Did you know? • The first African community to arrive in England was stationed at Aballava on Hadrian's Wall to keep out the Picts. • Admiral Robert FitzRoy, creator of the Met Office, was so upset by criticism of his weather forecasts that he shot himself. • While studying at Cambridge, Charles Darwin formed the 'Glutton Club' for the purpose of eating unusual animals. • Ada Lovelace wrote a computer code in the nineteenth century, before a working computer had even been invented. • Maids of Honour at Henry VIII’s court were given eight pints of ale per day and his army mutinied in Spain when the ale ran out. A little book about a BIG subject. England's not huge in land mass, but there is a lot to say about this little country. Yes, we'll be touching on the obvious bits – Shakespeare, 1966, disappointing weather, etc., but we'll also be going in search of what's under the surface of English history, society and culture. What is it that makes England England? People all over the world think they know the answer to that: the King or Queen, awkward politeness, Beefeaters and losing in penalties in international football. But we English know that we're a bit more complicated than such stereotypes. Or are we? Let's find out.

Have we matched Wembley 1966 and 2022, or lost again on penalties? As a football fan in the Home Nations, there is at least one thing of which you can be sure. Even if sometimes other countries play it better than us, they'll forever have to thank Britain for the fun, the excitement, the tragedy, the triumph, the pain, the pleasure and the sheer gloriousness of the best sport in the world. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, it was Britain that first spread the beautiful game across the world. Cornish miners took football skills along with their pasties to Mexico; Iraqi football legend Ammo Baba learnt the game at an RAF base; the Buenos Aires Cricket Club gave the world Argentine football; and Romanian dentist Iuliu Weiner got not one an English education but a passion for football too. This is a book about football, yes, but it is also a book about all the countries of the world, about shared passion and shared humanity. It's how Britain brought football to the world.