A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy and is known as @agatharoza on Wattpad.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children. Angelica is also the author of Hunt A Killer, a PERFECT SCORE novel, under the pen name A.M. Ellis, which she wrote as an IP for Scholastic in the US.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aaron Robertson

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David Tossell

A coach transported to the field in a hearse as he played dead. An English manager taken at gunpoint to an Argentinian jail after trying to sign that country's World Cup captain. The hero of 1966 who talked his team out of going on strike on the eve of a title decider. All are part of the British professionals' story of life in the North American Soccer League (NASL) in the 1970s and early '80s, when star turn and unsung journeyman alike had the chance to play alongside Pelé, Cruyff, Beckenbauer and Eusebio in the greatest galaxy of world stars ever assembled in one league. Playing for Uncle Sam recalls the British players and coaches who were part of an organisation that changed the face of football with its shoot-outs, offside rule and wacky marketing methods. 
 
It began with Stoke City and Wolverhampton Wanderers spending a bizarre summer posing as the Cleveland Stokers and Los Angeles Wolves in 1967. The late '70s saw the NASL, run by a former Welsh international, reach its peak, drawing crowds of 70,000 and featuring names like Banks, Moore, Hurst and Ball. Rodney Marsh pitched his tent in America by declaring famously that English football had become a grey game, while George Best used the NASL as an escape from the fishbowl of his life in Britain. Typically, the pair delighted and exasperated teammates and coaches in equal measure. 
 
Through approximately 60 interviews with members of the British contingent who accepted the offer of the Yankee dollar, Playing for Uncle Sam recalls one of the most fascinating episodes in football history: the remarkable rise and chaotic collapse of the NASL.

Playing for Uncle Sam

The Brits' Story of the North American Soccer League

Foreword By Bob Wilson.

In the summer of 1970, England was buzzing about the new football season. More than 30 million television viewers had watched the previous year's FA Cup final and the brilliant Brazilians had dazzled audiences during the Mexico World Cup. The new age of televised highlights meant that football's profile had never been greater, generating a new celebrity status for footballers and catapulting them into the limelight like never before. 
 
The 1970-71 season did not disappoint as Arsenal achieved the first Double of football's televised era amid controversy and drama. The Football League and FA Cup were won at the end of a campaign that included a street fight in Rome, the emergence of new young stars and unrest and unhappiness among some of the older players. Seventy-One Guns includes extensive interviews with the Arsenal players and coaches and, through their memories, ancedote and opinions, recreates the drama of that memorable season. 
 
Looking beyond Highbury's Marble Hall, the book also recounts some of the events that made 1970-71 a historic time in English football in general, including: the rise of Leeds under Don Revie; the demise of Manchester United and the problems of George Best; football's attempt to clamp down on the hard men; and troubled times for Alf Ramsey's England in the wake of the Mexico World Cup. 
 
Seventy-One Guns is a must for all Arsenal fans and all those who fondly recall the days of mutton-chop sideburns, white boots and mud-heap pitches.

Seventy-One Guns

The Year of the First Arsenal Double

Becky Tallentire

Do you still curse yourself over the day you met your hero; when instead of asking him the one question that's been nagging you for years, you couldn't utter a word because you were suddenly (and uncharacteristically) struck dumb? Well, curse no more. Still Talking Blue is a unique collection of interviews that will answer everything you wanted to know about your Everton heroes and with none of the unnecessary waffle - because it only asks the relevant questions, as submitted by the fans. 
 
Collated via the Internet, disenfranchised Evertonions scattered across the globe proudly display their astounding recall of bygone events and trivia. From Iceland to South Africa, Australia to Israel, long-suffering Bluenoses are finally given the opportunity to ask questions of their heroes and they do so with panache. 
 
The book contains in-depth interviews spanning the decades from the '50s, when shorts were long and Dave Hickson's quiff was the envy of Hollywood, right through to Dave Watson's final days at the club. Join us as we endeavour to track down John Bailey's 'big hat' and Gordon West's handbag, and move seamlessly on to more pressing topics such as Kevin Ratcliffe's biggest regret, Mick Lyon's worst injury and Alan Harper's favourite goal. 
 
So, if you lie awake at night wondering just what went wrong in the '68 Cup Final, whether Jimmy Gabriel still has his white trench coat, if Barry Horne really does like The Cocteau Twins or how Dave Hickson has managed to hang on to his hair, then unfurrow your brow because the answers all lie within these pages. 
 
No Evertonion should be expected to survive without this book.

Still Talking Blue

A Collection of Candid Interviews with Everton Heroes

Pete May

Many feared that West Ham would fade and die during the 2001-2002 season. Former gaffer Harry Redknapp had been sacked in mysterious circumstances and would never again exclaim that a Hammers side is 'down to the bare bones'. Meanwhile, Glenn Roeder - the man who was initially told not even to apply for the job - admitted to feeling like a 100-1 outsider who had won the Grand National upon being handed the job no one else would take. Young England stars Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard had been sold for 30 million and Leeds fans greeted the appearance of the massive new Dr. Martens stand with a refrain of 'Is that the Rio stand?' Furthermore, the bookies had West Ham down as certainties for relegation and there was universal bemusement at West Ham's appointment of a rookie Premiership manager. Pete May has supported the Hammers ever since he heard cries from the Chicken Run of 'Come on Hammers really pep it up and make it mediocre!' and 'Remember goals, West Ham? They were big in the Seventies!' He offers a supporters' view of Glenn Roeder's crucial first season, while also reminiscing about some of the funniest moments in Hammers' history.

West Ham

Irons in the Soul

Malcolm Allison is one of the most controversial figures of the last half-century of English football. Leader of the famed 'West Ham Academy', his playing career was cut short by the loss of a lung to tuberculosis. Disillusioned, he became a professional gambler before acknowledging that football was his calling. After humble beginnings as a coach, he began a celebrated partnership with Joe Mercer, turning Manchester City into one of the most stylish teams English football has produced. 
 
 Along with the trophies came the birth of Big Mal, the larger-than-life personality who helped revolutionise televised football. He became instantly recognisable for his cigar and Fedora, and equally notorious for a string of affairs with beautiful women. 
 
 As the dark side of Big Mal took over, he was banned for life from the touchlines, became embroiled in a series of boardroom battles and spent time in police cells and rehabilitation clinics fighting the effects of alcoholism. Yet despite the often-destructive effect of his Big Mal persona, Malcolm Allison retains his status as one of the most incisive minds to have graced the game. This book tells both sides of the story, tracing the life and times of one of the most charismatic characters in British sport.

Big Mal

The High Life and Hard Times of Malcolm Allison, Football Legend

Graeme Sharp

Graeme Sharp is quite simply an Everton legend. Second only to the immortal Dixie Dean as the club's top goalscorer, he netted 159 goals in over 400 appearances for the Toffees. 
 
 Sharp became a Goodison Park hero during the halcyon days of the '80s, when Everton won two League Championships, the FA Cup, the European Cup-Winners' Cup and came within an ace of a historic treble in 1984-85. Partnered first by his boyhood idol Andy Gray and then by England hero Gary Lineker, Sharp established a reputation as one of the finest strikers in the world and notched up 12 caps for his national side, Scotland. 
 
 Although his eventual departure from Everton left a sour taste in his mouth, he continued to score goals for Oldham Athletic before becoming manager of the Lancashire outfit. But off-the-field frustrations blighted his tenure in the hot seat, and a spell as a manager in non-league football brought the curtain down on a magnificent career that ended with triumph for Bangor City in the Welsh Cup. 
 
 In Sharpy: My Story, the former Everton star reveals all: the highs, the lows, the big names, the victories, the disappointments, the heartache, the lot!

Sharpy

My Story

Phil Rostron

Leeds United have arguably experienced the most dramatic upheaval in fortunes of any club in the recent history of English football. From their rise to a championship challenge in the Premiership and subsequent participation in the Champions League semi-finals, they plunged to the brink of bankruptcy and were relegated to the Coca-Cola League - for the first time in their proud history. 
 
 Theirs is a story of financial mismanagement on a grand scale. In living the dream, they ran up debts of £100 million, and the dream became a nightmare, not just on the pitch, but also in the tabloids, with the trials of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate. A succession of managers - David O'Leary, Terry Venables, Peter Reid, Kevin Blackwell and Dennis Wise - have come and gone. Following on from the departure of Peter Ridsdale, a succession of businessmen have also tried to steady the ship in the boardroom, culminating in the dramatic purchase of the club by a certain ex-chairman of Chelsea - Ken Bates - in early 2005. 
 
 Under Dennis Wise, an inexperienced team was rejuvenated, with the club overcoming a 15-point penalty imposed by the Football League and pushing for automatic promotion. Sadly, their young manager departed to pastures more lucrative mid-season and the challenge died in yet another play-off defeat under the new regime of former hero Gary McAllister. What lies in store for Leeds United now? Can they regain past glories and taste Premier League football once more? 
 
 Revised and updated, Leeds United: Trials and Tribulations continues the story of Leeds' struggle, with exclusive interviews with many of the club's leading figures during this turbulent period - including Allan Leighton, Peter Ridsdale, Dominic Matteo and Peter Reid.

Leeds United

Trials and Tribulations

Neil Jeffries

Fraser Marr

Most relationships between a fan and a favourite football team go way beyond the casual. Almost always that relationship is a torrid, steamy and passionate love affair. A love affair that rarely lives up to expectations. A love affair that seldom satisfies and, most of the time, just plain hurts. 
 
 So it is for supporters of Leeds United, a club with a big reputation secured in the late 1960s and early '70s, but tarnished in the '80s and rebuilt only partially in the '90s. Come the start of the 1996-97 season, Leeds were a Premiership club on paper, but on the pitch looked far from it. The supporters groaned and the new board acted swiftly, manager Howard Wilkinson being replaced by the once disgraced George Graham. The football world watched as the former Arsenal supreme sought to rebuild both Leeds and his own reputation. All the club had was time, hope and the love of its fans . . . 
 
 Love Hurts tells the story of some of those fans. It is a diary of one extraordinary season, told and photographed in a uniquely personal way by two men for whom following Leeds is a labour of love requiring hours of motorway travel to matches offering variable amounts of torment and despair, of ecstasy and humour. The book pulls no punches, and points the finger whether the team wins or loses. No quarter is given and no fan of any team who reads is can fail to recognise the joy and pain it contains.

Love Hurts

Motorways, Madness and Leeds United

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

Fred Eyre

Fred Eyre's sporting life began full of promise when he became Manchester City's first-ever apprentice. He never made their first team. In fact, he seldom made anyone's first team. Injuries played a part but limited talent was a greater curse. As he plummeted down the leagues, he had something few footballers possess: a stud-sharp memory and an ability to write humorously about the sport he loves. 
 
 Kicked into Touch has become an enigma - selling more than a million copies yet still retaining cult status within the sport and among fans. This new version has been completely revised, extended and updated, with a set of photographs included. 
 
Fred Eyre's book is set to reach a new generation of football fans looking for an antidote to the glib reportage of a sport lost to show business.

Kicked into Touch

Plus Extra Time

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'

Alan Edge

Alan Edge is a lifelong Liverpool supporter who grew up in an environment where team loyalties were embedded in working-class culture. He was shocked to discover that his young son not only had not intention of following in his father's footsteps as a Liverpool fan, but preferred a Newcastle shirt because it was more fashionable! 
 
Faith of our Fathers is more than a personal story; it is a universal tale written with a strong sense of pathos and a rare capacity to bring to life the concerns of fans who feel the game they grew up with is being eroded by commercial exploitation.

Faith of our Fathers

Football as a Religion

Bill Leckie

Penthouse and Pavement is not a book for glory-hunters. It is a book about pain. It's about the anguish of watching your team lose 9-2 in the very first game you ever saw, about the horrible inevitability of defeat that so many feel so often. It's about despair, dismay and black, frightening, deathly gloom. 
 
But it's also about hope. About dreams. And about dreams which sometimes, just sometimes, come true. Like the once-in-a-lifetime ecstasy of winning the Cup or a league. And as anyone who's had that moment-of-a-lifetime knows, the joy is even greater because you've known the pain. For Bill Leckie, who has followed St Mirren since 1964, it all became worthwhile when they won the Scottish Cup in 1987. This book is about these clubs and the people who love them. It's about the kind of fan who doesn't go to games expecting to win . . . or, worse, demanding it. This book is about being willing to accept a lifetime of frustration in return for one day of utter wonderment.

Penthouse and Pavement

How to Survive in Football Without Sucking Up to the Old Firm

Sami Hyypia

Okki Halala

When Gerard Houllier took over as manager of Liverpool FC in 1999, his quest was to bring glory back to Anfield. His prime concern lay with strengthening his defence and to this end he made what is arguably one of his finest signings. Houllier targeted Sami Hyypiä, a relatively unknown player who was at the time captain of the Dutch team Willem II. 
 
This candid biography focuses on Hyypiä's eventful journey from the Finnish village of Voikkaa to the heights of the English Premiership, where he has become the inspirational leader of the Liverpool team. It charts his life from childhood and documents his astonishing rise in the game, from youth teams to Finnish senior sides Pallo-Peikot, KUMU and MyPa - as well as his international career - before moving on to his years in Holland and England playing for Willem II and Liverpool respectively. 
 
Hyypia reflects on past games in which he competed against the likes of Batistuta, Rivaldo, Van Nistelrooy and Henry, and recalls the Liverpool derbies in which he's played. He also shares his thoughts on the Reds' 2001 UEFA Cup campaign, in which they defeated the mighty Barcelona in the semi-finals before going on the defeat Deportivo Alavés 5-4 in the final to clinch the coveted trophy. In 2001-02 season, during which the team had to contend with the serious illness of their manager, Hyypiä led them to the quarter-finals of the Champions League and second place in the Premiership. Then, in season 2002-03, Liverpool won the Worthington Cup and narrowly missed out on a Champions League place. 
 
Featuring exclusive contributions from numerous former and current colleagues and teammates, including Gérard Houllier, Jari Litmanen and Michael Owen, Sami Hyppiä digs deep to reveal all about the man, his views on the game, and his hopes and plans for the future.

Sami Hyypiä

From Voikkaa to the Premiership

Chris Green

The future of football management is a hot topic of debate. An unprecedented spate of sackings in the 2001-02 season and the manner of many of the dismissals filled the back pages. There has even been talk of managers going on strike to defend their ill-treated colleagues. 
 
Packed with big names and exclusive stories, The Sack Race challenges the sanitised picture of football management portrayed in glossy autobiographies. It lays bare a profession where pressure to obtain results is immense and the tolerance of failure is low. Despite football's supposed professionalism, we learn that 'The Gaffer' is often an ill-prepared ex-player who has hopped onto the managerial merry-go-round more as a perceived 'character' than a qualified coach. 
 
This remarkable book traces the development of the football manager's role, offers a critique of the way the game trains its coaches for management and raises valid concerns about the suitability of their employers - the directors whose impatience creates a climate of fear and insecurity. Finally, it asks the controversial question - does 'The Gaffer' have a future?

The Sack Race

The Story of Football's Gaffers

Hoolifan is the story of one man, Martin King, and his experiences spanning three decades with the country's foremost soccer gang. Chelsea have always been at the cutting edge of football violence, and King himself was at the heart of the evolving Chelsea mob for some 30 years. From his first visit to a football ground in the early 1960s, he charts his development from a rattle-waving child through to a fully fledged member of the notorious Chelsea Shed in the 1970s and finally to his exploits as a key player in the most feared football gang of the 1980s and 1990s - the so-called Chelsea Headhunters. 
 
King describes the leading characters of the various eras, not just from Chelsea but from across the country. He also records every clash, ambush and act of revenge in vivid detail, as well as the camaraderie and style of this most infamous soccer gang. 
 
This is not just another book on the well-trodden subject of football hooliganism, as, unlike so many authors, Martin King makes no attempt to distance himself from the violence and leaves readers to draw their own conclusions. 
 
At times provocative, often humorous and always honest, Hoolifan places the phenomenon of football hooliganism in its true social context.

Hoolifan

30 Years of Hurt

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.

The Second Coat

John Sugden

Football is big business and it doesn't come much bigger than Manchester United – commercial giants and the richest club in the world. But in the shadow of Old Trafford a black economy is growing to rival the commercial power of the official sales channels. Scum Airways is an inside investigation of the Manchester grafters – touts, black marketeers and shady dealers – who, led by characters like 'Big Tommy', have come up with a remarkably successful money-making venture: Scum Airways. 
 
 With the expansion of the Champions League came the opportunity for the grafters to move from ticket touting and producing 'unofficial' replica kits into the independent travel business. International Travel is the company for those who, through choice or because of their police records prohibit them, do not travel with the official clubs. Their customers include many 'straight' supporters of Leeds United, arch-rivals of Man U, but Tommy's core clients are the 'Lads' - die-hard 30-something football hooligans. 
 
 Scum Airways follows the exploits and adventures of Big Tommy and his team of grafters as they continue to build their empire. John Sugden went along for the ride and provides startling insights into professional football's burgeoning black economy. From Munich to Madrid, Amsterdam to Bangkok, through to the streets and bars of Toyko and Sapporo during the 2002 World Cup, and beyond, Scum Airways reveals the dark side of the football business.

Scum Airways

Inside Football's Underground Economy

Football has reinvented itself. As television money has poured into the game, the traditional working-class fans have poured out - not by choice, but by economic necessity. According to those in charge of the game the football hooligan has at last been eliminated from the landscape. But how true is this much-vaunted claim? Martin King, author of Hoolifan, brings his story up to date in The Naughty Nineties. Ironically, he finds that football hooligans now really are in the minority but they are far more dangerous and committed than ever before.

The Naughty Nineties

Football's Coming Home

Martin Greig

Since his move to Celtic in the summer of 2005, Shunsuke Nakamura has become a cult hero in both Scotland and the Far East. From the wonderful goal in his Champions League debut against Manchester United in 2006 to the strike against Kilmarnock that secured Celtic's league win in 2006-07, Nakamura has firmly established himself as a Celtic legend. 
 
Nakamura's ability to confront and overcome adversity has been the key to his success. From his rejection as a youngster by home-town club Yokohama Marinos to his omission from the 2002 World Cup squad by Philippe Troussier and his struggle to adapt to the defensive nature of Italian football, Nakamura has bounced back stronger every time. 
 
The Zen of Naka is a comprehensive, revealing account of Nakamura's career to date. It explores his development from the early stages of his footballing journey to his time with Celtic at present, and looks ahead at what the future may hold for the star.

The Zen of Naka

The Journey of a Japanese Genius

David Bryce

From running with the infamous Calton Tongs to running Calton Athletic, David Bryce's life story is a remarkable account of crime, violence, alcoholism and drug addiction in Glasgow's gangland. 
 
A respected 'hard man', Bryce worked his way through most of HM's prisons in Scotland before an epiphany in 1977 made him realise that he was a hopeless alcoholic who needed help. A five-year battle followed, during which he sank into the abyss of heroin addiction before finally getting clean. 
 
In 1985, in an effort to help others who were struggling against substance abuse, Bryce set up Calton Athletic, a football team and social group made up solely of recovering drug addicts. Reformed gangster Jimmy Boyle was one of the first to have faith in Bryce and Calton Athletic, but the club eventually won widespread respect. Gordon Brown, then a young MP, was so impressed that he wrote an article for The Observer which led to a TV film starring Lenny Henry and Robbie Coltrane. In the '90s, Ewan McGregor, Irvine Welsh and the Trainspotting crew sought Bryce's advice and friendship during the making of the internationally acclaimed cult film, while Robbie Williams begged to switch nationality and play for Calton Atheltic in an 'England v. Scotland' celebrity charity match. 
 
Bryce's uncompromising belief that the only way to come off drugs is to go cold turkey and stay completely clean saw him clash with government agencies over the 'harm-reduction' policy of recent years. The club's statutory funding was withdrawn in 1998, but today Calton Athletic are still providing an invaluable lifeline while the 'official' drugs policy has become increasingly discredited. 
 
Alive and Kicking is an inspirational tale of survival and success against the odds.

Alive and Kicking

A Story of Crime, Addiction and Redemption in Glasgow's Gangland

Stephen North

Paul Hodson

How would you feel if your football club was bought by a businessman who saw your ground as real estate? And what if your ground was demolished leaving you with nowhere to play next season? 
 
 Many fans believe that when Bill Archer, a Blackburn-based entrepreneur, bought Brighton and Hove Albion, he had no passion for the club or the game but rather saw an opportunity to make a profit. If so, he made the fatal mistake of misjudging football fans. 
 
 In July 1995, Brighton's local daily paper led its front page with the headline 'Seagulls Migrate', announcing that the Goldstone Ground was to be sold to a property developer for £7.4 million and that 'home' games were to be played at Portsmouth. All this without one word of consultation with the fans. 
 
 What followed was the biggest campaign in the history of football to save a club. Drawing on dozens of interviews with people directly involved - the fans, the FA, the players and the management - Build a Bonfire dramatically traces the progress of the two-year fight with the board: two years of despair, absurdity and solidarity. 
 
 In so doing, the book not only explores implications for other clubs, in a world where the battle lines between football and money are being drawn ever tighter, but also creates a picture of that strange and wonderful thing: the football fan. 
 
 And having lived through the crisis and listened to the fans, the authors can offer their Ten Essential Steps to Depose your Club Chairman, should the need arise . . .

Build a Bonfire

How Football Fans United to Save Brighton and Hove Albion

Ged Clarke

When Newcastle United crashed out of the FA Cup in Cardiff in April 2005, it was official: the second best-supported club in England and the eleventh richest in the world had completed 50 years without winning a domestic trophy. 
 
Since their last success - an FA Cup win in 1955 - no less than thirty-two clubs have won one of the three major prizes in the English game, but not the Magpies. In that half century, they've employed some of the biggest names in world football, yet most of their fanatical supporters have never seen them win a pot. 
 
In 2004, Sir Bobby Robson paid the price for failing to bring the holy grail to the Geordie faithful. And in 2006, Graeme Souness was next to go, the 17th manager to try - and fail - to win one of English football's glittering prizes for the longest suffering fans in the land. 
 
In Newcastle United: Fifty Years of Hurt, Ged Clarke examines this extraordinary football phenomenon with all the humour you would expect from a disappointed but dedicated United fan. He chronicles the decades of disaster and talks to Newcastle legends such as Peter Beardsley, Les Ferdinand, Jack Charlton, Bob Moncur and Malcolm Macdonald in a bid to discover an explanation for the longest losing streak in top-class football.

Newcastle United

Fifty Years of Hurt

Roger Hutchinson

R Hutchinson

This is the full story, unofficial and uncensored, of one of the greatest football clubs in the country. From its birth in the 1890s to its rebirth in the 1990s and up to season 2003-4, The Toon tells of a small soccer club, long in the shadow of an enormous rival, which grew to eclipse that rival - and every other club in Great Britain. Roger Hutchinson brings to life the sensational early successes of Newcastle United, recreating the great Anglo-Scottish team which dominated the Football League before the First World War. He vividly describes the helter-skelter attacking sides of the 1930s and the Cup giants of the 1950s, and gives us the European conquerors of the 1960s and the squads of the 1970s and '80s, before showing us how today's cosmopolitan side of title-chasing internationals was built.This lively, hard-hitting book portrays the brilliant management of such legends as Frank Watt and takes us down through the thrilling decades right up to the reign of Sir Bobby Robson. In its pages we see the educated play of Andy Aitken and Colin Veitch; we watch as the fast and furious centre-forward play of Jock Peddie paves the way for the era of the great Hughie Gallacher and the unique Jackie Milburn. It assesses the merits of all of their heirs, from Keegan to Beardsley, from Macdonald to Shearer, from Moncur to Dyer. Exploring and explaining the lean years as well as the successful decades, The Toon exposes the bad managers, incompetent directors and players who were unworthy of the black and white stripes. It takes an unflinching look at the lost opportunities and the Geordie footballers who went missing. But it also offers us the geniuses, the household names, the men who have lit up Tyneside and the world beyond in a hundred-year sequence of unforgettable League and Cup campaigns. Most of all, The Toon looks from the past towards a glorious future.

The Toon

A Complete History of Newcastle United Football Club

John Robertson

John Lawson

The unprecedented success of Nottingham Forest under master manager Brian Clough is one of the greatest stories in football folklore. Winning the European Cup in 1979 and 1980 were the remarkable highlights of that era in the club's history. And the player at the heart of those Forest glories was winger John Robertson, who fashioned the goal that conquered Europe a first time and then scored the match-winner as Clough's side retained the trophy. 
 
His unkempt and unshaven appearance made him the most unlikely of footballers but his artistry and vision made him the creative on-the-field force behind a Forest side that swept all before them. 
 
After retiring from playing, Robertson went on to strike up a wonderfully successful managerial partnership with Martin O'Neill at Leicester, Celtic and Aston Villa. Yet, amid his years of football fame, Robertson has known moments of deep personal tragedy, with the death of his daughter, who had cerebral palsy, at the age of 13 and the loss of his elder brother in a car crash. 
 
In John Robertson: Super Tramp, the footballing legend reveals all in a humorous and touching memoir that switches engagingly between footballing glory and personal heartache.

John Robertson: Super Tramp

My Autobiography

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

'. . . it is now!' With these legendary three words the 1966 World Cup final came to an end. England had won, and at 5.15 p.m. on 30 July 1966, Bobby Moore wiped his hands on his shorts, shook hands with the Queen, and took delivery of the Jules Rimet trophy before a worldwide television audience of 600 million. 
 
It was, and remains, the single greatest British sporting achievement. Alf Ramsey had taken a national team whose fortunes and confidence were at their lowest ebb, and made them World Champions. In doing so he was accused of changing the face of soccer, of turning a 'noble game' into a sport which was dominated by fitness, defences and the training park. Ramsey's 'wingless wonders', it was said, 'put football back 100 years.' 
 
 How far did he and his squad set out to win sport's greatest trophy by any means possible, and how much did accident and circumstance dictate their victory? How good were Ramsey's England? 
 
 Award-winning sportswriter and historian Roger Hutchinson tells a story which sparkles with wit and with sporting brilliance. 
 
 '66 is the story of the greatest sporting tournament ever to take place in Britain, one that marked the birth of the modern game. It is the story of a sporting adventure which, far from putting football back 100 years, catapulted it unwillingly into the future. It is a tragedy told with a smile on its face. It is a tale that no sports fan will want to miss.

The Inside Story of England's 1966 World Cup Triumph

Hunter Davies

Hunter Davies's first major interview was with John Masefield for The Sunday Times in 1963. In the years since, he has interviewed many of the most famous people that the late twentieth century has to offer, from James Baldwin and Orson Welles to Jack Nicholson and Salman Rushdie. in an eclectic and highly readable selection, we learn that Noel Coward enjoyed watching operations and considered himself 'about as decadent as a suet pudding', David Hockney dyed his hair because 'blonds have more fun', and Anthony Burgess had yet to touch the body of an Englishwoman. Christy Brown concedes 'I'm just a run-of-the-mill genius', while Alan Sugar admits 'I'm a miserable sod'. The book opens with a specially written introduction in which Hunter Davies explores the art of the Celebrity Interview, and turns the tables to interview fellow practitioners, such as Lynn Barber and Angela Lambert.

Hunting People

Thirty Years of Interviews with the Famous

Into the Light reveals the full thrilling story of Sunderland Football Club - charting the club's progress from being the first great team to dominate the Football League, to the squad which returned to the top of English soccer at the dawn of the new millennium. Hutchinson traces a journey from Newcastle Road to the Stadium of Light by way of Roker Park. 
 
The early days of the Team Of All The Talents - the side in red-and-white stripes which took the English League by storm, breaking records and their opponents' hearts year after brilliant year - are brought vividly to life for the first time. 
 
Great goalscorers like Johnny Campbell and Jimmy Gillespie and sensational goalkeepers such as the legendary Ned Doig stride out of the pages of Into The Light; and the figures whose brilliance made Roker roar - from Len Shackleton and Brian Clough to the modern greats - are vividly portrayed. 
 
League successes came easily and early to Sunderland. Into The Light explores the club's devotion to winning trophies with style. The long - and finally triumphant - quest for FA cup victories is followed game by game. The heartbreaks and disappointments are also here in this see-saw ride through 120 years of English football, which ends as it began - right at the very top. This is the history of a football club and more - it is the tale of British soccer.

Into the Light

A Complete History of Sunderland Football Club

Derick Allsop

Manchester United are one of the biggest football clubs in the world. Their fame has spread to the most remote corners on earth. The legend grew out of one man's obsession with taking his club to the pinnacle of the European game. Matt Busby was a visionary as well as an exceptional manager, and he defied the Establishment by leading his young English champions into Continental combat. 
 
That crusade was cruelly savaged in 1958 when eight of his players were killed in the Munich air crash. Busby survived and, amazingly, rebuilt a side - including the revered trinity of Charlton, Law and Best - which was good enough to win the League Championship twice and, just a decade after the tragedy, realise the dream in that mesmeric final against Benificia. England had its first champions of Europe. 
 
This book celebrates the glory of '68 in the company of the Wembley heroes and traces the club's decline and regeneration into a force aspiring to relive the ultimate dream.

Reliving the Dream

The Triumph and Tears of Manchester United's 1968 European Cup Heroes

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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