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Harry Redknapp

‘When a man walks on to a pitch there’s always a chance something magic can happen, that’s what keeps us coming back…’ 
 
In A Man Walks On To a Pitch, Harry shares a lifetime’s experience of obsessing over football, during which he has seen it all first hand – the good, the bad and the unbelievable. Harry started in an age where players were ordinary blokes who might live on the same street as you and earn a similar wage. Now he manages in an era of player power, multi-million pound wages and teams assembled from around the globe. 
 
As he shares stories of some of the legends and journeymen he played, coached, argued and drank with, Harry picks a team for each decade from the 1950s to the present. He gets to the heart of what was right and wrong with each era and explores the changes in the game from lifestyle to tactics. He weaves his choices together with unforgettable tales from the training pitches, boot rooms and card schools. 
 
There are tales of the untutored genius of Duncan Edwards and Tom Finney, legendary tough Scots like Bobby Collins, Dave Mackay and Billy Bremner, the world-beaters of 1966, unpredictable one-off wizards from Sir Stanley Matthews to Matt Le Tissier, natural-born goalscorers from Greaves to Dalglish and the greatest foreign players to grace our game from Trautmann to Bergkamp. It is one of the best informal histories of the British game you’ll ever read.

A Man Walks On To a Pitch

Stories from a Life in Football

Peter Crouch

Shortlisted for the Sports Entertainment Book of the Year at the British Sports Book Awards 
 
The funniest man in British sport - Metro 
 
Peter Crouch is a comedy genius - Daily Mail 
 
Often recruited before they've worn long trousers, today's footballers become superstars who earn huge amounts without ever learning much about the world beyond the training ground. Coddled by their support teams, everything is done for them. They live their lives in the glaring media spotlight, yet only really develop one life skill - how to kick a ball better. Then inevitably, when age catches up with them or injury strikes, these man-children are thrown out into the real world, utterly defenceless apart from their multi-million-pound bank accounts. 
 
So what do these Peter Pans, whose careers end just as most people's are getting going, do with the rest of their lives? Crouch speaks from his own experience and discusses with fellow former professionals too - just how do you safely release a near seven-foot striker back into the wild? 
 
Peter goes in search of the answer to what his second career might be and encounters stories far more bizarre than anything you'll find on the pitch. From the pleasure and pain of management to the lessons we can learn from Jamie Carragher and Joe Cole on not going to seed. From those staying in the sport - the diehard veterans, coaches, managers, owners and of course the legion of pundits, to those moving on to pastures new. Peter talks to entrepreneurs, men of the cloth, eco warriors, artists, private detectives and budding actors, as well as those who've lost their way in addiction, crime and NFTs. 
 
When the final whistle blows, it's still all to play for.

How to Be an Ex-Footballer

Peter Storey

True Storey is the compelling autobiography of notorious 1970s football legend Peter Storey, dubbed 'the bastard's bastard', who gained a reputation for ultra-violence on the pitch and had a capacity to find even greater trouble off it - a fact borne out by a string of criminal convictions and several jail sentences. 
 
 A key member, as their midfield enforcer, of the resilient Arsenal team that won the European Fairs Cup followed by the cherished Double in 1970-71, Storey was a confirmed ladies' man who loved a drink. In the mid-'70s, Storey's pub, the Jolly Farmers in Islington, became a magnet for north London villains and he rubbed shoulders with Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey and Howard 'Mr Nice' Marks, Britain's biggest drug smuggler. 
 
 Storey talks candidly about the crimes he committed and the spells in prison that blighted his life. He reveals the truth about his feud with George Best and relays an astonishing account of how Bertie Mee tried to make him miss the 1971 FA Cup final against Bill Shankly's Liverpool side because the Arsenal manager wanted Eddie Kelly to start instead. 
 
 Today, Peter is an elusive character but a man transformed and at ease with life. Only now does he feel the circumstances are right to set the record straight and tell his side of a remarkable True Storey.

True Storey

My Life and Crimes as a Football Hatchet Man

The Sunday Times no.1 bestselling memoir from Harry Redknapp 
 
‘From kicking a ball as a kid under the street lamps of Poplar and standing on Highbury's North Bank with my dad, to my first game at West Ham, I was born head over heels in love with football. 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.

Always Managing

My Autobiography

Peter Osgood

Martin King

Martin Knight

In a 16-year career spent with Chelsea and Southampton, goal-scoring legend Peter Osgood made 560 appearances, scoring 220 goals and winning two FA Cup-winner's medals. He was part of the victorious Chelsea side that defeated the mighty Real Madrid in the 1971 European Cup-Winners Cup final and is the last player to have scored in every round of the FA Cup, including the final. 
 
Ossie tells the story of the career and the extraordinary roller-coaster personal life of the man who spearheaded a team that made as many headlines off the field as on. The truth about the hard-drinking and hard-living antics of these Kings Road dandies - Hudson, Cooke, Baldwin and company - has never before been told. Osgood tells of his strained relationship with manager Dave Sexton, which resulted in his and other stars' departures, triggering a decline in Chelsea FC's fortunes that took some 20 years to reverse. He recounts his experience in the Mexico World Cup of 1970 and is brutally honest about the challenges and problems faced by ex-footballers as they attempt to adjust to life in mainstream society. 
 
Peter Osgood was no ordinary footballer and Ossie is no ordinary football autobiography. Like the King of Stamford Bridge himself was, this book is entertaining, outspoken and full of surprises.

Ossie

King of Stamford Bridge

Terry Pratchett

The Discworld is undoubtedly Sir Terry Pratchett's most famous creation. A universe teeming with dwarves, trolls, witches, and social and cultural issues that parallel those in our own world, all wrapped up in Pratchett's inimitable comic delivery. This iconic series will make you laugh, then make you think.

Discover the gloriously inventive and funny fantasy novel from bestselling author Terry Pratchett, the seventh book in the Wizards series, part of the Discworld novels. 
 
'This isn't just football, it's Discworld football. Or, to borrow another phrase, it's about life, the Universe and everything' The Times 
 
‘Another brilliant and funny book from a master storyteller’ 5-star reader review 
 
'We play and are played and the best we can hope for is to do it with style.' 
 
Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. 
 
And now the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match without using magic . . . so they're in the mood for trying everything else. 
 
To do this, they recruit an unlikely group of players: Trev, a street urchin with a talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda, the night chef who makes a mean pie; Juliet, the kitchen hand turned world's greatest fashion model; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who has something powerful, and dark, locked away inside him . . . 
 
And the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football. Here we go, here we go, here we go! 
 
Unseen Academicals is the seventh book in the Wizards series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order. 
 
Praise for the Discworld series: 
 
'[Pratchett’s] spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' Mail on Sunday 
 
‘Pratchett is a master storyteller’ Guardian 
 
'One of our greatest fantasists, and beyond a doubt the funniest' George R.R. Martin 
 
'One of those rare writers who appeals to everyone’ Daily Express 
 
‘One of the most consistently funny writers around’ Ben Aaronovitch 
 
‘Masterful and brilliant’ Fantasy & Science Fiction 
 
‘Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own… he is a satirist of enormous talent ... incredibly funny ... compulsively readable' The Times 
 
‘The best humorous English author since P.G. Wodehouse' The Sunday Telegraph 
 
‘Nothing short of magical’ Chicago Tribune 
 
'Consistently funny, consistently clever and consistently surprising in its twists and turns' SFX 
 
‘[Discworld is] compulsively readable, fantastically inventive, surprisingly serious exploration in story form of just about any aspect of our world…There's never been anything quite like it’ Evening Standard

Unseen Academicals

(Discworld Novel 37)

John King

Having examined England's twin obsessions - violence and sex - in THE FOOTBALL FACTORY and HEADHUNTERS, John King completes his trilogy with ENGLAND AWAY: sex and violence abroad, under the Union Jack. The novel works on three levels - past, present and future - as pensioner Bill Farrell remembers his war experiences in a London pub, Tommy Johnson fights his way through Holland and Germany for an England football match in Berlin, and Harry considers the future fuelled by doses of Dutch skunk and German speed. John King's powerful new novel looks at notions of what it means to be English. Exploring stereotypes of language and nationalism, the primal pulls of lust and aggression, ENGLAND AWAY culminates in a unity of the tribes and a blitzkreig in the streets of Berlin.

England Away

Mark Chapman

Alice bands, orange bladed boots and socks worn over the knee. Mansions in Cheshire, WAGs and written-off Ferraris. Referees with headsets, fourth officials, and an incomprehensible amount of stoppage time. 
 
There is only so much a true football fan can take, and in Heroes, Hairbands and Hissy Fits, Mark Chapman (aka Chappers) gives full vent to his feelings, as only the host of a football phone-in can. Football phone-ins are on the hitlist too, by the way. It is football as we know it, told from the heart. 
 
With his trademark down-to-earth wit, he takes aim at everyone from Sepp Blatter to MOTD, kit designers and replica shirt wearers (don't put your age on the back of the shirt, lads), trophy presentations and tournament draws. From his first footballing memory to watching his son grow up idolising Premier League millionaires, Chappers' book is a timely tirade as well as a love song to the beautiful game.

Heroes, Hairbands and Hissy Fits

Chappers' modern history of football

**A Daily Mail Book of the Year** 
 
What happens on the pitch is only half the story. 
 
Being a footballer is not just kicking a ball about with twenty-one other people on a big grass rectangle. Sometimes being a footballer is about accidentally becoming best mates with Mickey Rourke, or understanding why spitting is considered football’s most heinous crime. 
 
In How to be a Footballer, Peter Crouch took us into a world of bad tattoos and even worse haircuts, a world where you’re on the pitch one minute, spending too much money on a personalised number plate the next. In I, Robot, he lifts the lid even further on the beautiful game. We will learn about Gareth Bale’s magic beans, the Golden Rhombus of Saturday night entertainment, and why Crouchy’s dad walks his dog wearing an England tracksuit from 2005. 
 
Whether you’re an armchair expert, or out in the stands every Saturday, crazy for five-a-side or haven’t put on a pair of boots since school, this is the real inside story of how to be a footballer.

I, Robot

How to Be a Footballer 2

Gary Edwards

He made you cry with laughter with Paint It White, now the celebrated Leeds-supporting, cartoon-drawing, painting-and-decorating eccentric Gary Edwards is back. It turns out that his first book was only an undercoat and now the story of his crazy life following Leeds needs a second coat. 
 
No wonder: Edwards, you see, has seen every Leeds game - competitive and friendly anywhere in the world - since 17 January 1968*. During those 37 years, he's been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. So, after subtle prompts from his travelling companions, he's back with more tales that simply would not fit into the first volume. 
There's barely a pub in the land he can step into without some well-meaning soul coming up to him and demanding, 'Loved the book, Gary! When are you going to do another - with me in it?' So here it is - another fabulously entertaining collection of travelling tales and friends remembered. Eventually. 
 
In this follow-up instalment of high gloss and drama, Edwards recounts how he befriended a real-life Leeds-supporting Dalek, convinced Rolf Harris that the earth was flat, was accosted by firemen while trying to paint a fire engine white, appeared on the sides of buses with his face painted in Leeds colours and received letters from the Queen and the Prime Minister after he complained about David Beckham getting an OBE! 
 
Leeds United: The Second Coat is another hilarious account of the scrapes, adventures and moments of comedy that a life's passion for Leeds United has brought Gary Edwards. 
 
*OK, he missed one but he still has the match ticket, and only a strike by Spanish air traffic control stopped him getting to a one-off friendly in Toronto.

Leeds United

The Second Coat

Jason Hazeley

Joel Morris

These delightful books are the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them. 
 
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. The subject of the books will greatly appeal to grown-ups. 
 
The eight books in the series feature original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text. The other books in the series are: 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Sheds 
 
- The Ladybird Book of The Hipster 
 
- The Ladybird Book of the Mid-Life Crisis 
 
- The Ladybird Book of the Hangover 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Dating 
 
- How it Works: The Husband 
 
- How it Works: The Wife

*A HILARIOUS, BRAND NEW BOOK IN THE PHENOMENAL LADYBIRDS FOR GROWN UPS SERIES FOR AUTUMN 2017* 
 
The Ladybird Book of Balls - The subject of sport gets the Ladybird treatment from bestselling authors Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris. 
 
This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them. 
 
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. Featuring original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text.

The Ladybird Book of Balls

The perfect gift for fans of the World Cup

Hugo Borst

‘Am I so smart or are you so stupid?’ – Louis van Gaal 
 
I started out wanting to write a book about Marco van Basten. I still do, but I dread the moment when I have to write something I know will make him unhappy. He’s not a man you wage war on. With Louis van Gaal it’s different: as a journalist he leaves you no choice. You’re not worthy of the name if you aren’t prepared to return fire when he starts yelling. 
 
Hugo Borst is an award-winning writer, journalist and TV pundit. He is also a close friend of Louis van Gaal. Well, he used to be. 
 
O, Louis is Hugo’s attempt to get to grips with this larger-than-life character. Full of outrageous stories and unintentionally hilarious encounters, Borst details his quest to understand the man and the breakdown in their friendship. He interviews an array of experts who each interpret the great manager from the perspective of their own field – a cleric, a politician, a psychiatrist, an impersonator, 
a theatre director, writers, poets and a trio of keen comic minds. Through these meetings as well as through his own encounters with Van Gaal, Borst is finally able to unlock the personality of this exceptional, talented, infuriating and even, occasionally, loveable man. 
 
‘This book will sell well. Everything that has my face on it sells well’ – Louis van Gaal

O, Louis

In Search of Louis van Gaal

Paul Mullin

The memoir from Wrexham's star player, Paul Mullin - as seen in Welcome to Wrexham, a Disney+ documentary series by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. 
 
In July 2021, shortly after being named League Two's Player of the Season and Golden Boot, Paul Mullin sent shockwaves through the EFL by taking a downwards move to National League team, Wrexham AFC. Since then, 'Super Paul Mullin' has helped transform the Wrexham team, scoring goal after goal, helping secure promotion, and capturing the imaginations of football fans across the world in the process. 
 
Here for the first time, Mullin tells his own story: his roots in Liverpool, the highs and lows of English football's promotion race, lessons learnt from his young son's Autism diagnosis, and what happens when Hollywood comes knocking at your door.

My Wrexham Story

The Inspirational Autobiography From The Beloved Football Hero

Jim Wilkie

The star Argentiniean striker Claudio Caniggia has described Dundee as 'a football town' and, as the favoured partner of arguably the world's greatest-ever player Diego Maradona, he should know. But why should he care? What was this man doing, plying his trade in Dundee? 
 
Dundee Football Club - the Dark Blues - do have a tradition; they have produced a number of outstanding players, won all the major Scottish trophies and, in 1963, reached the semi-final of the European Cup. For the next three decades, however, their story was one of gradual decline - and you can lose a lot of supporters in 30 years. 
 
When brothers Peter and Jimmy Marr, local businessmen, took over at Dens Park in 1997, the fans didn't know what to expect. They were a different proposition from their predecessors in that they had experience of running successful amateur and junior football clubs - but while the team performed creditably under Jocky Scott, there were still a number of very average players getting a game and the wider fan base was only inclined to attend a handful of matches during the season. 
 
Having battled to get promotion to the Scottish Premier League and build new stands, however, Peter Marr proceeded to make a leap of cultural faith. He knew that quality football was the key to any form of success and that, generally speaking, it could be found on the European continent. 
 
Marr originally expressed interest in Ivano Bonetti as a player, but when he discovered that the Italian was also interested in management, decided to embark on a footballing adventure with him. What followed has been one of the most remarkable episodes in recent Scottish football history. In the face of great cynicism and limited resources, Bonetti has assembled a squad of outstanding international talent, with his friend Claudio Caniggia the jewel in the crown. Results have been both good and bad - and sometimes downright weird - but the football has always been consistently entertaining and frequently breathtaking. No Dundee fan will ever forget season 2000-01. In this book Jim Wilkie reviews the tradition of the club and, using key profiles and reports, charts their amazing transformation to Bonetti's Blues.

Bonetti's Blues

Dundee FC and its Cultural Experiment

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Fredrik Ekelund

Karl Ove Knausgaard and fellow writer Fredrik Ekelund kick around thoughts and ideas on football, life, art and politics. 
 
Karl Ove Knausgaard is sitting at home in Skåne with his wife, four small children and a dog. He is watching football on TV and falls asleep in front of the set. He likes 0-0 draws, cigarettes, coffee and Argentina. 
 
Fredrik Ekelund is away in Brazil, where he plays football on the beach and watches matches with friends. Fredrik loves games that end up 4-3 and teams that play beautiful football. He likes caipirinhas and Brazil. 
 
In Home and Away, two writers use football and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil to reflect on life and death, art and politics, class and literature and the most important question: was this the best football championship ever?

Home and Away

Writing the Beautiful Game

David Squires

Stunningly illustrated by David Squires (as featured in the Guardian), The Illustrated History of Football is a wry look at the highs and lows of the beautiful game. Laugh-out- loud and occasionally moving, it's the perfect gift for anyone who loves football. 
 
'Squires is the master of the football comic strip and this collection is recommended reading for enlightened football fans everywhere' -- Late Tackle 
'No one captures the absurdities and ugliness of football better than him ... hilarious' -- Coach Magazine 
'[Illustrated History of Football] is the funniest football tome since Viz's Billy the Fish Football Yearbook, published 26 years earlier' -- Esquire 
'Simply brilliant - my favourite football book' -- ***** Reader review 
'Completely amazing cartoons with beautiful insight as to the how, why, when &amp; wow' -- ***** Reader review 
'Simply wonderful' -- ***** Reader review 
'One of the funniest books I've read in a very long time. A must for anyone who loves football' -- ***** Reader review 
********************************************************************************************* 
Football and comics. Once a hearty Saturday combination to match cartoons and cereal, in recent years they've drifted apart. Thankfully for us, illustrator Squires is here to change all that. 
 
 In The Illustrated History of Football, his first book, Squires relives some of football's most glorious moments and meets its greatest figures. In a sport full of handsome paycheques and corporate sponsors, he also casts a critical eye over corrupt backroom workings and helps pierce football's overblown balloon. 
 
Funny, good-looking and preternaturally astute, this book is everything Sepp Blatter wishes he could be. 
More than the archetypal loo book, this is a satirical look at the highs and lows of football and the perfect gift for all fans...

The Illustrated History of Football

the highs and lows of football, brought to life in comic form…

Ebury Press

‘Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.’ 
 
 Widely known for his strong personality, sharp dress sense, and eccentric comments at press conferences, there is only one José Mourinho. Regarded as many by the world’s best manager and one of the greatest of all time, he achieved huge success whilst at Benfica, Uniao de Leiria, Porto, Chelsea, Internazionale and Real Madrid. Never one to doubt his own abilities, the charismatic and controversial manager has dominated headlines with his many clashes with the press and run-ins with the football authorities. 
 
 Silver-tongued and passionate, this compendium of quotes from the ‘special one’ includes the very best of Mourinho on football: his erudite comments, bizarre philosophies, confident expressions of unwavering self-belief and his love of the beautiful game. 
 
 ‘Look, I'm a coach, I'm not Harry Potter. He is magical, but in reality there is no magic. Magic is fiction and football is real.’ 
 A warning to Real Madrid fans, 2010 
 
 ‘Look at my haircut. I am ready for the war.’ 
 At the launch of a new shirt deal between Chelsea and Adidas. The event also became a chance to unveil his new, short-trimmed haircut. 
 
 ‘I think they should get George Clooney to play me. He's a fantastic actor and my wife thinks he would be ideal.’ 
 Contemplating a film of his life

The José Mourinho Quote Book

Bill Buford

___________________________ 
THE BESTSELLING ACCOUNT OF FOOTBALL VIOLENCE 
 
Welcome to the world of football thuggery. 
 
They have names like Bonehead, Paraffin Pete and Steamin’ Sammy. They like lager, football, the Queen, and themselves. They love England. They dislike the rest of the known universe. 
 
The beautiful game remains ugly. 
 
From following Manchster's Red Army to drinking with skinheads, acclaimed writer Bill Buford enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of Hunter S. Thompson. 
 
Among the Thugs is a terrifying, malevolently funny, supremely chilling book about the experience, and the eerie allure, of crowd violence and football culture.

Among The Thugs

Paul McGrath

The extraordinary and heartbreaking memoir from one of football's greatest players 
 
Paul McGrath is Ireland's best loved sportsman and also its least understood. An iconic football presence during a professional career stretching over 14 years, he played for his country in the European Championship finals of 1988 and the World Cup finals of 1990 and 1994. But, behind the implied glamour of life in the employ of great English clubs like Manchester United and Aston Villa, McGrath wrestled with a range of destructive emotions that made his success in the game little short of miraculous. 
 
That story has until now never been told. It is a story that runs from a hard, hidden childhood spent in Dublin's orphanages all the way to the pain of two marriage break-ups and the struggle to cope with life after football. Quite apart from his all too public struggle with alcoholism, the story runs through the surreal highs and calamitous lows of a life lived habitually on the edge of chaos. 
 
It is not just a football story. It is an extraordinary human story that is certain to surprise with its candour. 
 
Here, for the first time, read about the father he never met; the mother whose love never died; the routine loneliness and ritual bullying endured by a black kid growing up behind closed doors in 1960s Dublin; the emotional breakdown suffered on leaving that institution; the recovery that - remarkably - brought him all the way to Old Trafford; the rollercoaster ride that followed. Here, the guilt, fear, self-loathing are all laid bare in a story fired with hope and determination for the future. 
 
It may well be the most candid sports book ever written.

Back from the Brink

The Autobiography

Tony Francis

Brian Clough is no ordinary football manager. He has walked on water at Nottingham Forest and through hellfire at one or two other clubs without once conceding an inch to anybody. Even his enemies are mesmerized. Tony Francis has talked at length to more than 200 people about Clough, including former partner Peter Taylor and his current chairman Fred Reacher. Why, despite his television attacks on his own supporters, did he remain his people's choice as England manager for so long?. What is the Trent Enders view of the man they used to worship whose behaviour gets stranger and stranger and whose bloated face turns even more purple? Why did Fred Reacher feel he has to issue him a warning? This book traces Clough's life from early Middlesbrough days and the knee injury that crippled him as a centre forward to the outspoken Hartlepeool manager who toppled the chairman, the idolized Derby manager who resigned on the eve of glory, the Leeds manager who told Revie's men they had won all their trophies by cheating and the triumphant Nottingham Forrest manager who took his team from nowhere to the peak of Europe and seemingly back down again.

Clough

A Biography

Amy Lawrence

‘Isn’t it lovely to have moments in your life where you think, oh, nothing can beat that. Nothing.’ George Graham 
 
Anfield, May 26th 1989. The final day of the Division One season. An iconic underdog story. 
 
Set against the backdrop of Hillsborough disaster, and during an emotional era in football long before the Premier League as we now know it, 89 is an oral history of a sporting moment so unusual it felt instantly historic. 
 
 Drawing on years of research, writer Amy Lawrence brings together fascinating and never-before seen testimony from the voices who were there, on the pitch, off it, and beyond. 
 
 89 creates a definitive and kaleidoscopic portrait of a match that changed English football forever. 
 
‘Once it hits the net I’m just thinking ecstasy really. It’s incredible. I’ve done what I wanted to do. That’s that feeling. I’ve done it.’ Michael Thomas

Arsenal’s Greatest Moment, Told in Our Own Words

Duncan Hamilton

'Without football, we were strangers under a shared roof. With it, we were father and son.’ 
 
Inspired by his father’s devotion to Newcastle United and the heroes of yesteryear, Duncan Hamilton brings to life a bygone age telling the story of British football from the hardscrabble 1940s and the ‘never-had-it-so-good’ ’50s right through to the dowdy First Division of the ’70s and ’80s, and today’s slick Premiership. Hamilton recalls some of football’s most sublime players, managers and characters, from Bill Shankly and Jackie Milburn to George Best and Lionel Messi. 
 
But at the heart of The Footballer Who could Fly is Hamilton’s relationship with his own father. Here he tells how football became the only real connection between two people who, apart from their love of the beautiful game, were wholly different from one another.

The Footballer Who Could Fly

Danny Baker

Danny Kelly

The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. 
 
Paul Gascoigne is a legend, both on and off the pitch, and a hero to a generation of football fans. The man who, during Italia '90, made it OK to cry, and made the English fall in love with football all over again. Despite endless books about him he is still an enigma to most, so who better than his closest confident (and national institution himself), Danny Baker, to explain what truly makes him tick. 
 
This digital bite has been extracted from Danny Baker and Danny Kelly's brilliant book Classic Football Debates.

How to Understand Paul Gascoigne

Lives Less Ordinary

Chloe Liese

'A stunning mix of hilarious tropes, swoony romance and lovable, relatable characters. A must read for every romance lover!' Ali Hazelwood, author of The Love Hypothesis 
 
Brace yourself for longing, laughter, and a swoony slow-burn in this brothers best friend sports romance about scoring the love of your life when you least expect to. 
 
Ziggy 
I'm the youngest player on the National Soccer team, the baby of my family, and thoroughly sick of being underestimated, so I've decided to take matters into my own hands . . . 
 
My brother's teammate and best friend Seb needs to save his reputation. I want to give mine an edge. So I propose a fake friendship with real benefits: spending time in the public eye, my good-girl image and his bad-boy notoriety rubbing off on each other. But will it be as easy as I think to keep him in the (fake) friend zone? 
 
Sebastian 
My hockey career and sponsorships are in jeopardy, so when Ziggy Bergman proposes a public "friendship" to rehab my image, it's an offer that even a self-respecting reprobate like myself can't refuse. 
 
It's simple: fake a friendship with Ziggy, fix my reputation, and get back to hockey - the one and only thing I love . . . until I find myself falling for the last person I should be: my best friend's sister. 
 
Praise for Chloe Liese: 
 
'I could curl up in Liese's writing for days, I love it so' Helen Hoang, author of The Kiss Quotient 
 
'Absolute romantic perfection' Christina Lauren, author of The Unhoneymooners

If Only You

John Cairney

'Clutching in my hand my seven copper pennies, I ran down the two flights of stone stairs from our tenement flat and through the East End to Kinloch Street, where, puffing a bit, I joined the queue of other wee boys lining up to place their coins on the brass plate above the iron turnstile, push hard against it, then climb up onto the dirt terracing and into Paradise. The rest of the world called it Celtic Park.' 
 
This is a story seen through green-and-white spectacles. It begins when nine-year-old Glaswegian John Cairney walks through the boys' gate at Celtic Park and embarks on a series of adventures that, over the years, take him all over Scotland and beyond. 
 
The Sevenpenny Gate is about a search for heroes, Celtic heroes. It is also the tale of an East End club of humble Irish origins that has developed into a worldwide brand and continues to command the devotion of its fans, even with the Celtic diaspora now spread across the globe.

The Sevenpenny Gate

A Lifelong Love Affair with Celtic FC

Dave Bassett

Wally Downes

'If we can sell Newcastle Brown to Japan, and if Wimbledon can make it to the First Division, there is surely no achievement beyond our reach.' Margaret Thatcher 
 
The Crazy Gang is the story of a football miracle. Promoted to the Football League in 1977, Wimbledon FC was a small team from south London that against the odds went all the way to the top of the First Division, then to win the FA Cup, in only just over a decade. With no money, scant resources and a blend of youth players and offcuts from other clubs, they were christened 'Rag-Arse Rovers'. They played hard on the pitch and partied hard off it. 
 
Dave 'Harry' Bassett was the manager who drilled a fierce fighting spirit into his players, an unbreakable team ethos, but he was also an underrated master tactician and pioneer of innovative training methods. Wally Downes was the midfield fulcrum of the Dons, but also the ringleader for the various acts of debauchery and general silliness that earned the club their reputation. 
 
In The Crazy Gang, Harry and Wally are joined by a host of former Wimbledon players and staff, both famous names like Vinnie Jones, Lawrie Sanchez and Dave Beasant, but also unsung heroes in the club's history, to tell it as it really was. This is real football, the way fans remember it, and a world away from multimillionaire Premier League primadonnas.

The Crazy Gang

Peter Hooton

Now also a new documentary film written and presented by Peter Hooton, The Boot Room Boys - BT Sport April 2022. 
 
The Boot Room story starts in 1959 when Bill Shankly arrived and converted a 12 x 12 storage room into a meeting place for him and his coaches, a move that had momentous consequences, both for the Club and British football. 
 
Fans on the Kop will remember the heart-stopping extra time of the 1965 FA Cup Final, and the jubilation of winning the treble in 1984. But what was the common thread during Liverpool's glory years? It was the Boot Room. 
 
Lifelong Liverpool supporter and editor of legendary fanzine The End, Peter Hooton takes us back into that old storage room, where first Shankly, then in succession Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish drank tea, analysed, strategised, selected and deselected, and built the most successful British club in Europe in the 20th Century. 
 
Illustrated throughout with over 100 powerful never-before-seen images from the Mirror's forgotten archives, The Boot Room Boys captures the story, as it unfolded, of Liverpool's conquering heroes.

The Boot Room Boys

The Unseen Story of Anfield's Conquering Heroes

Trevor Royle

Ian Archer

'It has to start somewhere for everyone, this daft, wild, extraordinary notion that happiness is a Scottish lap of honour and that the greatest, most hysterical happiness would be a Scottish lap of honour on a World Cup final day, England having just retired to the dressing-rooms, not just beaten, but destroyed, humiliated, thrashed, gubbed . . . ' - Ian Archer 
 
 First published in 1976, We'll Support You Evermore is a collection of reminiscences about the nation's favourite game. Hilarious tales of after-match celebrations and moving accounts of growing up playing football on the mean streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh rub shoulders with memories of superb victories, glorious defeats and drunken jaunts abroad. Together, these produce an entertaining portrait of Scottish supporters. Novelist Alan Sharp and Gordon Williams contribute essays, as do journalists Ian Archer, John Rafferty and Hugh Taylor among others. Each writes about his own personal recollections of the game: the Wembley Wizards, the Famous Five, Third Lanark, the Old Firm, Queen's Park, Hearts, Hibs, and many more. There's something here for every fitba'-daft reader.

We'll Support You Evermore

The Impertinent Saga of Scottish Fitba'

'A stunning mix of hilarious tropes, swoony romance and lovable, relatable characters. A must read for every romance lover!' Ali Hazelwood, author of The Love Hypothesis 
 
Gavin 
We've been teammates for two years, but it feels like Oliver Bergman's been on my last nerve for a lifetime. To make matters worse, he's obscenely attractive. 
 
Avoiding Oliver has been my survival tactic on and off the field. But when Coach drops the bomb that we're now co-captains, avoiding him becomes impossible, and keeping the truth from him is harder than ever. 
 
Oliver 
Life was great until soccer legend Gavin Hayes joined the team. He's a giant - albeit gorgeous - grump who lives to rain on my parade. I've sworn off pranks so, rather than settle our differences the Bergman way, I've been killing Gavin with kindness... Just one problem: it's killing me as well. 
 
Coach has given us an ultimatum: put an end to our enmity or say goodbye to being captains. I'm prepared to make nice, but the last thing I expect is to discover an explosive attraction we can't ignore... 
 
An enemies-to-lovers, age gap sports romance about an upbeat rising soccer star with anxiety and his curmudgeonly veteran teammate who lives with chronic pain. 
 
Praise for Chloe Liese: 
 
'I could curl up in Liese's writing for days, I love it so' Helen Hoang, author of The Kiss Quotient 
 
'Absolute romantic perfection' Christina Lauren, author of The Unhoneymooners

Everything for You

Jilly Cooper

Jilly Cooper's legendary hero returns! 
 
Rupert Campbell-Black, all-conquering racehorse owner-trainer and handsomest man in England, is in the darkest of places. His adored wife, Taggie, is about to undergo chemotherapy. His beloved leading stallion has been assassinated. 
 
Now his daughter Bianca is badgering him to buy into a failing local football club, Searston Rovers, so he can sign up her superstar striker boyfriend, Feral Jackson, and he and Bianca can return home from Perth to look after Taggie. 
 
Rupert dislikes football and his first impressions of Searston are distinctly unfavourable. But as their new and indelibly competitive Chairman, he won&rsquo;t stand for anything less than an Everest climb to the top of the Premier League. 
 
With the help of the club&rsquo;s ravishing and adorable secretary, Tember West, and his sassy Press Officer, Dora Belvedon, he becomes increasingly fond of his riotous mix of players, despite bawling them out whenever they face defeat. 
 
Rupert&rsquo;s explosive arrival at Searston causes outrage, so the fights are as furious off the field as on &ndash; particularly when glamorous WAGS flood in to stir up trouble and lust after Rupert&hellip; 
 
Nor do the rival local football team, their duplicitous chairman and their corrupt dealings make things easier &ndash; let the scandals, sabotage and seductions begin&hellip;

Tackle!

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