(War Minus the) Shooting From the Hip
Originally published on TwoHundredPercent about the media storm over whether FIFA should permit England’s footballers to wear poppies on their shirts when England played Spain in a friendly the day before Remembrance Sunday. And so it ends. 93 years of England’s ignominious and unpatriotic failure to wear poppies on their shirts comes to a deserved end, and a nation can rest easy, safe in the knowledge that now football has fallen into line, people will actually start wearing poppies for...
read moreThe Ball is Round
A history of the 20th century which doesn’t focus on the USA is the novel premise that underpins David Goldblatt’s magnificent history of football from the earliest appearance of the game to the eve of the 2006 World Cup. Goldblatt skilfully moves from continent to continent and across the decades to present the story of the global game. He explains the reasons why football took hold almost wherever it was played, and why it didn’t take off in the places it didn’t. As the laws of the game are the same wherever it is played, the...
read moreShare This
