Danish Dynamite: The Story of Football’s Greatest Cult Team


Rob Smyth - 2014
    Although they did not win a trophy, they claimed something much more important and enduring: glory, and in industrial quantities. They were a bewitching fusion of futuristic attacking football, effortless Scandinavian cool and laid-back living. They played like angels and lived like you and I, and they were everyone's second team in the mid-1980s. The story of Danish Dynamite, as the team became known, is the story of a team of rock stars in a polyester Hummel kit.Heralding from a country with no real football history to speak of and a population of five million, this humble and likeable team was unique. Everymen off the field and superheroes on it, they were totally of their time, and their approach to the game was in complete contrast to the gaudy excess and charmless arrogance of today's football stars. That they ultimately imploded in spectacular style, with a shocking 5-1 defeat to Spain in the 1986 World Cup in a game that almost everyone expected them to win, only adds to their legend.For the first time in English, Danish Dynamite tells the story of perhaps the coolest team in football history, a team that had it all and blew it in spectacular style after a live-fast-die-young World Cup campaign. Featuring interviews with the players themselves, including Michael Laudrup, Preben Elkjær and Jesper Olsen, as well as with those who played or managed against them, this is a joyous celebration of one of the most life-affirming teams the world has ever seen.

Tales from the Dugout: Football at the Sharp End


Richard Gordon - 2015
    When the action heats up on the pitch, emotions in the dugout boil over. Grown men lose control. The normally sane turn into irrational agitators. And every decision, no matter how minor, is hotly contested. Tales From The Dugout is a fantastically entertaining collection of incidents and memories gathered from managers, players, referees, linesmen and broadcasters, which encapsulates the unique environment of the technical area and reveals how even limited exposure to it can transform people unrecognisably. And when the red mist descends, the consequences can be almost unbelievable - and frequently hilarious. With contributions from a host of those who have been at the sharp end and lived to tell the tale, Tales From The Dugout is a unique insight into life in the technical area. There are tales from Scotland manager Gordon Strachan, Craig Brown, Pat Nevin, Kenny Clark, Pat Bonner, Scott Booth, Terry Butcher, Jimmy Calderwood, Billy Dodds, Jim Duffy, Alex McLeish, Alex Smith, Willie Young and Chick Young - amongst many others. And brilliant stories about legends of the game like Tommy Burns, Walter Smith, Martin O'Neill, Ally McCoist, Jim McLean and, of course, Sir Alex Ferguson. And it explains why that small area by the side of the pitch is no place for the faint-hearted.

Massively Violent & Decidedly Average


Lee Howey - 2018
    These were household names with glory-laden careers whose exploits on the pitch will never be forgotten. Yet, despite access to such fabulous raw material, they have mostly produced bloody awful books – predictable, plodding, repetitive, self-important and just plain boring. They may have been better footballers than Howey, but he has written the most entertaining football memoir you are ever likely to read. Not that Lee Howey’s football career is in any way undistinguished. He won the First Division Championship with his beloved Sunderland in 1995 and played in the Premier League against some of the most celebrated names in English football, including Jürgen Klinsmann, Ryan Giggs, Eric Cantona, Gianfranco Zola, Peter Schmeichel, Ian Wright, Alan Shearer and Fabrizio Ravanelli – and not always unsuccessfully. It wasn’t all assaults upon the kneecaps on wet Tuesday nights in Hartlepool (though there is plenty of that too).This honest, thoughtful and hilarious book may not end with an unforgettable game at Wembley, or a 100th England cap. However, it will amuse and delight fans of all teams in its portrait of the game of football before it disappeared up its own backside.

Cure Tight Hips Anywhere: Open Locked Up Hips and Pelvis Anytime, Anywhere (Simple Strength Book 1)


Sean Schniederjan - 2014
     This book gives the simplest exercises on the market to open your hips with effective correctives you can do anywhere. This program was designed to not only be convenient, but also comprehensive. It breaks down an easy set of progressions and goals to get the muscles on your pelvis, lower back, and hips/upper legs to function. Doing these exercises will: -restore balance to your body -instantly improve your posture and hip mobility -strengthen your hips in addition to opening them leaving you feeling "tied together" and fantastic.

Cloughie: Walking on Water. Brian Clough with John Sadler


Brian Howard Clough - 2002
    His passing was marked by a minutes silence at both the Derby County and Nottingham Forest grounds and provoked a wave of tributes from across the sporting spectrum. A memorial service due to be held at Derby Cathedral had to be moved to Pride Park to accommodate the fans demand for tickets. This overwhelming affection and respect was fully deserved for the man who was often described as being controversial, outspoken and opinionated. His achievements in football speak for themselves: he took two lowly Midlands sides to the very top, winning two consecutive European Cups, with unfashionable Nottingham Forest, in a feat that will surely never be matched by a club of similar stature. died, which offer his candid and entertaining views on club directors and chairmen and on Newcastles treatment of Sir Bobby Robson, as well as his scathing analysis of Englands recent performances. Cloughie also talks honestly about his battles with alcohol and the liver transplant that gave him 21 months of health and happiness.

Black Skin, White Masks


Frantz Fanon - 1952
    Hailed for its scientific analysis and poetic grace when it was first published in 1952, the book remains a vital force today.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Simon Starr - 2017
    The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. It says that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts. Responding to being referred to as an "outsider," King writes, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The Soccer Fence: A story of friendship, hope, and apartheid in South Africa


Phil Bildner - 2014
    He dreamed of playing on a real pitch with the boys from another part of the city, but apartheid made that impossible. Then, in 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and apartheid began to crumble. The march toward freedom in South Africa was a slow one, but when the beloved Bafana Bafana national soccer team won the African Cup of Nations, Hector realized that dreams once impossible could now come true. This poignant story of friendship artfully depicts a brief but critical moment in South Africa’s history and the unique role that sports can play in bringing people together.

Touched by God: How We Won the Mexico '86 World Cup


Diego Armando Maradona - 2016
    Since then, Argentina's World Cup victory has become the stuff of legend, particularly their infamous victory over England--only four years after the country's defeat in the Falklands War--which featured arguably the best goal in history (Maradona's "Goal of the Century") and the worst (the notorious "Hand of God"). But Argentina's victory came after months of struggle and discord within the team, including the Argentine government's attempt to remove the team's management, a lack of equipment that forced the players to buy their own uniforms, and an argument that caused the team's captain to quit on the eve of the tournament. Now, thirty years after Argentina's magical victory, Maradona tells his side of the story, vividly recounting how he led the team to win one of the greatest World Cup triumphs of all time.

And the Sun Shines Now: How Hillsborough and the Premier League Changed Britain


Adrian Tempany - 2014
    The Hillsborough disaster was broadcast live on the BBC; it left millions of people traumatised, and English football in ruins.And the Sun Shines Now is not a book about Hillsborough. It is a book about what arrived in the wake of unquestionably the most controversial tragedy in the post-war era of Britain's history. The Taylor Report. Italia 90. Gazza's tears. All seater stadia. Murdoch. Sky. Nick Hornby. The Premier League. The transformation of a game that once connected club to community to individual into a global business so rapacious the true fans have been forgotten, disenfranchised.In powerful polemical prose, against a backbone of rigorous research and interviews, Adrian Tempany deconstructs the past quarter century of English football and examines its place in the world. How did Hillsborough and the death of 96 Liverpool fans come to change the national game beyond recognition? And is there any hope that clubs can reconnect with a new generation of fans when you consider the startling statistic that the average age of season ticket holder here is 41, compared to Germany's 21?Perhaps the most honest account of the relationship between the football and the state yet written, And the Sun Shines Now is a brutal assessment of the modern game.

How Not to Be a Professional Footballer


Paul Merson - 2011
    In fact, that's exactly what he's done in this book which manages to be simultaneously poignant and funny.

You Don't Know Me, But . . .: A Footballer's Life


Clarke Carlisle - 2013
    With a growing media profile, thanks to his appearances on Question Time and an acclaimed documentary on racism in football, there were plenty of other opportunities, but he was determined to give it another go. Initially signing for York City before moving to Northampton Town, Carlisle was soon back in the thick of the action. As the events of the year unfolded, Carlisle looked back at his career, from his early days playing for England Under-21s, through career-threatening injuries and a battle with alcohol problems, to a late arrival at the top level with Burnley. As chairman of the PFA, Carlisle is a much-respected figure in the game; his raw honesty and penetrating insights will make readers view the game, and those who play it, in a whole new light.

Extra Time


Morris Gleitzman - 2013
    His younger sister Bridie goes with him as his manager and tells us their story – warts, goals and all.The funny and moving story of a sister's love for her brother, and how it survives everything fate throws at it, including the millions of pounds and mountains of pressure at the top of the world's most popular sport.

100 Years of Leeds United: 1919-2019


Daniel Chapman - 2018
    Since its foundation in 1919, Leeds United Football Club has seen more ups and downs than most, rising to global fame through an inimitable and uncompromising style in the 70s, clinching the last Division One title of the pre-Sky Sports era in 1992, before becoming the epitome of financial mismanagement at the start of the 21st century. Despite this demise, United remains one of the best supported – and most divisive – clubs in football, with supporters’ clubs dotted across the globe. In 100 Years of Leeds United, Chapman delves deep into the archives to discover the lesser-known episodes, providing fresh context to the folkloric tales that have shaped the club we know today, painting the definitive picture of the West Yorkshire giants.

The Stone Thrower


Jael Ealey Richardson - 2016
    Against all odds, he became an incredible quarterback. But despite his unbeaten record in high school and university, he would never play professional football in the United States.Chuck Ealey grew up poor in a racially segregated community that was divided from the rest of town by a set of train tracks, but his mother assured him that he wouldn’t stay in Portsmouth forever. Education was the way out, and a football scholarship was the way to pay for that education. So despite the racist taunts he faced at all the games he played in high school, Chuck maintained a remarkable level of dedication and determination. And when discrimination followed him to university and beyond, Chuck Ealey remained undefeated.This inspirational story is told by Chuck Ealey’s daughter, author and educator Jael Richardson, with striking and powerful illustrations by award-winning illustrator Matt James.