Daniel Gray is about to turn thirty. Like any sane person, his response is to travel to Luton, Crewe and Hinckley. After a decade's exile in Scotland, he sets out to reacquaint himself with England via what he considers its greatest asset: football. Watching teams from the Championship (or Division Two as any right-minded person calls it) to the South West Peninsula Premier, and aimlessly walking around towns from Carlisle to Newquay, Gray paints a curious landscape forgotten by many. He discovers how the provinces made the England we know, from Teesside's role in the Empire to Luton's in our mongrel DNA. Moments in the histories of his teams come together to form football's narrative, starting with Sheffield pioneers and ending with fan ownership at Chester, and Gray shows how the modern game unifies an England in flux and dominates the places in which it is played. Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters is a wry and affectionate ramble through the wonderful towns and teams that make the country and capture its very essence. It is part-football book, part-travelogue and part-love letter to the bits of England that often get forgotten, celebrated here in all their blessed eccentricity.

The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Marxism covers of the basics of Karl Marx’s thought, the philosophical contributions of later Marxist theorists, and the extensive real-world political organizations and structures his work inspired—that is, the myriad political parties, organizations, countries, and leaders who subscribed to Marxism as a creed. This text includes a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, both thinkers and doers; political parties and movements; and major communist or ex-communist countries. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Marxism.

Falling for Football brings together 44 different writers who revisit the teams that made them fall in love with the beautiful game in the first place. From World Cup-winners to works of fiction, from the 1950s to the present day - the teams may be different, but the obsession remains reassuringly the same.

A Scotsman and an Englishman, a camera and a notebook... McCredie's lens and Gray's words search out everyday Scotland - a Scotland of flaking pub signs and sneaky fags outside the bingo, Italian cafes and proper fitba grounds. A nation of beautiful, haggard normality.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023 - FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR 'Powerful and poignant' Henry Winter 'Empathetic and poignant ... the game's answer to A Journal of the Plague Year' Harry Pearson 'The Durham City midfielder wore the resigned look of a man trying to find a jar of harissa in Farmfoods. Up front for Jarrow, a centre-forward darted around frenetically, as if chasing a kite during a hurricane...' When football disappeared in March 2020, writer and broadcaster Daniel Gray used its absence to reflect on everything the game meant to him. That bred a pledge: whenever and wherever fans were allowed to return, he would be there. The Silence of the Stands is the result of that pledge: a joyous travelogue documenting a precarious season, in which behind-closed-doors matches and travel restrictions combined to make trips to Kendal and Workington seem impossibly exotic. Offering a poignant peek at a surreal age and a slab of social history from the two-metre-distanced tea bar queue, this is the moving, heartfelt and surprisingly uplifting story of a unique season that no one wishes to repeat.

As the digital revolution continues apace, emergent technologies and means of communication present new challenges and opportunities for the football industry. This is the first book to bring together key contemporary debates at the intersection of football studies, leisure studies, and digital cultural studies. It presents cutting edge theoretical and empirical work based around four key themes: theorizing digital football cultures; digital football fandom; football and social media; and football (sub)cybercultures. Covering topics such as transnational digital fandom, online abuse, and gender, Digital Football Cultures argues that we are witnessing the hyperdigitalization of the world’s most popular sport. This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers working in leisure studies, sports studies, football studies, and critical media studies, as well as geography, anthropology, criminology, and sociology. It is also fascinating reading for anybody working in sport, media, and culture.

Featured in The Scotsman's Sport Books of 2020 A collection of lyrical sweet-nothings whispered to late goals, local radio commentators, referees falling over and 47 other reminders of why we love football. Despite its flaws and excesses, modern football is still sprinkled with simple yet beguiling delights. In his previous book Saturday, 3pm, Daniel Gray captured many of them. Now he is back with a further 50 short essays of prose poetry dedicated to the game's charming, technicolour minutiae. From club lottos to undeserved wins, and from pitch-invading animals to the roar after a minute's silence, Extra Time is another romantic celebration of football fandom and its shared joys, habits, eccentricities and peculiarities. It is a salute to keepers going forward for corners, match balls landing on stand roofs and goals scored in quick succession. These chapters offer a gleeful antidote to disillusionment with modern football, VAR and all. They are reminders of why we care and justifications for our devotion. Each warmly evokes this sport's blessed capacity to offer escape and diversion. Let us share the delight once more.

*Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year* *Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award* *The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year* *The Times Sports Book of the Year* *Telegraph Football Book of the Year* Readers love The Boy on the Shed 'A journey full of emotion . . . Spectacular' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Honest, insightful and shows how football really has to sort itself out' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Paul Ferris writes from the heart, a wonderful book' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Exceptional' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Ferris's wonderful memoir represents a twin triumph. He has endured every kind of setback in life but has invariably reinvented himself; and his writing is a pure pleasure.' The Sunday Times 'Enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.' Telegraph 'A masterpiece' Brian McNally 'Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris's The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.' Guardian 'Fascinating and stylishly told.' David Walsh, bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins __________ The Boy on the Shed is a story of love and fate. At 16, Paul Ferris becomes Newcastle United's youngest-ever first-teamer. Like many a tricky winger from Northern Ireland, he is hailed as 'the new George Best'. As a player and later a physio and member of the Magpies' managerial team, Paul's career acquaints him not only with Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Bobby Robson, Ruud Gullit, Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer but also with injury, insecurity and disappointment. Talented and carefree on the pitch, shy and anxious off it, he earns a tilt at stardom. His first spell at Newcastle turns sour, as does his return as a physio, although obtaining a Masters degree shows him what he could achieve away from football. Written with brutal candour, dark humour and consummate style, The Boy on the Shed is a riveting and moving account of a life less ordinary. __________

A charming ode to footballing years gone by.