THE GAME OF OUR LIVES

You won't hope to find a book which manages to blend readability and relentless presentation of facts better than this.

THE GAME OF OUR LIVES: The Meaning and Making of English Football, by David Goldblatt, is an entertaining and insightful explanation of what made football the game we know today. Interesting nuggets are placed amongst stories which sometimes baffle you with how they were allowed to happen.

The central idea of the book is to explain the changing face of football in the wake of Thatcher's Britain. The working class was decimated and forced to reinvent itself - and so was the game which was previously their's. Adopted by popular and political culture as a social norm, football is also mega-big business. And Goldblatt analyses this in an insightful and humorous way.

THE GAME OF OUR LIVES is published by Penguin and available now at all usual outlets.

Title image from William Hill PLC.