Summer Reading 2024 – The Best Football Books

07/03/2024 03:00 AM

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Here's my recommendations of the best football books of recent months for reading on the beach or by the pool. Kick off the summer with one of these great reads.

Review – Answered Prayers: England and the 1966 World Cup by Duncan Hamilton

'Answered Prayers' is Duncan Hamilton's personal homage to Sir Alf Ramsay and the England World Cup winners. 1966 is still England's crowning football achievement and it may never be surpassed, but Ramsay and the players never got the rewards and recognition they deserved and were treated poorly by the Football Association.

Review – Football And How to Survive It by Pat Nevin

This is Pat Nevin's second memoir, a follow up to his first successful memoir 'The Accidental Footballer'. It covers the period with his less glamorous clubs – Tranmere Rovers, Kilmarnock and Motherwell and reflects on a time of what he calls, 'extreme madness, higher levels of fun and deeper levels of pain…'

Review – Gordon Milne, Shankly, My Dad and Me with Steve Younger

In his engrossing football memoir Gordon Milne recalls his journey from Preston to Newcastle via Liverpool, Blackpool, Wigan, Coventry, Leicester, Turkey, and Japan. Milne is a pure football man who has encounters with some of the greatest players and managers of the 20^th century, experiencing football at all levels both in England and abroad during his 60 years in the game. His life was positively shaped by his early experiences in the army which is a far cry from the experience of young professional footballers today.

Review – O Jogo Bonito! Brazil's 1970 World Cup Samba Party by Gary Thacker

Gary Thacker's latest book is the story of probably the greatest football team in the history of the World Cup. 'O Jogo Bonito' is Portuguese for 'the beautiful game' and the Brazilian World Cup winning team of 1970 truly defined the phrase. The Brazilian team of the 1970 World Cup featured the incomparable skills of Pele, Rivellino, Gerson, Jairzinho and Tostao. It was their third success in four tournaments and meant that the Jules Rimet Trophy would for evermore be the property of Brazil.

Review – Smart Money: The Fall and Rise of Brentford FC by Alex Duff

Alex Duff's book tells the story of Brentford FC's transformation from lower league also-rans to the Premier League through the use of quantitative data analysis and good coaching. When Duff first starts following Brentford in 1978, they are an unfashionable club in an ageing stadium struggling in the third division. By 2005 owner Ron Noades had agreed to handover the business to supporters on the condition they take over the responsibility for their £5.5 million overdraft.

Review – Unfit and Improper Persons: An Idiot's Guide to Owning a Football Club by Kevin Day, Kieran Maguire, & Guy Kilty

This irreverent new guide to running a football club is from the people behind 'The Price of Football' Podcast. Writer Kevin Day, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and producer Guy Kilty have created a fictional football club, West Park Rovers and we discover what is really going on behind the scenes as they rise through the leagues.