mike Bayly offers a bucket list of places to watch football in England, Wales and Scotland as chosen by fans across the world.This first-of-its-kind book introduces the reader to a diverse and often breathtaking range of Britain's football venues. In addition to the oldest, biggest and highest our nation has to offer, it covers lesser-known grounds nestling next to castles, beaches, churches and mountain ranges, as well as modern Premier League stadiums in major cities. Featuring beautiful images taken by acclaimed sports photographers, along with written contributions from respected industry figures, British Football's Greatest Grounds is part guide, part love letter to the history, people and places that showcase the best of our unique football landscape. It's sure to leave you planning a future football trip.

The Matilda Effect is the exciting, inspiring, sometimes infuriating and always colourful story of the Australian women's football (soccer) team, the Matildas, and their ultimately successful struggle, alongside other women from around the world, to compete in World Cup football. From the 1980s, when women had to pay to participate in the pilot Women's World Cup, to 2019, when the principle of equal pay for women players was finally accepted amid surging interest in their game, the voices of key figures emerge. A book at once about and not about sport, and with a throughline of human rights and gender equality history, The Matilda Effect takes the reader out of the stands and onto the pitch, into the team's hotels, buses, boardrooms and social media universe, where positive change has been wrestled into being.

This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of the different environmental strategies adopted in the football world to foster sustainability. The authors lay out useful insights, both for scholars and practitioners, to improve good governance in football organisations by empowering environmental organisational and operational actions. As well as examining practical methods of implementing green initiatives, the book discusses their added value from different perspectives including football fans, football managers and policymakers. By identifying the most important green actions for the dissemination of environmentally friendly behaviours at both individual and organisational levels, the book demonstrates how football organisations can use operational and organisational methods to develop an environmental sustainability strategy. The book contributes to developing the role of the football world by covering different facets of sustainability such as the circular economy, climate change, green marketing, fans engagement and more. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of environmental management, sustainable business and corporate social responsibility, as well as professionals working in the football industry.

Well written and thoughtful. Takes us on a tour of some of Europe's most innovative football thinkers - Financial Times The future of football is now. Football's data revolution has only just begun. The arrival of advanced metrics and detailed analysis is already reshaping the modern game. We can now fully assess player performance, analyse the role of luck and measure what really leads to victory. There is no turning back. Now the race is on between football's wealthiest clubs and a group of outsiders, nerds and rule-breakers, who are turning the game on its head with their staggering innovations. Winning is no longer just about what happens out on the pitch, it's now a battle taking place in boardrooms and on screens across international borders with the world's brightest minds driving for an edge over their fiercest rivals. Christoph Biermann has moved in the midst of these disruptive upheavals, talking to scientists, coaches, managers, scouts and psychologists in the world's major clubs, traveling across Europe and the US and revealing the hidden - and often jaw-dropping - truths behind the beautiful game. 'A book full of exciting ideas and inside views on modern football. The most exciting book in an exciting time for football.' Thomas Hitzlsperger

All Together Now is one of the great sports stories. It's about a group of football fans who were determined to right a wrong. The authorities said they shouldn't try. People in football said it couldn't be done. Robbed of their beloved club, Wimbledon FC, they started again. They had absolutely nothing - no experience of running a club, no players, no manager, nowhere to play. But within nine years they re-formed their team as AFC Wimbledon, rebuilt its community work, won six promotions and fought their way back into the top tiers of the game. En route, they broke records, changed the rules of football and were the subject of Prime Minister's Questions. And now they're back in their spiritual home, Wimbledon, in a brand new stadium. For most of this time Erik Samuelson was finance director and then CEO of the club. He tells the extraordinary inside story of how the most undervalued people in football - the fans - defied the odds to take their club back to the Football League and return home.

This is the first book to examine the growing movement of organised networks of LGBT+ football supporters, exploring activists' biographies and the meanings they ascribe to participation in identity politics-centred social movements. The book draws upon in-depth original research into the Pride in Football LGBT+ football supporters' network in the UK, alongside comparative material from other countries. It is also the first book to apply a cultural relational sociological framework to the study of football fans and supporters' groups, marking an important theoretical step forward that opens up new perspectives in the sociology of sport, the sociology of collective action and social movements, and the sociologies of genders and sexualities in the twenty-first century world. As the struggle for cultural rights and recognition of LGBT+ communities continues, with football fandom providing an important site for understanding of these issues given its historically-embedded hegemonic masculine culture, and in the aftermath of gay male football player Jake Daniels' 'coming out' in May 2022, the book offers timely insights into new social movements, the consumption of sport and the experiences of people from a diversity of sexualities. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of sport, football, fandom, gender, sexualities, social theory or social movements.

Football fans love nothing more than to read about their favourite teams. Although this books is aimed at young teenagers they will delight all ages with their mixture of funny and enlightening stories and will give hours of pleasure discovering quirky facts about your favourite team. Each title is also augmented with a selection of sketches by the young sketch artist Becky Welton that depict some of the stories within.

Association Football did no less than reshape British and indeed global society in its fast development as an organised sport over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century and leading up to the First World War. In this newly released edition of Tony Mason's essential account of the game's rise, issues such as the amateur professional divide, social class and mass spectatorship are seen as fundamental to the development of what is now a multi-trillion dollar industry. Dilwyn Porter supplements this classic text with a brand-new introduction.

The game of football has played a key role in shaping and cementing senses of national identity throughout the world. As any seasoned traveller can attest, the quickest entry into most cultures is by talking football or attending a match. The game is a prism for both witnessing and interacting with identities and cultures. Aware that the game may afford a space for expressing or organizing protest and dissent, powerful groups the world over may attempt to harness the forces of populist nationalism provided by football. This book examines football in 18 countries.

Since its emergence in Italy in 1968, one model of football fandom has become the most dominant in the world: the ultras. Producing choreography, chants, banners and pyrotechnics, ultras represent a highly organised style of fandom that has an increasing global reach and visibility. Over the last fifty years, ultras fandom has spread from Southern Europe across North Africa to Northern and Eastern Europe, South East Asia and North America. Their collective performance not only distinguishes ultras from other football fans, but from many other forms of group behaviour. Focusing on their common form of expression, this book shows how members build an emotional attachment to their club that valorises the insignia of that team while mobilising members against opponents. As a collective with a shared, coherent sense of identity based on an act of consumption, ultras represent an important site of enquiry into masculinity and nationalism in contemporary society. -- .

Association Football did no less than reshape British and indeed global society in its fast development as an organised sport over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century and leading up to the First World War. In this newly released edition of Tony Mason's essential account of the game's rise, issues such as the amateur professional divide, social class and mass spectatorship are seen as fundamental to the development of what is now a multi-trillion dollar industry. Dilwyn Porter supplements this classic text with a brand-new introduction.

In the winter of 2016 Simon Hughes began a journey through English football's most successful region, meeting the players, the managers, the chairmen and owners that shape the mood of a changing time. From the Premier League to grassroots, in On the Brink, Hughes examines how the landscape of the game across the north west is shifting: how geography explains the way things are; how industry defines identity; how money threatens existence - and what Brexit might mean for the future. CLUBS FEATURED IN ON THE BRINK: 1. Carlisle 2. Barrow 3. Morecambe 4. Blackpool 5. AFC Fylde 6. Fleetwood Town 7. Preston North End 8. Burnley 9. Blackburn Rovers 10. Accrington Stanley 11. Southport 12. Liverpool 13. Everton 14. Tranmere Rovers 15. Home Bargain FC 16. 1874 Northwich 17. Stockport County 18. Oldham Athletic 19. Bolton Wanderers 20. Salford City 21. Droylsden 23. Fletcher Moss Rangers 24. Manchester City

'My identity is built on conflicts, and I'm proud of who I am ... I can walk through the rest of my life with something to say.' Nedum Onuoha was not a typical footballer. A young black Mancunian picked by the Manchester City Academy aged ten, he was determined to continue his education despite the lure of a career under the floodlights. Fiercely intelligent on and off the pitch, Onuoha developed into a talented defender and played his part in City's meteoric rise. He was at the Etihad Stadium when they won their first Premier League title - as an opposition player for QPR, having left the Blues just four months earlier. In this characteristically forthright book, Onuoha reveals what goes on behind the scenes at top-tier clubs. Stuffed with insights into household names like Stuart Pearce, Sven-Goeran Eriksson, Roberto Mancini and Harry Redknapp, this is football and its most famous figures as you've never seen them before. Kicking Back is also the story of one man's search for identity: as a footballer, as a black man in England and as an outsider in the US during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. What is it like to receive horrific racist abuse while doing your job? And how has football utterly failed the black community? Onuoha provides a damning assessment of the sport's authorities, finally claiming his voice as he dives deep into a life spent on the pitch.

Football is ubiquitous and a permanent fixture of modern life. More than a sport, it frequently manifests in broader popular culture. This book examines the significance of football for, and in, popular culture across a wide range of forms, including music, film, and social media. Football and Popular Culture plots a new path in Football Studies, drawing on original research in countries including England, Brazil, Germany, Canada, and Yugoslavia. The book includes both historical and contemporary perspectives, exploring some of the most important themes in the study of sport and culture, including identity, nationalism, fandom, and protest. It presents diverse case studies ranging from sonic violence among Brazilian torcidas organizadas to fanled commemoration of the Munich air disaster, which together help us to better understand the intersection of sport, society, and popular culture. This is fascinating reading for any student or researcher working in sport studies, cultural studies, media studies, sociology, or contemporary history.

This book presents a series of fascinating case studies that show how the lives and bodies of clubs, players and fans around the world are enmeshed with politics. It draws on original research in countries including England, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Mexico, Algeria and Argentina and includes both historical and contemporary perspectives. It explores some of the most important themes in the study of sport, including sectarianism, migration, fan activism and national identity, and shows how football continues to be tied to political events, symbols and movements. This is fascinating reading for any student or researcher working in sport studies, political science, sociology or contemporary history.

The Emergence of Football fuses sports history into mainstream economic, social and cultural history, setting the development of the people's game against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution. The book challenges conventional histories of nineteenth-century football that surrounded mass games and the public schools and extends the revisionist critique of those histories with the imaginative use of new and original empirical evidence. It outlines the continuing presence of a working-class footballing culture across the century, arguing that the structure of football was a product of industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth that had resulted in a far-reaching restructuring of the class system and urban hierarchies. It was these new hierarchies and class system that gave birth to professional football by the late 1870s. It is essential reading for students of sports studies, economic, social and cultural history, urban and local history, and sociology, as well as a valuable resource for scholars and academics involved in the study of football across the world. This is an absorbing and fascinating read for any of the millions of fans of the game who are interested in the early history of football.

This book takes a close look at discrimination in football in order to illuminate our understanding of the interaction between sport and wider society, politics and culture, particularly in terms of the (re)production of identity. It presents insightful and diverse international case studies, including the shadow of fascism in Italian football; fan activism against racism, sexism, and homophobia in US soccer; migrant football clubs in Germany, and the use of football club history in the teaching of antisemitism. Together they demonstrate the damaging societal consequences of unchecked resentment and discrimination in football fan cultures but also the potential for fan activism as a socio-positive force. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in football or fandom, the sociology of sport, cultural studies, or political science.

This book presents a cross-disciplinary examination of the lived experiences of girls and women football players using theoretical insights from sports studies, psychology, sociology and gender studies. It examines the concept of 'the football self' - your own, personal football identity that encapsulates the importance of football to our everyday lives - and what that can tell us about the complex relationships between sport, family, gender and identity. The book draws on in-depth ethnographic research involving players and family members, and offers important new insights into the everyday experiences of those girls and women who play. It breaks new ground in focusing on the significant relationships between player and family with a particular focus on parenting through football. The book brings to the fore key debates around gender identity, barriers to participation, cultural gaps and discrimination. The author also brings a personal perspective to bear, drawing on experience gained over 20 years as a player, adding an extra critical layer to her important empirical research. This is essential reading for all researchers and students with an interest in football, sport studies or issues around gender, inclusion or the family in sport, and fascinating reading for anybody generally curious about football.

In 2020, Liverpool Football Club reclaimed its position as the number one football team in England. But it was a journey that had taken the world-famous club 30 years; a journey that was filled with drama, intrigue, and numerous false dawns. Written by a lifelong Liverpool fan, this is a dramatic story of highs and lows, and how the club overcame their extended wait to become Champions Again! Featuring analysis of the managers, the players (good and bad), and the owners who have come and gone, this is a rollercoaster ride from the success of 1990 through the disappointments that were endured during a three-decade hiatus. Covering the triumphs and travesties - and the incidents and tragedy - along the way, this book celebrates the reappearance of Liverpool FC at the pinnacle of English football. Ian Carroll is a published writer of fiction and non-fiction, and was the Script Editor for the play 'Waiting for Hillsborough', which won the Liverpool Echo Best Writing award. He was born in 1966, and named after Ian St John, who scored the winning goal in the 1965 FA Cup final - the first time in the club's history that they had won the cup - and has been a Liverpool football fan since the day he was born.

The most up-to-date and in-depth book on the business of professional team sports Pro team sports are the biggest and most important sector of international sport business Strong focus on applied analysis and performance measurement, invaluable real-world skills Covers sports, teams and leagues all over the world from the EPL to the NFL Addresses key themes from ownership and competitive balance to media revenue and the role of agents

The story of how Manchester United conquered all, by the players who won everything.

The Champion’s League, the Club World Cup, 6 Premier League Titles, 1 FA Cup, 3 League Cups and 4 Community Shields … and one legendary manager – from Rio to Rome, 2000-2010.

This is the story of one of the greatest eras in the history of England's greatest club through the eyes of the players who made it happen. Not just the big wins, the cup finals and the trophy parades, but the half-time rows, the mad pranks, the boozy nights out and the training ground bust-ups.

Andy Mitten has tracked down eleven of the stars from those Premier League and Champions League winning teams to open the door to both the dressing room and boardroom at Old Trafford as the club emerged as the dominant force in English football.

Bring On United is an astonishingly candid and revealing insight into the workings of English football's greatest winning machine. More than that, it as lively and entertaining sports book as you'll ever read.

*Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year* 'Harrowing, brave, hugely important book' HENRY WINTER 'Absolutely amazed by the power of Andy Woodward's testimony' JEREMY VINE SHOW 'I'm sure this will be one of the defining football books of the era' SAM WALLACE, CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER FOR THE TELEGRAPH The brave and moving account by football's first whistle blower, breaking the silence on the scandal of sexual abuse in youth clubs and junior teams. Essential reading for parents, and for anyone afraid to speak up. Andy Woodward was a wide eyed, hopeful footballer playing for Stockport Boys, when Barry Bennell first noticed him. Andy was 11 years old, and Bennell a youth coach with a big reputation for spotting and nurturing young footballing talent. The clubs Bennell worked for and the parents of the boys he coached, trusted and believed in him, inviting him into their lives and their homes. But behind the charismatic mask was a profoundly evil man willing to go to any lengths to satisfy his own dark appetites. Andy has been heralded a hero for speaking up about his horrific experiences at the hands of Bennell, but also at going further to expose the long hidden abuse buried within our nations' best loved sport. His story is only the tip of the iceberg. Andy's childhood was shattered by what happened to him and by the fear and silence that surrounded it. His youthful dreams of playing the game he loved were utterly broken, and years of living with the terrible secret and shame all but destroyed him. He hopes that by coming forward he might encourage others in similar situations to find the courage to speak out. A compelling and relevant story of the dark secret at the heart of football and another chapter in the ongoing expose of institutionalised corruption.