Terrace Heroes

This original book examines 1930s football in England in its social, economic and political context by focusing on ten of the top players of the era. It sheds light on the decade that saw players taking on a public persona as 'terrace heroes'.

Newcastle United Cult Heroes recounts the careers of 20 of the club's greatest icons, men who entertained, week in, week out and regularly set fans' pulses racing. Each individual biography analyses each player's career, and examines exactly each player was idolised and how they achieved cult status. Featuring Colin Veitch, Bill McCracken, Albert Shepherd, Hughie Gallacher, Albert Stubbins, Len Shackleton, Jackie Milburn, Joe Harvey, Frank Brennan, George Robledo, Bobby Mitchell, Len White, Wyn Davies, Malcolm Macdonald, Tony Green, Kevin Keegan, Peter Beardsley, Paul Gascoigne, Andy Cole and Alan Shearer.Key features- Part of the popular and successful Cult Heroes series which features a number of football clubs- Features 20 of Newcastle United's most iconic players of all time- Details their careers, their impact on the club and the reasons why they were such cult figures- Includes contemporary and historic images of those legendary figures featured- Written by respected football author Dylan Younger

This original book examines 1930s football in England in its social, economic and political context by focusing on ten of the top players of the era. It sheds light on the decade that saw players taking on a public persona as 'terrace heroes'.

The story of British football's journey from public school diversion to mass media entertainment is a remarkable one. The Association Game traces British football from the establishment of the earliest clubs in the nineteenth century to its place as one of the prominent and commercialised leisure industries at the beginning of the twenty first century. It covers supporters and fandom, status and culture, big business, the press and electronic media and development in playing styles, tactics and rules. This is the only up to date book on the history of British football, covering the twentieth century shift from amateur to professional and whole of the British Isles, not just England.

One of the best defenders playing in the English Premier League today, Nemanja Vidic is a cult figure among Manchester United fans and has enjoyed a meteoric rise to soccer stardom This is the incredible story of a player renowned as one of the best defenders in Europe, if not the world. Born in Serbia in 1981, Vidic was signed to Red Star Belgrade's youth system at 15, and by the age of 20 had won the Yugoslav Cup with Red Star. The captain's armband soon followed and he led Red Star to a domestic double in 2004, before moving to the Russian Premier League and Spartak Moscow. In 2006 he signed for Manchester United. Alongside Rio Ferdinand, Vidic began a defensive partnership that has proved to be one of the most formidable in English football. Vidic picked up Premier League winner's medals in 2007 and 2008, and was part of the squad that won the 2008 Champions League. He played in every one of United's record-breaking run of 14 clean sheets in 2008/9 and helped the team to victory in the Club World Cup, before finishing the season with more Premier League glory as United won their 18th League title. Loved by the Old Trafford faithful for his aggressive defensive style, and his ability to score goals from set pieces, Vidic was short-listed for the PFA Player of the Year in 2009 and was Manchester United fans' and players' Player of the Year.

It should be unthinkable to write the social history of Britain from the late nineteenth century onwards without reference to association football. Yet by the time that the Football Association celebrated its centenary year in 1963, no serious academic analysis had been undertaken of the sport and of the various channels by which it had developed in different parts of the country. By the time that historians began to tackle that task, its complexity and diversity were such that it could only be undertaken in installments. Studies emerged that focused upon individual clubs and specific regions or which were limited to narrow time scales. No work examined the long century from the 1860s to the 1970s in full. This book analyses the growth of British football in all its aspectsthe developments of the football crowd, the status of the professional player, womens football, the difficult survival of amateurism, to mention but a few. It also highlights the factors that contributed to diverse developmental paths in different parts of the country. The author has used the widest range of source materials to achieve a broader overview of the games history than has previously been attempted.

What does the ‘Asian’ mean in Asian sport celebrity? With a collection of nine essays on Asian sport celebrities variously associated with Australia, Belgium, China, Japan, New Zealand, North Korea, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of the multi-faceted construction of what it means to be Asian from the perspectives of race, ethnicity and regionality. Sport celebrity, as a modern invention, is disseminated from the West to the rest of the globe including Asia, and so are its functions of symbolizing particular values, desires and personalities idolized and idealized within their respective societies. While Asian athletes were historically depicted as weak, fragile and biologically ‘unsuited’ to modern sport, the emergence of more than a few world-class Asian athletes in the twenty-first century demands an in-depth inquiry into the relationship between sport celebrity and the representation of Asia. This book is therefore essential for those interested in a range of socio-cultural issues—including globalization, transnationalism, migration, modernity, (post-)coloniality, gender politics, spectacle, citizenship, Orientalism, and nationalism—within and beyond Asia. It was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.