FourFourTwo's Best Football Books Ever: The Writers' Choices

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

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[<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>

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Gary Parkinson is a freelance writer, editor, trainer, muso, singer, actor and coach. He spent 14 years at FourFourTwo as the Global Digital Editor and continues to regularly contribute to the magazine and website, including major features on Euro 96, Subbuteo, Robert Maxwell and the inside story of Liverpool's 1990 title win. He is also a Bolton Wanderers fan.

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