Whilst Gerry Hitchens’s time in Italy should have guaranteed him iconic status in English football, it ultimately made him a forgotten man at home
Was Dong Fangzhuo a genuine signing based on talent and potential or did Manchester United snap him up in 2004 to break into the growing Chinese market?
A European Footballer of the Year and one of Denmark’s greatest, it remains amongst football’s most surprising moves that Allan Simonsen went to Charlton
In February 2002, over 12,000 fans packed themselves into Fratton Park to see former Real Madrid and Barcelona maestro Robert Prosinečki score a scintillating hat-trick against Barnsley. What should have been an easy three…
EDSON ARANTES DO NASCIMENTO, or Pelé as he is better known, holds a high place in the pantheon of footballing greats. During his career, the man from Três Corações won three World…
When England played Germany in 1938, many expected a cordial battle between the two old foes. What followed has gone down in infamy and shame
ON 3 JUNE 1978, Peruvian footballer Teófilo Cubillas broke the hearts of five million Scots with a set-piece of ineffable magic. Moments earlier, Cubillas stood 20-yards away from the Scottish goal, staring…
Discussions of pioneering black athletes almost inevitably descend into common tropes about breaking race barriers, facing racial slurs of unmentionable evil and overcoming professional prejudices. A complete absence of such experiences makes…
It was supposed to be one of the greatest innovations football had ever witnessed. For the first time in history, fans, thousands of fans, would be given a real say in the running…
LONG BEFORE A TEAM OF ANIMATED PUPPETS decided to take on the world under the banner of Team America, a hodgepodge collection of superstars and NASL underlings joined together in 1976 to take…
THE TIME BEFORE PELÉ, CRUYFF AND CHINAGLIA was a barren one for the North American Soccer League, or NASL to you and me. Born in 1968 following a merger between the United Soccer…
In 1927, the board of Wolverhampton Wanderers took the bold decision to hire a man known for his unique managerial methods, authoritarian style, keen eye for detail and innovative approach. Frank Buckley, or the…
On 14 May 1992, Gary Lineker scored his final goal in English football as Tottenham Hotspur lost 3-1 to Manchester United. Following the game, players, managers and fans across the UK began to…
Cast your mind back to the turn of the millennium. A time when we first came to grips with Big Brother, a time when the Millennium Dome was revealed to a semi-astonished English…
In the modern football environment saturated with the opinions of former players, managers and media pundits, it’s hard to imagine a time when football struggled to find it’s way into the newspapers. Yet once…
In 1911, Mohun Bagan, an all-Indian team from Kolkata, captured the hearts of the nation when they won the IFA Shield. The IFA Shield was a football tournament created for English troops stationed…
WHEN THE QUALIFICATION ROUND was drawn for the 1954 World Cup, French and German diplomats looked worriedly at each other. At a time when Europe was trying to move on from the calamities…
England may have created football, but Brazil made it an art form. Since the arrival of football in the South American country at the turn of the 20th century, Brazil has won…