English Soccer

Peter Reid is one of the most colourful characters to emerge from England over the last 50 years. As a player, he established himself as one of the leading midfielders of his era, being named PFA Player of the Year in 1985 and credited as the fourth best footballer in the world. He won numerous honours with Everton, including two league titles, one FA Cup and one European Cup Winners’ Cup. He also won 13 England caps, playing at the 1986 World Cup – where a date with destiny at the ‘hand’ of Diego Maradona would provide a lasting, painful memory.

The Wizards FC was a team of former school friends who - with the help of a few star ringers - slogged their way through mud, skinheads, and Staffordshire bull terriers to win the Edmonton Sunday League. Team captain Ewan Flynn brings alive a world of young men giving it their all on sloping pitches a million miles from the glamour of the Premier League, and officials who volunteer to maintain some sort of order. Along the way, he charts the bittersweet stories of mates who brought success to the Wizards.

Percy Tau grew up with seven siblings and a single mom in the mining town of Witbank. For Percy and his family, life is tough, as their mother struggles to make ends meet. But there is one thing that brings the Tau boys together: soccer. At the Mmagobana Primary School, they quickly make a name for themselves on the soccer team. Despite the boys’ enthusiasm for the game, Percy’s mom is against him playing soccer. She wants him to get a ‘real job’ - after all, she doesn’t want to see her son struggle in life.

Successful, high-profile sports agent Matt Kingston thinks he can handle anything. Then soccer player Parker Speedman shows up at his door. She is young and gorgeous, has natural talent, and is looking for a team. She’s also a hothead with a punchy past who floored her last coach on live TV. Despite his misgivings, Matt agrees to be both her agent and her coach. Professional common sense says she’s off-limits. But what can he say about the raw attraction between them?

With 19 spells at various clubs in the Football League, Jon Parkin has cut an instantly recognisable figure in English football for the past 20 years. At 6'4", and weighing in as one of football's heavyweights, Parkin has played more than 600 games during his time with Barnsley, Hartlepool, York, Macclesfield Town, Hull City, Stoke City, Preston, Cardiff, Doncaster, Huddersfield, Scunthorpe, Fleetwood, Forest Green, Newport County and back to York, where he is currently top scorer. This is his no-holds-barred life story.

50 Things To Know About Fantasy Premier League, by Zlatko Stefkovski, offers a fun and insightful approach to the game that became the number-one companion piece to the English Premier League.

The England team that touched down in Russia for the 2018 World Cup was a new-look outfit: there were no real stars, no overblown egos and no dickheads. Still reeling from the wincing exit to Iceland in the 2016 Euros, expectations were at an all-time low. Qualification had been smooth if not spectacular, and pundits and fans alike were lukewarm about the team’s chances. Just avoiding embarrassment would have counted as some kind of success. How wrong we were.

A sport unlike any other in the world, football has always been Australia's bellwether. But at a time when politics is increasingly conducted like sports, football is the one institution that's more relevant than ever. And it's Richmond that's out in front of the pack. Before it could win the 2017 premiership, the club had to change how it thought about good leadership.

Tracie Martin is the queen of the Wags and this is going to be her year. The fight may be on for England to regain its rightful place in the history books. But Tracie knows that the true battle of the World Cup will be fought in Gucci and in the pages of her favorite tabloids. Only with Tracie's knack for ending up in the papers for all the wrong reasons, she finds herself getting more column inches than the England captain as she becomes the only person who can save England's dreams of World Cup triumph. But can she warn off the evil crime syndicate threatening to destroy everything?

The English Premier League is the richest in the world, with clubs able to attract some of the best footballing talent on the planet. But who are the 10 greatest players ever to have graced the Premier League?

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Children's Book of the Year, 2007.
Horrid Henry reads Perfect Peter's diary and improves it; goes clothes shopping with Mum and tries to make her buy him some Rootatoot trainers; is horrified when his old enemy Bossy Bill turns up at school; and tries by any means, fair or foul, to win the class football match and defeat Moody Margaret.

From one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, an exquisitely crafted coming-of-age novel set in the high-stakes world of English soccer - for fans of Nick Hornby and The Art of Fielding.

In The Title, Scott Murray delivers a lively, cherry-picked history of the country's football narrative through the prism of the old First Division. Rich with humour yet underpinned with solid research, this is a glorious ramble across English football's varied terrain. With as much about Preston, Burnley, Wolves, Portsmouth and West Brom as the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, we learn the less well-known stories the sport has to tell, such as the plight of Glossop - the smallest club to ever play top-flight football.

Jimmy Bullard may not have had the perfect hair-do, his Granada Ghia may not have been the flashiest of cars, and he definitely didn't have a string of Page 3 girls trying to sell kiss and tell stories about him to the tabloids. But what he has in spades is a genuine love for The Beautiful Game that few of his peers can match. One of the last graduates from football's old school, Jimmy actually worked in the real world - including as a painter and decorator - before turning pro. Maybe that's why he played football with a smile on his face, always says what's on his mind, and is no stranger to a spot of mischief.

'Immaculate footballer. Imperial defender. Immortal hero of 1966. Master of Wembley. Captain extraordinary. Gentleman of all time.' These are some of the words inscribed beneath the statue of England's World Cup-winning captain, Bobby Moore, at Wembley stadium. Since Moore's death, of bowel cancer at just 51, these accolades represent the accepted view of this national treasure. But what do we actually know about Bobby Moore as a person? What about the grit alongside the glory?

Relive the highs (and the lows!) from fifty years of English football as recalled by some of the game's all-time great players, managers and commentators.

Are you a true fan of the Blues? Do you follow every match? Have you picked up lots of little known facts about Chelsea Football Club along the way? Then the time has come to put your knowledge to the test with this fun and enjoyable Chelsea audio quiz book. Brand new for the 2014/15 season, you will be presented with 101 informative and entertaining trivia questions, all with multiple choice answers.

Dignity and the Pitch is an audiobook about people and about world futball (soccer). It is both philosophical and lighthearted, serious and fun, intense and care free. There are characters based around a lower level futball club who appear in the audiobook and through their experiences a respectful world philosophy is developed. It is easy to listen to but it will make you think.

In the summer of 1966, Peter Chapman was a naive 18-year-old from the Angel in North London. He was just about to enter the world of work, having flunked his A Levels and recently discovered that he would not be fulfilling his dream of becoming a professional footballer at Leyton Orient. As a young man on the brink of adulthood, he found himself in a country also on the brink of huge change - and about to have one of the most significant sporting successes in its history.

At the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, track and field star Jesse Owens ran himself straight into international glory by winning four gold medals. But the life of Jesse Owens is much more than a sports story. Born in rural Alabama under the oppressive Jim Crow laws, Owens' family suffered many hardships. As a boy he worked several jobs, like delivering groceries and working in a shoe repair shop, to make ends meet. But Owens defied the odds to become a sensational student athlete, eventually running track for Ohio State.