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.

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

The first book published in either English or Spanish about the cultural significance of Maradona. Covers Maradona as portrayed in fiction literature and cinema, documentary films, non-fiction literature, mass media and music, among other platforms. Includes chapters on Maradona as represented in the culture and media of Argentina, Italy, Mexico, Spain and the UK, highlighting the global appeal of a volume that is already focused on an international figure. By discussing how a sporting icon is constructed, codified, and imagined in popular culture, the book's relevance goes beyond the specific case of Maradona and appeals to any scholars and students interested in the links between sport, culture, and society.

Soccer is undeniably the most popular sport in the world. While we know much about its high-profile players and their increasing wealth and global influence, we know little about referees and the ways in which refereeing has changed throughout the history of the sport. This book provides an in-depth exploration of the evolution of the match official. It presents a comparative analysis of elite Association football referees in England, Spain and Italy, as well as offering insights into the involvement of UEFA and FIFA in referee training. Drawing on archive material, the book documents the historical development of refereeing and sheds new light on the practice of elite refereeing in the present day. Including exclusive interviews with elite and ex-elite referees, as well as with professional soccer managers and members of the broadcast media, it considers the current role of match officials and the challenges and controversies they encounter. Elite Soccer Referees: Officiating in the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A is fascinating reading for all students and scholars with an interest in soccer, sport history, sport policy, sport management and the sociology of sport.

Huddersfield Town Miscellany collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about the Terriers. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. Heard the one about the striker who scored 223 goals in 268 appearances for the club? How about the centre-forward who netted 289 goals in just 40 games before joining Town? Do you know what has been the longest journey (by road) any Huddersfield Town team has had to make to play a Football League fixture? When Town were unbeaten at home in the FA Cup for 19 years? Or which Town player had a record 32 letters in his name? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia - essential for any fan who holds the riches of blue-and-white history close to their heart.

*** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A heroic outsider - a pleasure to read.' - The Guardian 'A fulsome evocation of football before the Premier League.' - The i 'Such a good storyteller...joyous.' - Financial Times 'Honest, raw, revealing and very funny. How to live a life and career to the full. Insightful book about the most successful outsider inside football ever...' - Henry Winter, Chief Football Writer, The Times 'Pat is a wonderful one-off...and this is the story of why that is.' - John Murray, Chief Sports Correspondent, BBC Radio 5 Live 'Unusually vibrant and elegant with heroic doses of humour, insight and self-effacement, this is an absolute must-read for the football connoisseur.' - Omid Djalili 'The biggest influence of my professional career both on and off the pitch.' - Graeme Le Saux 'I grew up captivated by Pat Nevin the player. As a man he taught me even more about the beauty of the game. One of football's great mavericks, and Chelsea's greatest players. And he can spin a mean tune too.' - Sam Matterface 'I used to walk miles to see Pat Nevin play football and I'd do the same now to read his thoughts. Always challenging, always entertaining.' - Lord Sebastian Coe 'A refreshingly honest and thought-provoking autobiography. As deftly delivered as some of Pat's ball skills in his 1980's heyday.' - ToffeeWeb Pat Nevin never wanted to be a professional footballer. His future was clear, he'd become a teacher like his brothers. There was only one problem with this - Pat was far too good to avoid attention. Raised in Glasgow's East End, Pat loved the game, playing for hours and obsessively following Celtic. But as he grew up, he also loved Joy Division, wearing his Indie 'gloom boom' coat and going on marches - hardly typical footballer behaviour! Placed firmly in the 80s and 90s, before the advent of the Premier League, and often with racism and violence present, Pat Nevin writes with honesty, insight and wry humour. We are transported vividly to Chelsea and Everton, and colourfully diverted by John Peel, Morrissey and nights out at the Hacienda. The Accidental Footballer is a different kind of football memoir. Capturing all the joys of professional football as well as its contradictions and conflicts, it's about being defined by your actions, not your job, and is the perfect reminder of how life can throw you the most extraordinary surprises, when you least expect it.

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.

The spread of COVID-19 and the consequent pandemic since early 2020 have brought about unprecedented changes in all spheres of global life, creating a new sense of (in)security with social distancing, physical isolation, quarantine and lockdown becoming buzzwords to combat the disease. As in all spheres of life, the first wave of the pandemic posed serious challenges to the world of soccer, with diverse and intriguing responses across the globe. This book documents the early impressions and initial responses of various stakeholders of the soccer world to the challenges of COVID-19 in 2020. It reveals how the process of confrontation, negotiation, adjustment and overcoming against such challenges necessitated and inspired novel responses and strong improvisations from soccer bodies to players, referees to spectators, and journalists to sponsors. This process has revealed abrupt as well as radical changes in the organization, rules, spectatorship and telecast of the game, thereby affecting the game's cultural dimensions, commercial prospects and political implications. The volume points out that the way soccer has adjusted to the 'new normal' standard of the 'COVID Regime' has elicited newer meanings and nuanced representations of the game. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Soccer & Society.

Comprehensive and thorough exploration of components in elite and professional football. Present's a great level of real world, practical information associated with research, specifically discussing job duties, with attention to different areas of sport and how to use the technology in the field All contributors are leading practitioners working in elite soccer

What happens when a football club ups sticks and leaves its traditional home for pastures new? What replaces the terraces, stands and floodlights that tower above old town centres and terraced streets? How does football relate to the new landscapes that the clubs head to? What happens when football leaves home? When the Circus Leaves Town: What Happens When Football Leaves Home explores the impact of the ruptures created when clubs and supporters wave goodbye to their homes. It examines disruption to matchday routines, erasure of geographic memories and the difficulties in repairing these, and considers whether such moves have been for better or worse. Writer Dave Proudlove walks the streets of towns and cities across the country visiting housing estates, retail parks and shiny new stadiums. He talks to those involved with the relocation of football clubs - club officials, developers, politicians, fans - to understand the reasons behind the upheaval, and to bring us the full story of what happens when football leaves home.

After a record 36 years stuck in the bottom division of the Football League, Rochdale AFC finally won promotion in 2009/10. This is a wry look at that season by a lifelong fan and acclaimed broadsheet journalist.

Champions Under Lockdown is the third book in the Red Odyssey series. It tells the story of an extraordinary season from the perspective of the terraces. After their epic 2018/19 season, in 2019/20 Jurgen Klopp would target Liverpool's first league title in 30 years. During this unforgettable season his side would smash all records. They claimed the UEFA Super Cup and then the Club World Cup before sailing to a 25-point lead at the top of the Premier League. Fans who thought they had seen it all witnessed arguably the greatest Reds side in history sweep all before them. They were declared champions-elect, but the fates decreed there would be a final barrier to Liverpool claiming their prize. In the midst of a global virus pandemic and with the country on lockdown, voices called for the season to be declared null and void, threatening to wipe the achievements of this incredible team from history. But Jurgen and his men rose again to claim their holy grail. This is the unique story of the champions under lockdown.

Far and away the most popular sport in the world, football has a special place in Middle Eastern societies, and for Middle Eastern states. With Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup, this region has been cast into the global footballing spotlight, raising issues of geopolitical competition, consumer culture and social justice. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book examines the complex questions raised by the phenomenon of football as a significant cultural force in the Middle East, as well as its linkages to broader political and socioeconomic processes. The establishment of football as a national sport offers significant insight into the region's historical experiences with colonialism and struggles for independence, as well as the sport's vital role in local and regional politics today--whether at the forefront of popular mobilisations, or as an instrument of authoritarian control. Football has also served as an arena of contestation in the formation of national identity, the struggle for gender equality, and the development of the media landscape. The twelve contributions to this volume draw on extensive engagement with the existing body of literature, and introduce original research questions that promise to open new directions for the study of football in the Middle East.

This book utilizes the only means for conceptualizing the holistic nature of the human experience, multi-layered network theory, to develop an evidence-based method towards performance development in soccer. The volume is aimed at both academics and professional practitioners to help influence their understanding of how to design talent programmes and training sessions which aim to develop players in a holistic way. Extremely comprehensive in the treatment of the subject area, recognising various socio-cultural factors within the wider context (ecosystem) in which player and performance development occurs and contemporary approaches within the book's holistic approach such as Ecological Dynamics as well as more traditional development areas. The book features a focus on such system- and societal-influenced phenomena as relative age effect and the impact of where one grows up, recognising some well researched factors shown to have nuanced effects on player development opportunities.

This book is the first national study of the football pools in Britain which examines the politics and culture of the gambling on the football pools. It charts the rise of the football pools, focusing upon its rapid growth from the 1920s and its prolonged decline in British culture from the 1990s, partly as a result of the National Lottery. The book explores how this new gambling activity became a significant leisure opportunity for the working class - a way to feel that the individual skill of the punter could lead to the winning of some life-changing jackpot cheque being presented by a sporting personality of celebrity. Dominated by Littlewoods, and other large commercial companies, the weekly filling-in of the coupons was considered to be a safe form of investment, guaranteed by the integrity of the pool companies, rather than some seedy gambling operation. The Football Pools and the British Working Class looks at different elements of the football pools from what attracted people to this form of gambling to how the industry developed and adjusted to the suspension of the football fixtures in 1936, and the bad winter of 1962-3. Above all, it examines the deep hostility that surrounded the filling in of the football pools arising from the National Anti-Gambling League, religious groups, the football authorities and MPs. This book will appeal to all those interested in the history of British football and 20th century British working class culture.

This is the tale of West Ham United's two 1960's cup winning teams made up entirely of English players. The last time this feat was achieved. It is a compelling book about a unique time in English football. This is primarily for fans of West Ham United, but will also appeal to those who love football history, especially those World Cup winning heroes, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters who all feature in the teams. It includes a foreword by Martin Peters MBE. The young men who played in West Ham's FA Cup Final victory over Preston North End in 1964 were all born and raised in England. In each tie from the third round, only English players had worn the Hammers over their hearts. This feat has not been repeated since and is unlikely to be replicated in the future. A year later West Ham fielded another all-English team to win the European Cup-Winners' Cup, something no other English club has ever done. Thus, the West Ham players of 1964 and 1965 were The First And Last Englishmen, and this is their story. It is a tale told partly from the point of view of Irons striker Alan Sealey, who was right in the middle of the action, and his team-mates. But the voice of the supporters is just as important in this epic. West Ham's rise to European glory is portrayed through the memories of those who played and of those who watched. It is a compelling book about a unique time in English football.

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

Imagine Pep Guardiola quitting Manchester City to take over at Rochdale. Or Jose Mourinho walking out on United to join Southend. That sort of thing just wouldn't happen, would it? Except that in 1973, it did. At that time Brian Clough was managerial gold dust, having taken Derby County to the Football League title and to the semi-finals of the European Cup. After those feats, he and his sidekick Peter Taylor could have managed anywhere. And yet the most famous men in British football decided to take the reins at Brighton & Hove Albion, sixth bottom of the old Third Division, for what would prove a controversial and ultimately unsuccessful spell that would test their friendship to breaking point. The move to a sleepy backwater football club made little sense then and, forty years on, it remains a mystery. It seems especially odd considering Clough's aversion to the south and refusal to relocate his home from Derby. Featuring candid interviews with the men who played under Clough and Taylor at Brighton, Bloody Southerners attempts to make sense of the strangest managerial appointment in English post-war football. What shines through in page after page of never-before-heard stories is the profound complexity of both characters.