I'm not much of a one for merchandising. I mean, I'll stop and look at it when it's on sale, and I love football shirts, though I suspect that I am now too old to be able to wear them in public. I don't much like the idea of being "identified" as a football supporter [...] Click to continue reading...

Life in the Highland League could hardly be described as glamorous. The majority of the better known names are now playing in the Scottish Football League and, while there are still agitants requesting automatic promotion and relegation between the lower leagues and the Scottish League, the door remains firmly shut for the time being, unless [. Click to continue reading...

Perry Boys is a memoir written by Ian Hough and covers the 'Casual' gangs of Manchester and Salford. However, if you're thinking that this is simply another book on hooligan culture, you're quite wrong. Hough takes the reader on a journey into the subculture of fashion that defined many of the soccer gangs of the [. Click to continue reading...

It seems almost difficult to believe now, but there was a time when, if you saw the football on the television, that was it. You'd see the goals once, maybe twice, and then they'd disappear into the vaults of the BBC and ITV, only to resurface once or twice at random intervals on the likes [...] Click to continue reading...

<! @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } > The question is often asked. A lot of people think that Finland has no football culture, that this country does not understand or properly appreciate the game, that its players are unloved and it's teams ignored. Click to continue reading...

The collapse of the holiday firm XL has had a significant effect on tens of thousands of tourists that found themselves stranded without anywhere to go on holiday, and it also caused an unusual sight on Saturday evening's "Match Of The Day". XL were the shirt sponsors of West Ham United, and the sudden non-existence [. Click to continue reading...

One of the great innovations of modern football is the ability for someone sitting at home to keep up to date with the latest scores in almost many match the you care to think of. It wasn't so long ago that this was impossible. If you supported a non-league club, the chances were that you'd [...] Click to continue reading...

This piece has been written with due deference to an article in the Guardian Sport Blog this morning, reappraising the career of the BBC football commentator Barry Davies. I felt that this was an appropriate time to add my thoughts on a legend of British sports broadcasting. There has long been a strand of anti-intellectualism [. Click to continue reading...

It usually takes approximately three matches before the rumour mill starts to rotate, so it is that time again. Already, there is talk that Alan Curbishley is going to be kicked out from West Ham United, and that Harry Redknapp is going to make a "surprise" return to the East End to take over there. [. Click to continue reading...

From the multitude of unofficial fan clubs that crowd the terraces to the carefully choreographed chants that ring out for ninety minutes, J. League fans have arguably borrowed as heavily from their native baseball league as they have from European and South American football culture. Michael Tuckerman explains. Click to continue reading...

What constitutes a local derby seems, on the face of it, to be a question with a pretty obvious answer. However, if we take a couple of minutes to actually examine it, it becomes more nuanced that you might at first think. Derby matches are usually local, but they don't necessarily have to be. The [. Click to continue reading...

In an era in which it often feels as if too many people within football get too much praise, it sometimes feels as if there are too few people left that could be described as an "unsung hero". If there is someone that has given selflessly of his time to produce something that is invaluable [...] Click to continue reading...

The key ingredients of football culture are beer, football shirts and laughter, so it's appropriate that we introduce you to The Onion Bag. Created by football mad Iain McNee, the site features a wide selection of football shirts for sale as well as  The Onion Bag Blog that highlights soccer pubs, funny videos and more. Click to continue reading...

Of the many things that young people no longer do that I did in my youth, buying second-hand books is one that I am fairly confident never happens any more - at least not annuals from market stalls. On Saturday lunchtimes, as a boy I would go to the old band-stand in the centre of [...] Click to continue reading...

I've been reading a heck of a lot of footie lit recently (various reviews to follow). While doing so, it has occurred to me that there are whole forms of football literature which are rapidly approaching obsolescence. Football biographies have long ceased to be of much interest to anyone; in the past ten years, only those of Gazza and Tony Adams have provided much in the way of interest. Click to continue reading...

One of the good things about being abroad is it causes you to reflect on things. Well it does me anyway.

So as I sat on the banks of the Mosel River today, sipping German beer and watching my lover tucking into Schnitzel and frites, I looked around to see what signs of football culture I might see around me and how this compared to what I might see if I looked around a similar place in England where crowds of people figure. Click to continue reading...

Not that I feel very sympathetic to a multimillionaire who can't "adjust" to working in a foreign country without the help of a specialized minder, but this Simon Kuper column on the struggles of relocating footballers contains a couple gems. First, his description of the core of English football culture ("drinking 20 pints of beer in a night") is one for the ages. Click to continue reading...

The Daily Sweeper is a new feature, that will be on trial until the end of July. It will replace the occasional It's In the Inter(net) links roundup with more depth and the odd bit of analysis, whilst also providing a return for Photo Daily at the bottom. The links will focus on football culture and news around the world from blogs and the mainstream press. Click to continue reading...

A curious article appeared in "The Guardian" on Saturday, in which the actor, writer and comedian David Mitchell tried to sum up his dislike for football. Reading it back this morning, one cannot help but be struck by the overwhelming impression that he is somehow holding back the worst of his ire - that he [. Click to continue reading...

We're only a few weeks off the start of the new season, so it's time for another new Official Premier League Ball, and here it is. Now, I know what you're thinking here. It's just a football. It doesn't really matter. Well, tish and pish to that. What we're talking here is aesthetics, and I [...] Click to continue reading...

We're only a few weeks off the start of the new season, so it's time for another new Official Premier League Ball, and here it is. Now, I know what you're thinking here. It's just a football. It doesn't really matter. Well, tish and pish to that. What we're talking here is aesthetics, and I [...] Click to continue reading...

The journalist and broadcaster Danny Baker once noted that the primary role of a football commentator is to make the exasperated television viewer shout "WE KNOW!" at the television screen during matches, to the extent that it famously used to drive his father to his distraction. Sadly, Mr Baker Senior passed away earlier this year - not quite long enough to be able to raise a toast to the retirement of John Motson, the veteran BBC commentator, who has announced his retirement from live commentary from the BBC following their failure to secure major television rights ahead of the new season. Click to continue reading...

The journalist and broadcaster Danny Baker once noted that the primary role of a football commentator is to make the exasperated television viewer shout "WE KNOW!" at the television screen during matches, to the extent that it famously used to drive his father to his distraction. Sadly, Mr Baker Senior passed away earlier this year [. Click to continue reading...

The journalist and broadcaster Danny Baker once noted that the primary role of a football commentator is to make the exasperated television viewer shout "WE KNOW!" at the television screen during matches, to the extent that it famously used to drive his father to his distraction. Sadly, Mr Baker Senior passed away earlier this year [. Click to continue reading...