The English rugby team has been scrummaging its way around the rugby fields of the world since 1871. James Stafford's An Illustrated History of English Rugby takes you on a thrilling journey through a century and a half of glory, failure, mediocrity and brilliance. Mixing stats and facts with player profiles, match reports and social history, this book is perfect for hardcore and casual fans aged eight to 80. Packed with delightful illustrations from Raluca Moldovan, this follow up to Stafford's best-selling An Illustrated History of Welsh Rugby will give readers a new appreciation of the stars of today and the pioneers of yesteryear.

Tim Wilkinson was born in Liverpool in 1951 and was educated at Merchant Taylorsa School, Crosby, then at Robert Gordona s College in Aberdeen. After graduating with an M.A. (Hons) in English at Aberdeen University, he then spent his entire career teaching English at Cults Academy. He has now retired to rural Aberdeenshire. He has written two histories of his local cricket club, Banchory C.C., for whom he has played for over 50 years. Tim suffers from the incurable disease of book collecting and has amassed a collection of over 3,000 first editions. Make that 3,001.

This book is the result of 45 years of part-time research into the Shropshire Speake families. It describes the history of the author's family through thirteen generations, as well as all other associated Shropshire Speake families. In some cases it follows them across the nearby border into Wales, and the possible reasons for their migration. It focuses on the period prior to the advent of census returns and the civil registration of births, marriage and deaths in the early nineteenth century. Prior to this date research becomes more difficult and time consuming, and the aim of this book is to help Speake family researchers to link their family trees back to this earlier period. This approach has enabled this book to be kept a reasonable size. It is the story of periods of prosperity in the late sixteenth century, with accompanying social advancement. This is contrasted with the problems of two court cases brought against them in the infamous Court of the Star Chamber in London, 150 miles distant. After the mid-seventeenth century they lived the precarious existence of the rural poor, at the mercy of poor harvests, poverty, accidents, chronic illnesses and sudden death. Outline family trees for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are included, to help those interested in their Speake family to connect with the earlier information presented here. In particular, the very large Eaton-under-Heywood and Westbury families are comprehensively shown in outline. This reconstruction was made possible by the use of a large computerised relational database. Shropshire was an early leader in the Industrial Revolution and the new industries in Ironbridge and Ketley provided alternative employment for the rural poor. The later nineteenth century growth of local government also provided new opportunities for employment and increasing prosperity. The advent of the railways made it easier to seek work further afield and many Speake families migrated to the industrial districts of Lancashire, South Wales and the adjacent `Black Country' of the Midlands. More distant migrations were made to Canada, Patagonia, Australia and New Zealand. This book is a record of often short, hard lives, and although documentary evidence is hard to find, their lives can bring surprises. This book contains 130 family trees, nine specially commissioned maps, two original artworks and an extensive index. A comprehensive collection of Appendices contains summaries of all known Speake wills, lay subsidies, marriages licences and hearth tax entries and many other documents. These make this volume an essential addition to the book collection of family historians and others with an interest in Shropshire history and the Speake families.

This book is the result of 45 years of part-time research into the Shropshire Speake families. It describes the history of the author's family through thirteen generations, as well as all other associated Shropshire Speake families. In some cases it follows them across the nearby border into Wales, and the possible reasons for their migration. It focuses on the period prior to the advent of census returns and the civil registration of births, marriage and deaths in the early nineteenth century. Prior to this date research becomes more difficult and time consuming, and the aim of this book is to help Speake family researchers to link their family trees back to this earlier period. This approach has enabled this book to be kept a reasonable size. It is the story of periods of prosperity in the late sixteenth century, with accompanying social advancement. This is contrasted with the problems of two court cases brought against them in the infamous Court of the Star Chamber in London, 150 miles distant. After the mid-seventeenth century they lived the precarious existence of the rural poor, at the mercy of poor harvests, poverty, accidents, chronic illnesses and sudden death. Outline family trees for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are included, to help those interested in their Speake family to connect with the earlier information presented here. In particular, the very large Eaton-under-Heywood and Westbury families are comprehensively shown in outline. This reconstruction was made possible by the use of a large computerised relational database. Shropshire was an early leader in the Industrial Revolution and the new industries in Ironbridge and Ketley provided alternative employment for the rural poor. The later nineteenth century growth of local government also provided new opportunities for employment and increasing prosperity. The advent of the railways made it easier to seek work further afield and many Speake families migrated to the industrial districts of Lancashire, South Wales and the adjacent `Black Country' of the Midlands. More distant migrations were made to Canada, Patagonia, Australia and New Zealand. This book is a record of often short, hard lives, and although documentary evidence is hard to find, their lives can bring surprises. This book contains 130 family trees, nine specially commissioned maps, two original artworks and an extensive index. A comprehensive collection of Appendices contains summaries of all known Speake wills, lay subsidies, marriages licences and hearth tax entries and many other documents. These make this volume an essential addition to the book collection of family historians and others with an interest in Shropshire history and the Speake families.

Peterborough United have a proud and illustrious history in the FA Cup. In this book we cover every cup campaign that The Posh have played in, with match reports from the signi?cant games, plus all the facts and ?gures and many photographs of matches and players that have contributed towards Posh`s deserved title of a Giant Killersa

'Magnificent . . . Goldblatt is the doyen of sports historians and brings to this account his forensic and telling eye for detail'
Mail on Sunday

The epic exploration of society, politics, and economics in the twenty-first century through the prism of football, by the critically acclaimed author of The Ball is Round.

'David Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been'
Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

In the twenty-first century football is first. First among sports themselves, but it now commands the allegiance, interest and engagement of more people in more places than any other phenomenon. In the three most populous nations on the earth – China, India and the United States where just twenty years ago football existed on the periphery of society – it has now arrived for good. Nations, peoples and neighbourhoods across the globe imagine and invent themselves through playing and following the game.

In The Age of Football, David Goldblatt charts football’s global cultural ascent, its economic transformation and deep politicisation, taking in prison football in Uganda and amputee football in Angola, the role of football fans in the Arab Spring, the footballing presidencies of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, China’s declared intention to both host and win the World Cup by 2050, and the FIFA corruption scandal.

Following the intersection of the game with money, power and identity, like no previous sports historian, Goldblatt’s sweeping story is remarkable in its scope, breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, and is a brilliantly original perspective of the twenty-first century. It is the account of how football has come to define every facet of our social, economic and cultural lives and at what cost, shaping who we think we are and who we want to be.

In the late summer and fall of 1777, after two years of indecisive fighting on both sides, the outcome of the American War of Independence hung in the balance. Having successfully expelled the Americans from Canada in 1776, the British were determined to end the rebellion the following year and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy, sending General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of 1777, it looked as if it was a matter of time before they would break the rebellion in the North. Less than three and a half months later, however, a combination of the Continental Army and Militia forces, commanded by Major General Horatio Gates and inspired by the heroics of Benedict Arnold, forced Burgoyne to surrender his entire army. The American victory stunned the world and changed the course of the war. Kevin J. Weddle offers the most authoritative history of the Battle of Saratoga to date, explaining with verve and clarity why events unfolded the way they did. In the end, British plans were undone by a combination of distance, geography, logistics, and an underestimation of American leadership and fighting ability. Taking Ticonderoga had misled Burgoyne and his army into thinking victory was assured. Saratoga, which began as a British foraging expedition, turned into a rout. The outcome forced the British to rethink their strategy, inflamed public opinion in England against the war, boosted Patriot morale, and, perhaps most critical of all, led directly to the Franco-American alliance. Weddle unravels the web of contingencies and the play of personalities that ultimately led to what one American general called "the Compleat Victory."