Soccer Made in St. Louis covers the history, playing styles, and evolution of the world's most popular sport in the nation's original soccer capital, St. Louis. Starting with the first reported game in 1875, the book details the teams, the players, and the organizers who brought home national championships at every level of soccer. Author and longtime St. Louis soccer writer Dave Lange tells the stories of those who took the game from the sandlots of St. Louis to soccer's biggest stage, the World Cup. From Harry Ratican, the first St. Louisan to gain nationwide soccer fame; to the six St. Louisans who led the United States to the biggest upset in World Cup history; to Lori Chalupny, who helped the U.S. Women's National Team to Olympic gold; the book covers the rich heritage of soccer in St. Louis and shows how the sport is woven into the fabric of the city's makeup.

A searing portrait of the racial dynamics that lie inescapably at the heart of our nation, told through the turbulent history of the city of St. Louis. From Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition to the 2014 uprising in Ferguson, American history has been made in St. Louis. And as Walter Johnson shows in this searing book, the city exemplifies how imperialism, racism, and capitalism have persistently entwined to corrupt the nation's past. St. Louis was a staging post for Indian removal and imperial expansion, and its wealth grew on the backs of its poor black residents, from slavery through redlining and urban renewal. But it was once also America's most radical city, home to anti-capitalist immigrants, the Civil War's first general emancipation, and the nation's first general strike—a legacy of resistance that endures. A blistering history of a city's rise and decline, The Broken Heart of America will forever change how we think about the United States.

The study of association football has recently emerged as vibrant field of inquiry, attracting scholars worldwide from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. "Soccer As the Beautiful Game: Football’s Artistry, Identity and Politics," held at Hofstra University in April 2014, gathered together scholars, media, management, and fans in the largest ever conference dedicated to the game in North America. This collection of essays provides a comprehensive view of the academic perspectives on offer at the conference, itself a snapshot of the state of this increasingly rich scholarly terrain. The diversity of approaches range from theory to pedagogy to historical and sociological engagements with the game at all levels, from the grassroots to the grand spectacle of the World Cup, while the international roster of authors is testimony to the game’s global reach. This collection of essays therefore offers a state of the field for soccer studies and a road map for further exploration. The chapters originally published as a special issue in Soccer & Society.

Forever Forest celebrates the 150th anniversary of Nottingham Forest, the second oldest professional football club in the world. Join official club historian Don Wright as he commemorates 150 years of the Reds, charting the lives of the people – officials, players and fans – who have made this world-famous football club.

Timed perfectly for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Chuck Korr and Marvin Close's More Than Just a Game tells the timeless true story of how political prisoners under apartheid found hope and dignity through soccer. In the hell that was Robben Island, inmates united courageously in an act of protest. Beginning in 1964, they requested the right to play soccer during their exercise periods. Denied repeatedly, they risked beatings and food deprivation by repeating their request for three years. Finally granted this right, the prisoners banded together to form a multi-tiered, pro-level league that ran for more than two decades and served as an impassioned symbol of resistance against apartheid. Former Robben Island inmate Nelson Mandela noted in the documentary FIFA: 90 Minutes for Mandela, "Soccer is more than just a game.... The energy, passion, and dedication this game created made us feel alive and triumphant despite the situation we found ourselves in."

St. Louis Arena Memories is the history of the St. Louis Arena. Originally built by 1929 to host the National Dairy Show, the Arena became the major exhibition building in the St. Louis, Missouri area. The story of the Arena is told in chronological order and is supplemented with pictures from conception to implosion. The book also contains remembrances from people who lived near the building, who worked in the building, who owned the building, who performed in the building and most of all from people who were entertained in the building. The book is the history of the building and a part of the social history of the City of St. Louis, Missouri from 1929 to 1999.

St. Louis has been the heartbeat of American soccer for years, dominating in club, high school, and college soccer. To this day, St. Louis University has the most NCAA Division I men's soccer national championship titles. Yet, in 1996, when Major League Soccer kicked off its inaugural season, there was no team to represent the Gateway to the West. How did this happen? Author Shane Stay guides you through St. Louis soccer's journey, from its past to the present, including the launch of St. Louis CITY SC. The story will start 100 years in the past and follow the major achievements—and setbacks—of St. Louis soccer. Shane recounts not only the history of soccer at the club, high school, college, and professional levels, but he also provides some helpful hints for which are the best local attractions for soccer fans, and he even goes so far as to predict the future successes of St. Louis CITY SC. This is one book soccer fans will want to have on their shelves!

For over a century, Chicago has played soccer. This work explains the early history of the game in the Second City, beginning with the 1887 formation of the Chicago Football Association, and concluding with the 1939 season and Chicago Sparta’s National Open Cup win, which brought the trophy to the city for the first time. This study chronicles the early British immigrants who first transported and organized the game in Chicago. It documents the myriad ethnic groups and native born players that kicked in the city’s many leagues, and examines the many championship tournaments, teams, and players that made Chicago one of the nation’s early soccer powers.

Rediscovering soccer's long history in the U.S. Across North America, native peoples and colonists alike played a variety of kicking games long before soccer's emergence in the late 1800s. Brian D. Bunk examines the development and social impact of these sports through the rise of professional soccer after World War I. As he shows, the various games called football gave women an outlet as athletes and encouraged men to form social bonds based on educational experience, occupation, ethnic identity, or military service. Football also followed young people to college as higher education expanded in the nineteenth century. University play, along with the arrival of immigrants from the British Isles, helped spark the creation of organized soccer in the United States—and the beautiful game's transformation into a truly international sport. A multilayered look at one game’s place in American life, From Football to Soccer refutes the notion of the U.S. as a land outside of football history.

This narrative of U.S. soccer's history and present-day status addresses the issues of socioeconomics. Emphasizing the differences between social classes in U.S. soccer past and present, as well as those between American soccer and international football, this work analyzes the role of class in American soccer's failure to carve out a more prominent place in the sports landscape. Contemporary soccer is explored from its beginnings in informal Parks and Recreation leagues to the development of formal club programs, and university, professional, and U.S. national teams. In recent decades, Hispanic leagues formed primarily by Mexican and Central American immigrants have reinforced the theme of a class-based, exclusionary space in U.S. soccer. A personal perspective based on the authors' experience coaching soccer at the informal level broadens the book's appeal.