From Vialli, one of Italy's most famous footballers as well as a former manager of England's Chelsea F.C., and Marcotti, the UK correspondent for Corriere dello Sport and football columnist for The Times, comes this unique journey to the heart of two great soccer cultures.
The history of black high school football in segregated Texas: “Though this book is long overdue, it is also right on time.” —Texas Observer At a time when “Friday night lights” shone only on white high school football games, African American teams across Texas burned up the gridiron on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Temple Dunbar, Austin Anderson, and other segregated high schools in the Prairie View Interscholastic League—the African American counterpart of the University Interscholastic League, which excluded black schools from membership until 1967—created an exciting brand of football that produced hundreds of outstanding players, many of whom became college All-Americans, All-Pros, and Pro Football Hall of Famers, including NFL greats such as “Mean” Joe Green, Otis Taylor, Dick “Night Train” Lane, Ken Houston, and Bubba Smith. Thursday Night Lights tells the inspiring, largely unknown story of African American high school football in Texas. Drawing on interviews, newspaper stories, and memorabilia, Michael Hurd introduces the players, coaches, schools, and towns where African Americans built powerhouse football programs under the PVIL leadership. He covers fifty years of history, including championship seasons and legendary rivalries such as the annual Turkey Day Classic game between Houston schools Jack Yates and Phillis Wheatley, which drew standing-room-only crowds of up to 40,000. In telling this story, Hurd explains why the PVIL was necessary, traces its development, and shows how football offered a potent source of pride and ambition in the black community, helping black kids succeed both athletically and educationally in a racist society. “[A] groundbreaking book.” —Houston Chronicle “In America’s current Colin Kaepernick-inspired moment, with sports once again taking on a conspicuous role in debates about black citizenship and the persistence of white racism, this book is especially timely and important.” —Great Plains Quarterly
'If you want to know and understand how football really works, this is the book for you.' Guillem Balagué 'A myth-busting and hugely entertaining look at the ever more complex machinations of the beautiful game. Essential.' Raphael Honigstein 'A must-read for football fans.' Freddie Ljungberg Insightful, enlightening and thought-provoking, leading Premier League lawyer Daniel Geey lifts the lid on the inner workings of modern football. What really happens inside a club on transfer deadline day? Are football agents overpaid? Which club put a clause forbidding space travel into a midfielder's contract? And which team's players can never wear red boots? Whether it is a manager being sacked, a star player transfer, billion-pound television rights negotiations or a controversial club takeover, leading football lawyer Daniel Geey has all the insight. With an accessible and thoughtful perspective, and featuring expert contributions, Done Deal explores the issues that shape the modern game, providing football fans with a fresh and authoritative look at all off-field football matters.
They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.
The 1870 Education Act that opened up elementary education for all children contained no provision for outdoor games. This book explains how teachers, through the elementary school football association, introduced boys to organized football as an out-of-school activity. The influence and significance of this work, insofar as it relates to the elementary school curriculum and the growth of professional and amateur football are explored in detail, including: * How ideological commitments and contemporary concerns for the physical welfare of children in cities may have led teachers to promote schoolboy football when it was not permitted during school hours * The extent to which out of school organised football may have led to outdoor games being accepted as part of the school curriculum * How elementary school football in London in the late nineteenth century influenced the development of the amateur game. This is a fascinating account of the origins of schoolboy football and the factors that have influenced its development and the consequences and benefits that have followed not only for school football but for sport in schools and communities as a whole.
A riveting debut novel of a season in the life of a professional football player-written by one of the NFL's best tight ends of all time. Dominic Fucillo is a tight end for the surging New York Giants. Rebellious, ferociously angry, deeply religious and fighting injuries and a crumbling love life that would bring the average man to his knees, Dom is a veteran player who is having the toughest season of his career at a time when his team can do nothing wrong--or so it seems. Because behind the big wins, a major scandal is brewing. The team's star linebacker has always lived on the edge and enjoyed the nightlife more than he should. But when he's found beaten nearly to death in the stadium parking lot, it's clear he's gotten himself into more than even he bargained for, and it's something that threatens to tear himself and his team's promising season apart. Inspired by his years shedding blood and sweat playing professional football, ROUGH & TUMBLE is Mark Bavaro's novel about the brutal world of the NFL-and a classic sports story of one man's determination and grit.
For the Anfield faithful, Jamie Carragher represents everything that is great about Liverpool Football Club, prompting the Kop to sing 'we all dream of a team of Carraghers'. The club's vice-captain, longest-serving player and one of a select band of players to have made more than 500 appearances for the Reds, Carra never gives less than 100 per cent for the cause. He is the embodiment of old-fashioned football values - a rarity in the modern game - honest and uncompromising. In Carra: My Autobiography, the Liverpool defender takes us deep into the heart of Anfield, into the club's past glories and its uncertain future. In his typically down-to-earth style, Carra reveals what made him discard his blue Evertonian roots to become a fully fledged Red, how he mended his wild ways to become a true professional and a multiple trophy-winner, and the truth about a succession of managers - Evans, Houllier, Benítez - in the hottest seat in football. A Scouser through and through, Carra also has some forthright views on the England team, and tells why he rejected calls to return to the international fold. Full of sensational stories and controversial opinions, of glory and heartbreak on and off the pitch, Carra: My Autobiography is a football book unlike any other. The authentic voice of Anfield, Carra is one of the Bootroom Boys in true Liverpool tradition, and is as committed on the page as in every game he has played.
“A raucous, smash-mouth, first-person takedown of the National Football League." —Wall Street Journal The New York Times bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Town, an equally merciless probing of America's biggest cultural force, pro football, at a moment of peak success and high anxiety Like millions of Americans, Mark Leibovich has spent more of his life tuned into pro football than he'd care to admit. Being a lifelong New England Patriots fan meant growing up on a steady diet of lovable loserdom. That is, until the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era made the Pats the most ruthlessly efficient and polarizing sports dynasty of the modern NFL, and its fans the most irritating in all of Pigskin America. Leibovich kept his obsession quiet, making a nice career for himself covering that other playground for rich and overgrown children, American politics. Still, every now and then Leibovich would reach out to Tom Brady to gauge his willingness to subject himself to a profile. He figured that the chances of Brady agreeing were a Hail Mary at best, but Brady returned Mark's call in summer 2014 and kept on returning his calls through epic Patriots Super Bowl victory and defeat, and a scandal involving Brady--Deflategate--whose grip on sports media was as profound as its true significance was ridiculous. So began a four-year odyssey that took Mark Leibovich deeper inside the NFL than anyone has gone before. From the owners' meeting to the draft to the sidelines of crucial games, he takes in the show at the elbow of everyone from Brady to big-name owners to the cordially despised NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell. Ultimately, BIG GAME is a chronicle of "peak football"--the high point of the sport's economic success and cultural dominance, but also the time when the dark side began to show. It is an era of explosive revenue growth, but also one of creeping existential fear. Players have long joked that NFL stands for "not for long," but as the true impact of concussions becomes inescapable background noise, it's increasingly difficult to enjoy the simple glory of football without the buzz-kill of its obvious consequences. And that was before Donald Trump. In 2016, Mark's day job caught up with him, and the NFL slammed headlong into America's culture wars. Big Game is a journey through an epic storm. Through it all, Leibovich always keeps one eye on Tom Brady and his beloved Patriots, through to the 2018 Super Bowl. Pro football, this hilarious and enthralling book proves, may not be the sport America needs, but it is most definitely the sport we deserve.