Many, many, many books have been published on the topic of football. Many.
But out of all of them, which ones are the best? This is the impossible question I am attempting to answer, but I can’t answer it alone. I haven’t read every football book ever, that’s even more impossible. If we all combine our reading experiences, we wouldn’t have come close, but we can try.
I’ll list my top three football books, and you write your favourite in the comments. If you can convince me that your book is one of the best, then it might make a place in the follow-up article to this, where I’ll name some of your favourite football books, a couple of mine, and, finally, name a winner.
If this concept works, I might try it in other sports.
3. One Hit Wonder: The Jimmy Glass Story (Jimmy Glass with Roger Lytollis, 2004)
Jimmy Glass was a reserve goalkeeper for a Championship team before he moved on loan to Carlisle for the final three games of the season, there he scored a last-minute winner to keep Carlisle United in the Football League, making Glass an overnight celebrity in the football world.
His goal was ranked the 72nd greatest sporting moment ever by Channel 4, but his story is not just that of his goal. Glass is a one-time gambling addict, the former bodyguard for Andre Agassi, the only goalkeeper to score an own goal at Wembley, a former Sunday League striker, taxi driver, and computer salesman.
2. The Bottom Corner: Hope, Glory and Non-League Football (Nige Tassel, 2017)
Football isn’t all Champions League and World Cup finals. There is a whole world outside of that, a whole world of pints of beer, F-bombs and flying tackles. In this book, Nige Tassel spends a year in non-league football, spending time with a different club each month.
He goes from ‘the vegan football club’ to clubs struggling to get 11 players out on the pitch, to internationals plying their trade in the lower leagues of English football. You’ll meet some amazing characters, such as, the raffle-ticket seller who wants her ashes scattered in the centre-circle and the envelope salesman who discovered a future England international.
This book will get you jumping out of your seat in celebration, laughing in hysteria, punching your sofa in despair, but, most of all, smiling at the beauty of our beautiful game.
1. Barca: The rise and fall of the club that built modern football (Simon Kuper, 2022)
The best book about football ever. Kuper brilliantly traces how FC Barcelona became the world’s biggest football institution, but also tracks how and why the club’s recent decline has happened. You know a book is brilliant if it convinces you to buy more books on the subject, and that is exactly what Barca has done for me.
The book will leave you in love with tiki-taka, desperate to learn Catalan, and move to Catalonia, just to be close with the world’s most popular sports club.
Those are my three, but what do you think? Leave your opinion in the comments.
Texi
Roar Rookie
Plenty more Texi Smith titles out there too! Give Anna Black - This Girl Can Play a go, now that we're less than a year out from out very own World Cup. Thanks for the mention.
At work
Roar Rookie
Great idea for an article, I will hopefully pickup some ideas to add to my Amazon list.
At work
Roar Rookie
– I really liked ‘Inverting the Pyramid’ and ‘Soccernomics’. – Definitely recommend Craig Fosters ‘Fozz on Football’ book that came out a good decade ago, plus Ange’s ‘Changing the game’ is pretty good. – I quite enjoyed the ‘A League The inside story of the tumultuous first decade’ and Joe Gorman’s ‘The death and life of Australian football’ for local leagues. – For an international flavour ‘Forza Italia The fall and rise of Italian football’ is a recommend if you like Italian football (obviously). – If you want to support a local author (SydFC suport) Texi Smith, he has the ‘Jarrod Black’ series, which I’ve read the first book. – Remember Ben Sigmund, his book ‘Fully Committed’ was surprisingly good, especially his honest opinions on Ricky Herbert. – Nick Honrby’s ‘Fever Pitch’ had some good parts, but generally I wasn’t too entertained and was one of the rare books that I didn’t finish.
At work
Roar Rookie
Actually considering recent events of MV's OSM hating on the gays then I'd slot them on the right wing side.
Mark
Guest
For a fiction book, try The Blinder by Barry Hines who also wrote A Kestrel for a Knave which is often done in schools around Year 10 level. It was his first book about the trials of a young student being picked to play for a Yorkshire team, and revolves around his own experiences playing for Barnsley FC before he took the opportunity to go to University instead of a football career. Read this in my early teens and thought it was a great book.
Hoolifan
Guest
Yeah, I loved Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters too. Really interesting. Calcio, by Ian Foot is great too. It explains the Italian scene, including that way their transfer system works. Sort of a Ponzi scheme. Also all cities tend to be divided into left and right wing clubs, a lesson for the A-League there. Melbourne Victory could be the leftist team of Melb, v. City who could be the right wingers. There is something for everyone in every town.
Joshua Makepeace
Roar Rookie
I've heard of The Football Factory. Could be interesting due to the cut-throat nature of academies, particularly Chelsea's.
Joshua Makepeace
Roar Rookie
Some good choices. I do like Kuper's stlye of writing (hence Barca being top of my list) and am interested in reading more of his books. Inverting the Pyramid is another one I have already said that I am desperate to read, and I understand your struggle to convince your teammates to play like 1970s Brazil, I have recently read a book detailing how Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds side played. I am debating whether to tell what I have learnt to my teammates. I imagine myself as the Ben White of a free-flowing attacking team.
Grem
Roar Rookie
If he’s not involved with FA or the APL they really should speak to him. He is a clever guy with many good ideas.
Simon Kelly
Roar Pro
I have been told about that John/Johnston podcast before. I'll have to chase it up for sure. Got to listen to the great man speak at Boolaroo Bowling Club a few years back. He was guest speaker at a fundraiser there. Unfortunately I had to leave half way through. He did make mention of some interested parties wanting to make a movie out of his amazing story.
chris
Guest
...and any book written by Brian Glanville. The best football writer I've come across.
chris
Guest
1/ The Football Factory is a disturbing look at the hooligan element in England. It follows the Chelsea "head hunters". Their run in with the Millwall fans is something else. 2/ Sheilas , w ogs and p oofters - 3/ The Death and Life of Australian Soccer
chris
Guest
Craig Johnston's story has some very funny moments. Like when Jack Charlton told him to p*** off - you're not good enough. And CJ just hung around until he got in lol. Would never happen today of course.
jupiter53
Roar Pro
The Les Murray and Johnny Warren books of course, Ange Postecoglou’s book, and I must find the Rale Rasic story. One of the great attractions for me has always been that it is the world game, so I am interested not only in Australian football, but also football’s place in other countries, both historically and currently. Books about this include: 1. The Italian Job - Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti: Vialli’s fascinating views on the differences between Italian and English football 2. Football Against the Enemy - Simon Kuper: Football stories from 22 different countries 3. Ajax, the Dutch, the War - Simon Kuper: Football during World War 2 4. Why England Lose - Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanowski: Economics applied to football 5. How Soccer Explains the World, an Unlikely Theory of Globalisation - Franklin Foer: Thoughts about how football illuminates globalisation 6. Futebol, the Brazilian Way of Life - Alex Bellos: Brazilian culture and football 7. Danish Dynamite - Rob Smyth, Lars Eriksen and Mike Gibbons: the story of the 1980s Danish team 8. Morbo, the Story of Spanish Football - Phil Ball: what the title says… And of course, tactical books. The first one I bought in 1968 was: Understanding Soccer Tactics - Conrad Lodziak A highlight was: Scientific Soccer in the Seventies - Eric Batty and Roger McDonald: a tactical analysis of the 1970 World Cup, with great diagrams. I tried to persuade my team to play like Pele, Tostao and Carlos Alberto, with success limited by our vastly inferior abilities. And recently: Inverting the Pyramid - Jonathan Wilson
Joshua Makepeace
Roar Rookie
That would've been the glory days then, and the season 1974-75. We were top of the league by the end of August, and the bottom of it by the end of May. At least we can say at one point we were top of the English football pyramid.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
LH - I have bought many books from a place in Hull I think. In the days of British Soccer Week, they used to advertise some mouthwatering titles. I’ll try and find them or remember but don’t hold your breath!
Buddy
Roar Rookie
I went to Brunton Park back in the 1970’s along with a few thousand Londoners. Lasting memory of the ground is that there were cows all around the stadium and quite a few of my fellow travellers were terrified of them! They were in the first division too although got relegated in the season I went there.
Buddy
Roar Rookie
As a child we had a family friend that used to get Tiger and Hotspur comics every week and he passed them to me. Roy started off in Tiger although he ended up being transferred a few times although always with Melchester Rovers. I have a few annuals tucked away probably with all my old football programmes.
Marcel
Guest
Totally.....and the Brick Street Boys series
Joshua Makepeace
Roar Rookie
Those Christmas annuals as a kid were the best!