'Sunny' Jim Young is reckoned by some Celtic historians to be the greatest Celt of them all, winning nine League Championships (three as captain) and six Scottish Cups. Amazingly, he was only capped once for Scotland, and his tragic death aged only forty plunged the whole of Scottish football into sadness. This book profiles the life and career of a Parkhead legend.

The football industry has long been the subject of theoretical and empirical analysis by economists. A study of the economics of football throws up a range of intriguing questions - from what determines the level of attendance at football matches to how efficient football managers are in producing team performance, given the playing resources available. This important collection considers these and other questions - such as: What drives the transfer value of players? How has the changing structure of football's labour market affected sporting and financial outcomes? How effective have football leagues been in maintaining competitive balance? Do football clubs seek to maximise profits? How predictable are football matches? Is the football betting market efficient? This authoritative two volume collection pulls together the work of leading sports economists over the last five decades to answer these and other questions using consumer theory, labour economics, industrial organisation and a range of other theoretical insights combined with econometric analysis. These innovative volumes bring together a careful synthesis of applied economics that will be of interest to all those concerned with analysing the real world.

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 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.

Delves into the history of Reading FC - one of the oldest clubs in the Football League. This title focuses on the various quirky tales and incidents that have befallen the club throughout the years. It features various weird and obscure sports staged by the club, the numerous (world) records set by Reading and some very strange pitch invaders.

'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.

'A wonderful overview of tactical development in European football' Matthew Syed, The Times 'A fascinating assessment of football in 2019' Observer An insightful, comprehensive and always entertaining appreciation of how European football has developed over the last three decades by the author of the much heralded The Mixer. Continental football has always cast a spell over the imagination. From the attacking flair of Real Madrid of the 50s to the defensive brilliance of the Italians in the 60s and onto the total football of the Dutch in the 70s, the European leagues have been where the game has most evolved and taken its biggest steps forward. And over the last three decades, since the rebranding of the Champions League in 1992, that pattern has continued unabated, with each major European footballing nation playing its part in how the game's tactics have developed. From the intelligent use of space displayed by the phenomenal Ajax team of the early 90s, to the dominance of the highly strategic Italian league in the late 90s and onto the technical wizardry of Barcelona's tiki-taka, the European game continues to reinvent the tactical dimension of the game, creating blueprints which both club and national teams around the world strive to follow. In Zonal Marking, Michael Cox brilliantly investigates and analyses the major leagues around Europe over specific time periods and demonstrates the impact each has made on how the game is now played. Highly entertaining and packed full of wonderful anecdotes, this is the first book of its kind to take an overview of modern European football, and lays bare just how much the international language of football can be shaped by a nation's unique identity.

The author decided that his definition of a 'hero' in the context of this book, is a player who is recognised by all Bluenoses as having a special quality which enabled him to make his own unique contribution to the history of Birmingham City Football Club.

Football is an incredibly powerful case study of globalization and an extremely useful lens through which to study and understand contemporary processes of international migration. This is the first book to focus on the increasingly complex series of migratory processes that contour the contemporary game, drawing on multi-disciplinary approaches from sociology, history, geography and anthropology to explore migration in football in established, emerging and transitional contexts.

The book examines shifting migration patterns over time and across space, and analyses the sociological dynamics that drive and influence those patterns. It presents in-depth case studies of migration in elite men s football, exploring the role of established leagues in Europe and South America as well as important emerging leagues on football's frontier in North America and Asia. The final section of the book analyses the movement of groups who have rarely been the focus of migration research before, including female professional players, elite youth players, amateur players and players families, drawing on important new research in Ghana, England, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Few other sports have such a global reach and therefore few other sports are such an important location for cross-cultural research and insight across the social sciences. This book is engaging reading for any student or scholar with an interest in sport, sociology, human geography, migration, international labour flows, globalization, development or post-colonial studies. "

The Third World Congress of Science and Football was held in Cardiff, Wales in April 1995. The aim of the conference was to continue to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of the various branches of football and increase the awareness of the value of a scientific approach to these games. These aims and the outcomes of the conference are reflected in this third volume of Science and Football. The volume is divided into eight parts, each part containing a group of papers that are related by theme or disciplinary approach. Metabolism and nutrition, football training, match analysis, medical aspects of football and psychology and football behaviour are just a few of the areas covered in this comprehensive, in-depth volume that has been fully edited and revised. The conclusions drawn during the congress represent an invaluable practical reference for coaches, scientists, players, managers, and all those involved in the many football codes.

The long-awaited memoir from international football ambassador, former co-owner of Arsenal FC and legend of the game: David Dein. There's no doubt that Dein has been one of the most significant and influential figures in British football for over three decades - operating at club and international level. He was a prime mover in the creation of the Premier League, hugely influential within the England set-up and, of course, was the mastermind - along with Arsene Wenger - in creating the glory days of Arsenal Football Club, leading the team for almost a quarter of a century. Connected to the most senior figures across the global game as a friend, rival, advisor, and collaborator, Dein has been central to major turning points in the game. Calling the Shots is part memoir, part inspirational meditation on leadership, teamwork and how to invest in people. It tracks the full story of David's remarkable life and career to date, recounting never-before-told stories from the inside, intriguing characters met along the way, and discussing the past, present and future of football. An entertaining and motivational read for football and non-football fans alike, Calling the Shots is a dynamic masterclass in how to succeed in business and life.

The history of Fulham Football Club told through the stories of the major matches, charting the path of a club with humble beginnings that rose and fell several times over the last 100 years.

A collection of short biographies of the great Sunderland players named as Player of the Year who helped to define the club's image and set the standard to its future stars.