Here are 96 books that Brilliant Orange fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a Scottish writer who has been obsessed with soccer from an early age. I devour books, new or old, on any topic related to the game and have an extensive collection of books, old and new, that keeps outgrowing my bookshelves. I love learning more about the history of the game and especially new soccer cultures.
I loved this book and learned so much about how all the major football forms evolved in the late 19th century, not just soccer.
The writer tells the tale of how a dying folk game revived by private schools in England exploded in growth over a couple of decades to become the pre-eminent form of recreation.
The book also recounts the schisms that saw ‘football’ evolve into the numerous codes we know today throughout the world. Incredibly well-researched, I found it an essential and fascinating read on the game’s origins.
This ambitious and fascinating history considers why, in the space of sixty years between 1850 and 1910, football grew from a marginal and unorganised activity to become the dominant winter entertainment for millions of people around the world.
The book explores how the world's football codes - soccer, rugby league, rugby union, American, Australian, Canadian and Gaelic - developed as part of the commercialised leisure industry in the nineteenth century. Football, however and wherever it was played, was a product of the second industrial revolution, the rise of the mass media, and the spirit of the age of the masses.…
I am a Scottish writer who has been obsessed with soccer from an early age. I devour books, new or old, on any topic related to the game and have an extensive collection of books, old and new, that keeps outgrowing my bookshelves. I love learning more about the history of the game and especially new soccer cultures.
At 1,012 pages, this is certainly not for the faint-hearted, but it remains the most amazing football book I’ve ever read. It is unrivaled in its scope, with chapters focusing on every continent, even those for which soccer may not have fully won the public over (like the USA).
Much more than a chronicle of who scored where and when, it is also a book about politics and society and the wider forces that shape football. The Ball is Round can be dipped into with the chapters you find more interesting, but I find it more rewarding to tackle from start to finish. It will take some time, but the joy is in the journey, not the destination.
A footballing reading rite of passage, our version of The Power Broker.
In this extraordinary tour de force of a book, David Goldblatt describes the rise of football, from a chaotic folk ritual to a sector of the global-entertainment industry. It's the story of players and managers, fans and owners, clubs and national teams; a chronicle of who won and who lost. But it's also a history of states and markets, money and power. And, above all, how all these forces interact. It is a history which attempts to locate where the line between the realm of glory and the realm of power has been crossed, that celebrates the love of the…
I am a Scottish writer who has been obsessed with soccer from an early age. I devour books, new or old, on any topic related to the game and have an extensive collection of books, old and new, that keeps outgrowing my bookshelves. I love learning more about the history of the game and especially new soccer cultures.
I’ve read this book 3-4 times, and every time I’ve picked up something new.
The writer focuses his entire history of the game on how the tactics have evolved from its beginnings to the modern day, showing how the global nature of the game created melting pots of ideas.
The book is peppered with interesting anecdotes and trivia, which I love, and made me a much more informed viewer of soccer matches.
In INVERTING THE PYRAMID, Jonathan Wilson pulls apart the finer details of the world's game, tracing the global history of tactics, from modern pioneers right back to the beginning when chaos reigned. Along the way, he looks at the lives of great players and thinkers who shaped the sport and probes why the English, in particular, have 'proved themselves unwilling to grapple with the abstract'.
This fifth-anniversary edition of a football modern classic has been fully updated to include an investigation of the modern-day Barcelona and how their style of play developed from Total Football, which itself was an evolution…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I am a Scottish writer who has been obsessed with soccer from an early age. I devour books, new or old, on any topic related to the game and have an extensive collection of books, old and new, that keeps outgrowing my bookshelves. I love learning more about the history of the game and especially new soccer cultures.
I spent many years of my youth flicking through history books on the World Cup and learning about legends like Beckenbauer and Cruyff, Pele, and Maradona, and have always been obsessed with the greatest event in sport. This book tells the definitive story of every event from Uruguay in 1930 up to Russia in 2018.
Glanville’s style brings out the unique nature of every tournament and the teams, players, and coaches within them, making it much more than a series of brief match reports, which can be a challenge in chronological histories.
Brian Glanville's dramatic history of the world's most famous football tournament has become the most authoritative guide to the World Cup. His classic, bestselling account is a vivid celebration of the great players and legendary matches in the competition from Uruguay in 1930 to Brazil in 2014 - as well as a bold attack on those who have mismanaged the 'beautiful game'. Fully revised and updated in anticipation of Russia's hosting of the event in 2018, this is the definitive book on the World Cup for football fans and novices alike.
I'm a writer and filmmaker based in Cairo for over a decade. I was inspired to move to Egypt when I visited during the 2011 Revolution and fell in love with the vibrance of the city. Since then Cairo has changed and I have lived through an extraordinary history with some difficult times but always with a sense of curiosity for stories. My book, Cairo’s Ultras, began as a documentary film project in 2012 and I have found many other interesting topics during my time in this enigmatic and fascinating place. I will publish a second book next year, called Decolonising Images, that looks at the photographic heritage and visual culture of Egypt.
I found this book very informative when I started researching my book on the Ultras fans in Egypt. It is an in-depth look at the football history in the Middle East and North African region.
The author, James Dorsey, has real-life experiences of Cairo and other places in the region when he worked as a journalist for decades before turning to his attention to soccer. This book grew out of a blog of the same name with a wide readership and this is the most significant book on the football politics available. The section on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood comes from an expert’s eye as he picks up the details and explains the situation to the reader. The book is a journey around the troubled landscape of the Middle East to discover the mix of history, cultures, and politics of the Arab world through soccer.
James M. Dorsey introduces the reader to the world of Middle Eastern and North African football - an arena where struggles for political control, protest and resistance, self-respect and gender rights are played out. Politics was the midwife of soccer in the region, with many clubs being formed as pro- or anti-colonial platforms and engines of national identity and social justice. This book uncovers the seldom-told story of a game that evokes deep-seated passions. Football fans are shown to be a major political force and one of the largest civic groups in Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood: their demands for…
I’ve been a football fan since childhood. I grew up in rural Norfolk, supporting my local club, Norwich City. Even from an early age, though, I realized that it wasn’t just the game itself that fascinated me but also the behavior and passion of the fans. However, as I grew older and became more socially and politically aware, I came to realize that many of society’s deep-rooted problems, such as racism, homophobia, and misogyny, manifested themselves in football and often went unchallenged. Researching them seemed the best way to learn more about them and then challenge them.
I found this autobiography compelling but upsetting. It is not for the faint-hearted, as it’s a blunt reminder of the kind of brutal racism that pioneering Black footballers faced. In the early 1980s, Paul Canoville became the first Black footballer to play for Chelsea. Yet, he faced horrific racist hostility from sections of his own club’s supporters, which is detailed graphically here, as is its impact on Canoville.
The book, therefore, makes for grim and bleak reading in places but is all the more important for that.
Paul Canovilles story is one of extreme racist bigotry, shattering career-ending injury, a decline into drug abuse, battles against cancer, family tragedy and a determination to beat the odds. Canoville was Chelsea's first black first-team player, making his debut in 1982. But as he warmed up on the touchline, his own supporters began chanting 'We don't want the nigger!' The racist bile continued whenever he played, but within a year he had won over the terraces with his explosive pace and skill. Canoville fell out with the Chelsea board and moved to Reading in 1986, where injury suddenly ended his…
I adore books about sporty badass girls. Yet, when I first began to write Dangerous Play, there were few young-adult novels featuring fierce sporty girls. Of those, there were fewer which portrayed the powerful friendships that can emerge on girls’ sports teams. I want to read and write about girls who are defined by more than their love interests, who are dogged in the pursuit of their goals. In a world that so often judges girls by how their bodies look, sports offers an arena in which girls can view and value their bodies in an alternative way. And who doesn’t love to cheer for someone who beats the odds?
I adored this book. After I turned the final page, I sat in silence, sinking into all the feels. Set in Argentina, Furiais the story of Camila, a fierce soccer—or fútbol—player who is one of the best in her sport. However, she’s forced to keep her love of fútbol a secret because she’s living under the strict supervision of her father, who doesn’t believe girls should play sports. That story alone would be enough to make Furia one of my all-time favorite books, but it’s also got an incredible swoony love story. You don’t want to miss this one.
In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life.
At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother's narrow expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother's shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father.
On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. In her wildest dreams, she'd get an athletic scholarship to a North American university.
But the path ahead isn't easy. Her parents don't know about her passion. They…
Ghanaian-born, I came to Britain aged twelve with my family and was always a lover of stories. Now a PhD-educated mum of three, it niggled that there weren’t many novels with a Black child as the protagonist, especially a Black British one. As a creative who’d acted and performed poetry in the past, I set out to write a story about a Black child in Britain overcoming challenges. Inspired by anecdotes of children remaining with relatives in their home country as their parents moved to Britain to make a life before sending for them, I was interested in writing a story about such a child after they arrived in Britain.
This is a novel about two Black British boys, eight-year-old Frankie and Shay, who are football-mad best friends, excited to be taking part in the football trials for All Cultures United, the best football team for miles, in the summer holidays. What I love about this novel is its depiction of loving family life; the realistic, believable portrayal of the boys by the writer; the exuberant love the boys have for football and seeing them go for their dreams. You don’t have to be into football to enjoy the book. A fun read.
Shay and Frankie are best friends and football crazy! They eat, sleep and breathe football (even when they're at school!). They dream about playing football, love a kick-about in the park, watch all the big games on TV... all that's missing in their lives is the chance to play for a real football team.
All Cultures United is the best club around for miles and all the footie fans want to on their team... including Shay and Frankie. Are they good enough to impress Coach Reece at the AC United trials? Can their friendship survive the competitiveness of football? Will…
My passion for power and leadership in global sports began with leading a study abroad program at the 2004 Athens Olympics, sparking a tradition of involvement in every Summer Games since. In 2011, I gained unique insight into global sports politics as a featured speaker at the World Olympians Association Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The event included a high-stakes Presidential election, with intense political maneuvering and Olympians delivering 60-second appeals in a "Minute to Win It" style presentation. Beyond the Olympics, my interest has been enriched by trips to Thailand (four), China, and Bahrain to lead workshops for hundreds of national sports federation administrators. This fascination with global sport leadership continues to inspire me.
While familiar with the infamous 2015 FIFA scandal, I was quickly captivated by the depth of storytelling and new details about the inner workings of one of the most powerful sports organizations in the world. The narrative unfolded like a novel, vividly describing the locations and powerful people behind the schemes that led to Qatar surprisingly being awarded the World Cup and FIFA's descent into deep corruption that dismantled the organization.
The authors painted scenes that allowed readers to imagine the actual interactions and decisions in the true story of deceit, hypocrisy, bribery, and more. Secrets and lies are unveiled in ways that make it clear how greed and disregard for ethics can escalate to such disastrous levels.
I found revelations about England’s spy network and the Sheikhs who rule the Persian Gulf entertaining. This is a compelling read that proves that even if you think you know the story…
“The book that reminds you exactly what’s wrong with FIFA” (Esquire UK): This meticulously reported account by two award-winning, investigative journalists at Britain’s The Sunday Times explains how the 2022 World Cup was secured for Qatar—a key element in the ongoing, international FIFA controversy.
When the tiny desert state of Qatar won the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, the news was greeted with shock and disbelief. How had a country with almost no soccer infrastructure or tradition, a high terror risk, and searing summer temperatures, beaten more established countries with stronger bids? The story behind the Qatari success…
The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.
Like the character of Wala Kitu in Dr No, I consider myself an expert on nothing. Heroes have to be flawed, right? And you don’t always have to like and admire them. They don’t have to be perfect. With perfect hair and teeth. Because I’m not. And I need someone to identify with. Someone to walk the roads I might or might not walk. A list of Nick Hornby, Michael K, Miles Jupp, Billy Liar, and Wala Kitu shouldn’t belong together. But they do. Right here. It’s absurd, right? The connection of different roads? Different stories? Different hurdles to jump? Different act of heroism I say.
This is a book that has sparked a thousand imitations. If a writer isn’t honest, he’s not doing his job, and Nick Hornby is painfully honest here about his self-destructive, blokey obsessions with football and music. It’s a trailblazer of a book and a theme that resonates with a lot of men, me included.
Why would anyone seriously want to attend a family wedding when your team is playing in a cup final? How inconsiderate can a couple be to get married on the final day of the cup? To hold those thoughts–without a hint of irony–is viewed as an affliction and an absurdity by many. But of course, they don’t understand!
This book, chronicled from the perspective of a fanatical ten-year-old soccer fan, through disillusioned adolescence, to an adult "who should know better", examines the absurdities, idiosyncrasies and traumas of everyday life and football. While Chelsea were undoubtedly the football team at the heart of fashionable London in the late 1960s, it proved to be the quiet backstreets around Highbury and Finsbury Park which led a sombre schoolboy from Maidenhead into a 20-year obsession with football, and Arsenal FC in particular. Nick Hornby became hooked after seeing Arsenal beat Stoke City (1-0 from a penalty rebound) in 1968. 24 years later…
