To arrive at the main list we compiled ideas from FFT staffers and contributors past and present. But we also asked a few journalists and authors for their personal No.1 books – not necessarily the finest, but their favourites. And here's what they said...
- START THE LIST The 50 Best Football Books Ever: 50-41
Duncan Alexander
Among The Thugs by Bill Buford, 1991
‘American immerses himself in English 1980s hooligan culture’ sounds like a terrible straight-to-DVD idea but Buford (who’s worked at The New Yorker for years) is a superb writer and manages to be both an observant outsider and deeply involved at the same time. The astonishing final chapter sees him in Cagliari during the 1990 World Cup and is essential reading for anyone who has only ever known halcyon images of Gazza and David Platt. This is an account of an England that is deeply suspicious of Europe and inward-looking. How times change.
Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) is Chief Opta Data Editor and the author of OptaJoe's Football Yearbook 2016
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Matt Allen
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss, 1999
Tour-de-force American political writer McGinniss follows up on his post USA 94 obsession with Roberto Baggio and calcio to explore Italian football’s saltier edges. It might not have the glamour of Serie A, but the village team of Castel di Sangro throws up enough corruption, heartbreak and drama to keep the pages turning.
Matt Allen (@ByMattAllen)has co-authored books with Wayne Rooney, Paul Merson and Jeff Stelling
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Steve Anglesey
All Played Out by Pete Davies, 1990
John Lennon once observed of rock ‘n roll: “before Elvis, there was nothing.” Several authors on this list will feel similarly about Davies’ journey through Italia 90, which arrived over a year before Fever Pitch and established intelligent, passionate long-form writing about football as a going concern.
No doubt that Davies was in the right place at the right time: unprecedented and unrepeatable levels of access to a successful England team in a game-changing tournament. What is underestimated is how much he was the right man. The long hours of groundwork with sources are invisible; what explodes from virtually every paragraph is the pinch-me disbelief and sheer joy of being granted permission to land on, in a phrase first coined here, planet football.
Steve Anglesey (@sanglesey) is Digital Content Director at Archant, helped launch Football365 and is the author of The 3pm Annual
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Andy Brassell
Morbo by Phil Ball, 2001
It captured the diversity, the intensity and the colour of Spanish football from Figo to Recreativo before it was omnipresent on our TV screens – and before Barcelona were any good. Most importantly, like any great football book, it made sense of the game in a social and historical context too, which is easier said than done given the changes in Spain since the late 1970s.
Andy Brassell (@AndyBrassell) is a freelance writer and author of All Or Nothing: A Season In The Life of the Champions League
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Adrian Clarke
Only a Game? by Eamon Dunphy, 1976
This was the diary of Irish footballer Eamon Dunphy while he was a player at Millwall in the mid-70s, and I think it’s a classic. Honest, raw and free-flowing, it was a serious page-turner. If you want to know what it was really like to be a professional footballer during that era, this book takes you right there, stud-marks and all. I read it when I was a teenager, but it’s one I’ve never forgotten. If only we could get such insights these days.
Adrian Clarke (@adrianjclarke) is a former Arsenal and Southend player turned freelance writer and published author
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Miguel Delaney
Provided You Don't Kiss Me by Duncan Hamilton, 2007
Goes beyond being a sports book, really. It's equally parts hilarious and extremely moving, while providing a close-up insight into one of the game's greatest minds.
Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) is a freelance writer and author of Stuttgart to Saipan
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James Eastham
Best World Cup Money Can Buy by Ed Horton, 1995
This was a refreshingly independent look at some of major issues football faced at a time when the game was changing nationally and internationally at a remarkable pace. Using the 1994 World Cup as his focus, Horton attacked the game's power-brokers with arresting brevity and clarity. His piece on the melodrama surrounding Diego Maradona's expulsion from the USA 94 was outstanding.
James Eastham (@james_eastham) is a freelance football writer
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Uli Hesse
All Played Out by Pete Davies, 1990
A breathtaking fly-on-the-wall account of England’s World Cup campaign in 1990. People often remark how impossible it would be to get the kind of access today which Davies enjoyed back then (he spent nine months with the players and their coach) and how this book is a major reason why football teams have become much more guarded and cautious. However, it’s much more than just a tell-all look behind the scenes. All Played Out also captures a game, and a country, at a crucial moment in time, when both were about to change almost beyond recognition.
Uli Hesse is a football writer and author of books including Tor! and Bayern: Creating a Global Superclub
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Alex Holiga
Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson, 2008
I’d like to be the hipster kid and list some obscure title about an Eastern European provincial team’s Cup challenge in 1954, but I’d be lying if I picked anything other than Inverting the Pyramid. It’s not just a seminal tactics tome that makes you see – and watch – football differently, but a genuinely brilliant book in its own right.
Alex Holiga (@AlexHoliga) is a freelance football writer
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Adam Hurrey
He Always Puts It To The Right: A History Of The Penalty Kick by Clark Miller, 1998
A perfect example of someone finding a niche, throwing themselves into it and not re-emerging until they've explored every single inch. Clark Miller's forensic and fascinating analysis of the evolution of the penalty kick – from its birth in Ireland in 1890 to the almighty fuss it has continued to cause since – has no right to be so engaging. That the author passed away before the book was published only adds to its cult appeal. Track down a copy somehow and bathe yourself in the curious detail.
Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) is a freelance football writer and author of Football Cliches
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Oliver Kay
A Life Too Short by Ronald Reng, 2011
Rarely, if ever, has the issue of mental health in sport been addressed so powerfully and poignantly as by Ronald Reng, whose biography of Robert Enke was published two-and-a-half years after the German goalkeeper's suicide. Enke's tragic story is brought to life magnificently – troubles and all – by Reng's impeccable research, insight and empathy.
Oliver Kay (@OliverKayTimes) is The Times' Chief Football Correspondent and author of Forever Young
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Ben Lyttleton
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss, 1999
A great story, brilliantly told, as much about community and passion as about football.
Ben Lyttleton (@BenLyt) is a football writer and author of Twelve Yards and Football School
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Iain Macintosh
The Glory Game by Hunter Davies, 1972
I'll never grow tired of The Glory Game, an incredible behind-the-scenes account of life at Tottenham Hotspur during the 1971/72 season. It's not simply the football, it's the social attitudes, the comparatively mundane concerns of the players, the heart-stopping revelation that Joe Kinnear was considered the team's “eligible bachelor”. And just talking about it makes me want to read it again.
Iain Macintosh (@IainMacintosh) is a football writer and author of several books including Football Manager Stole My Life
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Nick Moore
Believe In The Sign by Mark Hodkinson, 2006
A melancholy masterpiece, Believe In The Sign is one of the greatest memoirs about a northern English childhood, and being a football fan, ever written. Imagine Fever Pitch if it'd been penned by Alan Bennett: Hodkinson grew up in Rochdale ("built to be rained upon and swathed in mist, joyous in a sulk"), obsessed with his town's consistently terrible football team. Half club and half town history (without ever getting bogged down in details), the writing is stellar, and from Hodkinson's compulsive liar schoolmate to the philandering club chairman, is often howlingly funny.
Nick Moore (@nick_moore) is a freelance football writer
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Jon Spurling
The Glory Game by Hunter Davies, 1972
The fashions, the money and the TV exposure may have changed irrevocably since the early ‘70s, but the pressures to perform, the boredom of training, and personality clashes with managers haven't. Davies's inside story of Bill Nicholson's Tottenham in the 1971/72 season remains a timeless classic.
Jon Spurling (@JonSpurling1) is a freelance writer and author of six football books (five of them about Arsenal)
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Seb Stafford-Bloor
Provided You Don't Kiss Me by Duncan Hamilton, 2007
There isn't a more vivid portrayal of Brian Clough. Informed by the kind of trust which sadly no longer exists between football and its media, it recounts the 20 years the author spent with Clough during his time at Nottingham Forest. Rather than being just another collection of weathered anecdotes, it explores the fabric of the man in great detail and is, in parts, funny, prescient and very sad. It's wonderfully rich in detail and splendidly written.
Seb Stafford-Bloor (@SebSB) is a freelance football writer
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Tim Stannard
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss, 1999
A masterpiece from a much-missed author. The book details the love affair between an American author and a small, Italian club achieving miracles. But it's a love affair of the worst kind, the kind that ends in betrayal, bitterness and the reminder that nothing in life is ever as good as it seems.
Tim Stannard (@LaLigaLoca) is a sports news TV editor and writer
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Rory Smith
Various
No, sorry. No, you can't just pick one favourite football book. You can't say Inverting The Pyramid is better than Football Against The Enemy, or vice versa. You can't just sit there and make an objective, qualitative judgment that says Brilliant Orange is not quite as good as Fear and Loathing In La Liga or 31-0 or Football In Sun and Shadow.
You can't do any of those things, because all football books are different. That's what makes writing them so popular, and reading them so absorbing. You can look at football in myriad different ways – the tactical, the historical, the biographical, the cultural – and take myriad different things from them. Inverting The Pyramid is not a football book in the same sense as Football Against The Enemy. They're apples and pears, only the pears are neatly arranged in a Lobanovskyi-style 4-3-3.
Now football books I'd recommend that other people might not know about, there's a question. Football books that have been particularly important to me, too. And to those I'd say: This Love Is Not For Cowards, Promised Land and Behind the Curtain – still Jonathan Wilson's best book, though perhaps not his most significant.
Rory Smith (@RorySmith) is the New York Times' Chief Soccer Correspondent and author of Mister
Now show us yours - tweet @FourFourTwo with your #FFTshelfie
50-41 • 40-31 • 30-21 • 20-11 • 10-1
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[<a href="//storify.com/FourFourTwo/show-us-your-fftshelfie" target="_blank">View the story "Show us your #FFTshelfie" on Storify</a>]<h1>Show us your #FFTshelfie</h1><h2>As part of FourFourTwo's Best Football Books Ever, we asked you to snap and tweet your football library</h2><p>Storified by <a href="https://storify.com/FourFourTwo">FourFourTwo</a>· Fri, Nov 25 2016 16:26:46
</p><div>SHELFIES
To celebrate the best football books, we want your football bookshelf pictures! Tweet 'em in usi… https://t.co/nITGLd3qcAFourFourTwo </div><div>@FourFourTwo small collection, slowly expanding, usually at Christmas and birthday #FFTSHELFIE https://t.co/5r7iJEz6lVBethany C</div><div>Christmas and birthdays are key times for library expansion, Bethany. Perhaps point your loved ones at our <a href="http://www.fourfourtwo.com/fft-best-books">50 Best Football Books</a> list with a small cough and a shy smile. </div><div>@FourFourTwo here is our @PDXRivetersSG @timbersarmy collection. Over 300 titles & counting https://t.co/Ljhcp8udRp… https://t.co/FsagNprux1BOOKED! Library</div><div>Impressive used of felled tree. And good balance of polite and firm on the notices. </div><div>@FourFourTwo #FFTShelfie
Mrs Cold End absolutely loves my obsession with football programmes https://t.co/zF21STKjzUThe Cold End</div><div>Mrs Cold End wouldn't want to change you though, right?</div><div>@FourFourTwo Favourite part of the football collection (excluding #zines) #FFTShelfie https://t.co/QKjSgbHupyDusan Mihajilovic</div><div>Hats off to fanzines: pre-internet, the only way to get information that was either unbiased or ridiculously biased, to taste.</div><div>#FFTShelfie https://t.co/8KA0bAP5MsMr. Aguia</div><div>Sky blue. We're detecting a theme here, Mr Aguia. </div><div>Tony Adams on the way. ;-) #FFTShelfie https://t.co/ZvQhGzPvuyGrzegorz Chrzanowski</div><div>The bloke, or his book? Either way, you'll find it interesting.</div><div>Not many books, but covering 3 languages and sweet memories @FourFourTwo #FFTSHELFIE @hardygruene @paulbrownUK https://t.co/dr6HfsPw2RBrazilian Alien</div><div><i>¡Viva futbol!</i></div><div>@FourFourTwo Not just football on my shelf #FFTSHELFIE https://t.co/OL81DCBBEGStephen</div><div>The FFT office is deeply divided on other sports. Some like them, others find them a waste of time. Make of that what you will.</div><div>@fourfourtwo #FFTShelfie #FFTBestbooks about half of my personal Football library collection and some trophies. https://t.co/kzQ4M64oeAMiguel L. Pereira</div><div>Personally we'd pop the trophies up top, Miguel, but we've less reason to be proud than you. </div><div>#FFTSHELFIE https://t.co/nFn7ffgZYlBOLO</div><div>Bolo loves a biography. But all the blood is rushing to Joe Calzaghe's head. </div><div>@FourFourTwo Some important missing pieces as lent to friends #FFTShelfie https://t.co/LnJtRa6XpDGrey Jogging Bottoms</div><div>Good use of space, GJB - under the eaves and piled as bookends. Clever. </div><div>@FourFourTwo Here's my #FFTShelfie https://t.co/b8EwOcH0ju3 Dart Analyst</div><div>Is your surname Waterstone? A fine collection, 3DA</div><div>@FourFourTwo #FFTShelfie another case full in the garage! https://t.co/STFx2CEEo6Tony Mee</div><div>No use in the garage, Tony, unless your car's a fan (it might support Mansfield if it's a Stag, ho-ho). You've got quite deep shelves, so bring 'em in and pile 'em on top.</div><div>@FourFourTwo #FFTShelfie https://t.co/JDtVMYMdxHAled Morgan Hughes</div><div>Pleasingly uniform bottom shelf, Aled, until you get to <i>Mad For It</i> - a FourFourTwo book. <salutes></div><div>Thats just the start got loads more at my mum and dads, not just football. @FourFourTwo #FFTShelfie https://t.co/s2Q19X7FflRich Scott</div><div>Fetch 'em down next time you're home, Rich. Unless your folks enjoy reading down the phone to you, which might get old quickly. </div><div>#FFTShelfie https://t.co/QEdvN1JgxaStuart Nicholas</div><div>Some classics there, Stuey (and <i>Mad For It</i> again, which is nice to see). </div><div>.@FourFourTwo an Arsenal and United fan living together the green one is Fever Pitch in Croatian #FFTShelfie https://t.co/2mqSj6NlojAnita Roza</div><div>It's a good start, Anita. Shouldn't your cohabitee insist on some MUFC ornaments?</div><div>My @FourFourTwo shelfie. Actually really enjoyed Keano's honest appraisal. #FFTshelfie https://t.co/0SnKipI8qrGregor MacGregor</div><div>You sound surprised, Gregor...</div>
