A Dozen Books Every Football Fan Should Read

Walk into any bookstore in England, and you're pretty much guaranteed to find a whole host of books about the local football side. Coach retrospectives, ground histories and travel guides—this writer once even came across a copy of The Anfield Songbook, a now slightly-outdated anthology of Liverpool fan chants and songs. One thing's for sure, football fans love to read about football. 

Here are a dozen of our favorite books about football, including player and fan memoirs, sociological studies and works of fiction. Obviously, there's no way we covered all the best works about football out there, so if you have any favorites we missed that you'd like to share, have at it in the comments section. 

The Damned United by David Peace

Perhaps more recognizable and acclaimed in its cinematic form as the celebrated 2009 drama directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), The Damned United is one of many books that deals with the career of colorful manager Brian Clough and probably the best work of fiction.

A novel based on actual historical events, The Damned United is an account of Clough's disastrous 44-day spell as manager of a then-powerful Leeds United. Peace tries to get into the manager's head, frequently employing his version of what he imagines Clough's thoughts to have been. If you want the facts from Clough's career, this may not be the best place to look, but if you want a well-written character sketch of one of English football's most fascinating figures and a literary take on one of its most fascinating eras, this is it. 

How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer

A solid primer for those interested in the larger global implications of the game, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization was, appropriately enough, released just before the start of the 2010 World Cup, and like the tournament, offers a look into into international relationships with football.  

As stated, it's more ideal as a primer, a good place to start for fans (particularly American fans) who want to learn more about matters most experienced fans know well, such as hooliganism, the Celtic-Rangers rivalry and the life and times of Pele. But there are some new insights to be had, particularly in the discussions of Serbian football fans, the connection between Ukrainian teams and Nigerian players and how Iranian women seek to make gains for the right to attend matches. 

Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

It's an aspect of football fandom everyone loves to overanalyze, often to unfair or an overemphasized degree. But Bill Buford's account of time spent with a faction of Manchester United's Red Army firm, where he experienced several brutal riots, is as unflinching as it is enlightening.

Richard Danzig, Secretary of the Navy under President Bill Clinton and an advisor to President Barack Obama, said Buford's book is one of the best studies of terrorism he has read, despite it not being about terrorism at all.   

As Danzig told The Telegraph: 

"

“Buford became absorbed by soccer violence. He describes the most appalling examples of soccer violence by fans against fans. But he describes with relentless honesty how he finds sickening things attractive. He says violence lets the adrenaline flow; it’s like sex, you live in the moment.”

"

Only a Game?: The Diary of a Professional Footballer by Eamon Dunphy

There were many great football memoirs we could have included, such as Brian Clough's autobiography, Tony Adams' harrowing account of his battle with alcoholism, George Best's Blessed, but we chose this one. Eamon Dunphy, an itinerant midfielder who spent time with Millwall, Charlton Athletic and Shamrock Rovers, took to sports journalism when his career on the pitch ended and wrote one of the best and most honest accounts of the footballing world from a player's perspective.

Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life by Alex Bellos

Football is Brazil's national obsession, and no book chronicles the relationship between the nation and its great sporting pastime as thoroughly and entertainingly as Alex Bellos' Futebol. He covers national heroes from Garrincha to Ronaldo, spinoff sports (football in cars) and how Brazil's love of the game spreads from the Amazon to the Faroe Islands.  

The chapter on Brazil's 1950 World Cup defeat to Uruguay, a cultural catastrophe Nelson Rodrigues once compared to the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima which compares footage of Alcides Gigghia's 'Fateful Goal' to the Zapruder film, the striking film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, is particularly enlightening. The stories and figures from that day—fans on both sides who died of shock at the winning goal, the deafening silence of the Maracanã—are the stuff of football mythology, for better or for worse. 

For a more academic look at the cultural relationship between Brazil and football, Janet Lever's Soccer Madness is worth a read as well.

A Season with Verona by Tim Parks

One of the best fan narratives, British-Italian author Tim Parks passionately chronicles his experiences—which first appeared in excerpt in The Guardian—as a fan of now-Serie B club Hellas Verona during their most recent campaign in Italy's top division.

Particularly gripping is Parks' chronicling of his time in with the gialloblù, a wildly enthusiastic group of Ultras who, in addition to having an immense collection of fan songs and chants, drink heavily, occasionally spew horrendously racist sentiments and even taunt Juventus fans with a chant mocking the Heysel Stadium disaster. The author gets at the roots of fandom and does his best to explain why some football fans take their loyalties to such drastic extremes. 

Manchester United Ruined My Life by Colin Shindler

Growing up in central Manchester in the 1950s and 1960s, Colin Shindler was a minority in two ways: first as part of the city's small but tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community and second as a Manchester City fan in a sea of United red. Nostalgic, often funny, sometimes snarky and occasionally even slightly acrid in its disdain for the Red Devils and especially manager Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United Ruined My Life will speak to fans who love the underdog. 

Also, the book was slated to be made into a feature film starring Alan Rickman and Jason Isaacs, but the film has not yet come to be. So there's that.

The Glory Game by Hunter Davies

Hunter Davies is perhaps best known as one of the early biographers of the Beatles and the first to write an authorized book on the Fab Four. But equally culturally important may be The Glory Game, his 1972 season-in-the-life chronicle of Tottenham Hotspur and its players. It is still considered one of the greatest football books ever written.

Accessible and affecting, Davies' book takes fans into the locker room, on the pitch for training and into players' homes for a most thorough, realistic and unflinching portrayals of an English club in its prime. 

The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl

Another one for the nonfiction fans, especially those interested in the American relationship with football. Wahl analyzes the impact of Beckham's attempt to break into America with the L.A. Galaxy and its implications for a league still trying to find its feet, touching on the implications at all levels, from still-nameless players trying to make it to the corporations trying to capitalize on the rising interest in American soccer. 

Fever Pitch: A Fan’s Life by Nick Hornby

We couldn't not include this now-classic fan memoir, which graces many an Arsenal fan's bookshelf. One of the most popular football-related works in recent history, Fever Pitch is a series of thoughtful, often funny essays in which High Fidelity author Nick Hornby links Arsenal's performances to events in his own life, one of those great representations of how fandom often reflects our personal lives in ways we don't normally think aobut. In fact, the book had such a big impact on the Gooners' fanbase that it was included in the 2005-06 supporters' membership pack, as part of the farewell to Highbury Stadium (pour one out). 

Two film adaptations have been made. One was a 1997 version with Colin Firth in the Hornby role and the other was the 2005 American version starring Jimmy Fallon, where the Boston Red Sox assume the role of the Gunners. 

Finn McCool's Football Club... by Stephen Rea

Finn McCool's Football Club: The Birth, Death and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead is a mouthful of a title, to be sure, but the debut book from Northern Ireland-born New Orleans transplant Stephen Rea—not to be confused with the actor and fellow Belfast native of the same name—is a mighty narrative about a small pub team overcoming some serious obstacles.

After moving to New Orleans, Rea helped form a team with fellow footy-mad locals and expats who inhabited an Irish pub called Finn McCool's. When Hurricane Katrina hit, many teammates, including the author, were separated by the floodwaters, and the book chronicles how the storm impacted the players and their efforts to reunite the team. Finn McCool's Football Club is a testament to how the Beautiful Game survives even the direst of circumstances. 

Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football by David Winner

Most football fans will be able to tell you something about 'Total Football,' the versatility-focused style of play made famous by Ajax and Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff, arguably the greatest contribution the Dutch made to the game.

David Winner's book is an entertaining look at the cultural and intellectual undercurrents of 'Total Football' and the Dutch rise to prominence in the game, comparing the thought process behind it to the likes of Rembrandt and the Netherlands' other cultural greats. Whoever said there's no art in sport?