Kategoria BISAC: Sports & Recreation >> Soccer

This is a cultural history of Italian Fascism viewed through the lens of soccer. The 1930s were the zenith of achievement for Italian football--Italy hosted and won the 1934 World Cup and retained the trophy in 1938. At club level, Calcio was reorganized into a national league, after which the first Italian club teams emerged to dominate European competition. It was at this time that Mussolini's party institutionalized soccer as a fascist game. Italian Fascism fully exploited the opportunities football provided to shape public opinion, penetrate daily life, and reinforce conformity. By...

It is a fact that disproportionately few black soccer players have ever been employed as managers or coaches despite their prominent presence on the field. How big a role does racism play in contributing to this damning statistic? "Play the white man" is the metaphor King uses to explain how race, racism and inequality operate. He looks at the pressures placed on black players to adopt a culture dominated by white men in sport--in other words, "to act white"' in order to be accepted. He exposes the behavior of powerful white stakeholders, follows a black manager's struggle for...

Now unknown or forgotten, influential schoolmasters took the game of association football to many parts of England. They had several roles: they brought the game to individual schools, they established regional and national leagues and associations, and they founded professional football clubs. They also exported the game around the world, working as moral missionaries, passionate players and energetic entrepreneurs. The role of teachers in association football is a much neglected aspect of English cultural history. It is a story that deserves to be told because it allows a fundamental...

In December 1999, Peter Kitchen was voted by fans of both Doncaster Rovers and Leyton Orient as one of their greatest ever players. In more recent polls conducted by BBC's Football Focus, FourFourTwo Magazine and other popular fanzines, he was voted as one of their best players--some of these polls taking place more than twenty years after he played for them, and is today still considered a cult hero by both sets of fans.

Born in Mexborough, South Yorkshire in 1952, Peter Kitchen attended Mexborough Grammar School and represented Yorkshire Senior Schools and England 'B' teams. He...

Two world-class writers reveal themselves to be the ultimate soccer fans in these collected letters

Karl Ove Knausgaard is sitting at home in Skane with his wife, four small children, and dog. He is watching soccer on TV and falls asleep in front of the set. He likes 0-0 draws, cigarettes, coffee, and Argentina.

Fredrik Ekelund is away, in Brazil, where he plays soccer on the beach and watches matches with others. Ekelund loves games that end up 4-3 and teams that play beautiful soccer. He likes caipirinhas and Brazil.

Home and Away is an unusual soccer...

Football has undergone a period of transformation over the last thirty years. Despite these global processes, different national leagues have adapted in different ways. After an initial period of success directly after Italia '90, Italian football has gone through a period of sustained crisis. It has been blighted by financial mismanagement, corruption scandals and fan violence. This has impacted Italy's ability to compete on a global stage.

Football Italia accounts for the development of Italian football in relation to the wider global transformations impacting...