Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game


David Wangerin - 2006
    David Wangerin's humorous and thorough book tells the story of American soccer's long struggle from the brief promise of the 1920's, through the euphoric highs and extravagant follies of the North American Soccer League, to today's hard-won acceptance.

We Are the Damned United: The Real Story of Brian Clough at Leeds United


Phil Rostron - 2009
    While The Damned United was a fictional account of Clough’s short-lived but controversial reign at the club, this book reveals the true story, as told by the players he managed at the time. Vividly recreating the atmosphere of the era, the book features candid contributions from legendary names such as Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray, and Norman Hunter. They reveal what it was like to make the transition from the relatively smooth management style of former manager Don Revie, who helped the club achieve success in Europe, to a constant crossing of swords with the outspoken Brian Clough, who left the club flailing at the foot of the league upon his premature departure. This explosive account covers all the drama that ensued from the moment Clough was earmarked by the club directors as the favorite to succeed Revie to his exit less than two months later, saddled with the knowledge that he had been the club’s most unsuccessful manager ever. Told from the perspective of those who experienced Clough’s dictatorial managerial methods at Leeds at first hand, We are the Damned United tells it how it really was rather than how it might have been.

They Don't Teach This: Lessons From the Game of Life


Eniola Aluko - 2019
    102 appearances for England women’s national football team. First female pundit on Match of the Day. UN Women UK ambassador. Guardian columnist. All of these achievements belong to Eni Aluko, who, is keen to share her experiences, aiming to inspire readers to be the best possible versions of themselves. Aluko was appointed UN Women UK ambassador with a focus on promoting gender empowerment in 2016, and in October 2018 she was named by Marie Claire as one of ten Future Shapers Award Winners, recognising individuals who are changing women’s futures for the better. She is currently playing football for Juventus in Italy and writing a weekly column for The Guardian.They Don’t Teach This steps beyond the realms of memoir to explore themes of dual nationality and identity, race and institutional prejudice, success, failure and faith. It is an inspiring manifesto to change the way readers and the future generation choose to view the challenges that come in their life applying life lessons with raw truths of Eni’s own personal experience

Soccermatics: Mathematical Adventures in the Beautiful Game


David Sumpter - 2016
    How to make sense of them? The answer lies in mathematical modeling, a science with applications in a host of biological systems. Soccermatics brings the two together in a fascinating, mind-bending synthesis.What's the similarity between an ant colony and Total Football, Dutch style? How is the Barcelona midfield linked geometrically? And how can we relate the mechanics of a Mexican Wave to the singing of cicadas in an Australian valley? Welcome to the world of mathematical modeling, expressed brilliantly by David Sumpter through the prism of soccer. Soccer is indeed more than a game and this book is packed with game theory. After reading it, you will forever watch the game with new eyes.

Shay – Any Given Saturday: : The Autobiography


Shay Given - 2017
     He has played in World Cups and FA Cup finals; shared a dressing room with football greats like Roy Keane, Alan Shearer and Robbie Keane and worked under celebrated managers like Kenny Dalglish, Bobby Robson and Martin O’Neill. But Shay has had to show courage and strength of mind to get where he wanted in life. At four years old, he cruelly lost his mother to cancer at the age of just 41. Mum Agnes’s dying wish was that Dad Seamus would keep the family together. Seamus kept his word and the Given clan watched with pride as Shay forged a record-breaking career in the sport he loved. From Donegal to Saipan, Glasgow to Wembley and Tyneside to Paris, it’s been some journey. Shay has seen it all. Glorious highs and desperate lows. Dressing room wind-ups and team-bonding punch-ups. Brutal injuries and crippling self-doubt. Along the way, he has made so many friends. When one of his closest pals, Gary Speed, died suddenly in 2011, he was devastated. He played on, doing the only thing he knew to get him through the pain – pulling on a shirt and a pair of gloves. Shay loves football – for him, nothing can beat the buzz of a Saturday afternoon or the thrill of a big match night under lights. But he has never lost touch with the fans who make the game what it is. Entertaining, opinionated and inspirational, his long-awaited autobiography ANY GIVEN SATURDAY features a stellar cast of famous football names from the past 25 years. It tugs at the heart strings, bubbles with banter and lets slip secrets behind the big stories. This is a rare journey behind the scenes as told by one of our own.

Who Ate All The Pies? The Life and Times of Mick Quinn


Mick Quinn - 2003
    They said Mick had a sixth sense for great accuracy in his playing days - he could find a party from any range. Quinn says he only put £50 on each horse race - but liked to stay in the bookies for twenty races a day!Sentenced in 1987 to three weeks in prison for twice driving whilst banned, Mick's been accused of punching Peter Schmeichel on the football pitch and John Fashanu off it. On retirement, though, Quinn switched to horse racing, the Sport of Kings, but controversy led the blue bloods of racing to hang the scouse oik out to dry and he was suspended from training for two and a half years.Who Ate All The Pies? is the funniest and most honest football book you'll read for a long, long time.

Mr Unbelievable


Chris Kamara - 2010
    As a player, Kammy trawled football's outposts with the likes of Bradford City, Stoke City and Portsmouth where he suffered the slings, arrows and hurled bananas of racial abuse. Later, during the autumn of his career, he played in Howard Wilkinson's swashbuckling Leeds team where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Eric Cantona and Lee Chapman.On hanging up his boots, he moved into the dugouts at Bradford and Sunderland as manager before joining the Sky football revolution as roving reporter on Soccer Saturday and Goal On Sunday's eagle-eyed analyst, amassing a raft of catchphrases along the way.Mr Unbelievable is a hugely entertaining, moving, shocking and laugh out loud funny story of a genuine cult hero.

The Far Corner


Harry Pearson - 1994
    A book in which Wilf Mannion rubs shoulders with The Sunderland Skinhead: recollections of Len Shakleton blight the lives of village shoppers: and the appointment of Kevin Keegan as manager of Newcastle is celebrated by a man in a leather stetson, crooning 'For The Good Times' to the accompaniment of a midi organ, THE FAR CORNER is a tale of heroism and human frailty, passion and the perils of eating an egg mayonnaise stottie without staining your trousers.

Always Managing: My Autobiography


Harry Redknapp - 2013
    It saved me, and 50 years on that hasn't changed one bit – I’d be lost without it…’Harry is the manager who has seen it all – from a dismal 70s Portakabin at Oxford City and training pitches with trees in the middle to the unbeatable highs of the Premiership, lifting the FA Cup and taking on Real Madrid in the Champions League. With his much loved, no-nonsense delivery, Harry brings us a story filled with passion and humour that takes you right inside every drama of his career.Harry finally tells the full story of all the controversial ups and downs – the pain and heartache of his court case, the England job, his love for Bobby Moore, his adventures at Portsmouth with Milan Mandaric, the Southampton debacle, Tottenham and Daniel Levy, and not forgetting his years at West Ham or the challenges at his current club QPR.It’s the epic journey of one of the great managers and, along the way, the story of the British game itself over the last five decades. In an era now dominated by foreign coaches Harry is the last of an old-fashioned breed of English football man – one who has managed to move with the times and always come out fighting.

Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs


Rodge Glass - 2012
    But when a wayward pass from Ryan Giggs leads to THE WORST DEBUT EVER, Mark's schoolboy obsession with him develops into something more dangerous.Fifteen years later, after a career interrupted by drinking, injury, gambling, RESTRAINING ORDERS and burglary, Mark is now sober, gainfully-employed and looking forward to watching United at their CHAMPIONS LEAGUE-WINNING BEST. Most importantly for Mark, he is reconciled with the mother of his son, little Ryan. But as the old urges continue to struggle for voice in his head, can he keep his eye on the goal?

Legacy


Tim Cahill - 2015
    Born in Sydney to a Samoan mother and Londoner father, Timothy Cahill grew up in the sprawling western suburbs, where cricket and rugby league ruled. It was a long way from his father's beloved West Ham and the English game that transfixed a young Tim with his own unlikely dreams of one day playing professionally.Growing up in the 1980s, life for Tim was about family, football and more football - training, playing and watching it with his brothers. Beginning as the youngest and smallest boy on the field, Tim steadily worked his way through the local club sides with an on-field toughness and intelligence that made the unlikely a possibility.By the time he was a teenager, Tim's parents boldly applied for a bank loan to fund his travels to England. It was an act of faith repaid with a successful trial for Millwall, the storied London club. After 249 appearances and 56 goals and cult-hero status among the fans, he signed for Everton, where he would enjoy a highly successful Premiership and stellar international career - leaving the legacy of becoming one of the most admired and respected Australian sportsmen of all time.With his trademark honesty and candour, Tim reflects on what it takes to make it to the top - the sacrifices, the physical cost, the mental stamina, the uncompromising self-belief, but also the loyalty, the integrity and the generosity. An autobiography that is more than a record of the goals and the games, Tim Cahill's story is a universal reminder of the importance of making your moment count.

The Game of Their Lives: The Untold Story of the World Cup's Biggest Upset


Geoffrey Douglas - 1996
    The Americans were outsiders to the sport, the underdogs of the event, a 500-to-1 long shot. But they were also proud and loyal men -- to one another, to their communities, and certainly to their country. Facing almost no time to prepare, opponents with superior training, and skepticism from the rest of the world, this ragtag group of unknowns was inspired to a stunning victory over England and one of the most thrilling upsets in the history of sports.Written by critically acclaimed author Geoffrey Douglas, and now a film directed by David Anspaugh (Hoosiers), The Game of Their Lives takes us back to a time before million-dollar contracts and commercial endorsements, and introduces us to the athletes -- the Americans -- who showed the world just how far a long shot could really go.

Immortal


Duncan Hamilton - 2013
    No other was so emblematic of the era during which he flourished. And no other will ever be as memorable as George Best. On the field Best's skills were sublime and almost other-worldly. Off it, he had a magnetic appeal. He was treated like a pop icon and a pin-up; a fashion-model and a sex-symbol. Every man envied him and every woman adored him. To mark the 50th anniversary of his debut for Manchester United, Duncan Hamilton examines Best's crowded life and premature death. But most importantly, Hamilton presents Best at his glorious peak - the precocious goals, the labyrinthine runs, the poise and balletic balance and the body swerves. This is George Best: footballing immortal.

Stamping Grounds


Charlie Connelly - 2002
    Drawn in a group with Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austria and mighty Spain, it was hard to see the principality's part-time players scoring even one goal, never mind adding to its meagre international points total. So what motivates a nation of 30,000 people and eleven villages to keep plugging away despite the inevitability of defeat? Travelling to all of Liechenstein's qualifying matches, Charlie Connelly examines what motivates a team to take the field dressed proudly in the shirts of Liechtenstein despite the knowledge that they are, with notably few exceptions, in for a damn good hiding.Sampling the delights of Liechtenstein's capital, Vaduz, such as the Postage Stamp Museum, the State Art Museum and, er, the Postage Stamp Museum again, Connelly provides an evocative and witty account of the land where every year on National Day the sovereign invites the entire population into his garden for a glass of wine.

Golazo!: A History of Latin American Football


Andreas Campomar - 2014
    But it is also gripping social history. Andreas Campomar shows how the sport that started as the eccentric pastime of a few ex-pat cricket players has become a defining force, the architect of national identity and a reflection of the region’s soul. How can you hope to understand this tumultuous and disparate collection of young republics without first understanding the game that has become such a dominant presence in every corner of South American society?Including not only the well-known heroes of ‘the beautiful game’ – Garrincha, Maradona, Pelé, Schiaffino, Di Stéfano, Sánchez and Messi – but also the numerous forgotten gems of Latin American football – ‘The Black Chief’, Obdulio Varela; Heleno de Freitas, the Brazilian who squandered his talent and died half-mad with syphilis; Peru’s 1930s golden generation; the unstoppable River Plate of La Máquina; El Ballet Azul, the Colombian team who were so lavishly gifted that they all but dispensed with defending; Omar Corbatta, El Loco, undisputed master of the nutmeg and author of ‘the most impossible move ever’, and the indomitable Bolivian team of the early 1990s – ¡Golazo! is the extraordinary tale of how football came to define a continent.