The Game of Our Lives

Brilliantly incisive. Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been. Goldblatt's book could hardly be more impressive

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

Offers an enlightening, enriching experience. It is based on a formidable range of sources, personal observation and a pleasingly sardonic turn of phrase. Not all football writers know their stuff, let alone the socio-economic context, but Goldblatt does. Altogether this is an exceptional book

David Kynaston, Guardian

Not just the best soccer book in many years but an exemplary account of the changing character of British society in the post-Thatcher era

David Runciman, Wall Street Journal

David Goldblatt examines [English football] peerlessly ... A superb history of a sport and of a nation

Evening Standard

Goldblatt is a trusted guide ... Rich with statistics, this is an admirably balanced account of the beautiful game

Daily Mail

Prodigious research and a fluent writing style ... this is a fine book which should have an appeal much beyond the game

Mihir Bose, Independent

An encyclopaedic portrait of English football stripped of all the non-stop hype. The beautiful game is, after all, a dirty business

Financial Times (Life & Arts)

An intensely readable socioeconomic study of English football in the age of globalisation

New Statesman

A book that informs and inspires, a truly great piece of writing

Philosophy Football

The best pub talker of a book for years

Sunday Sport

Goldblatt has a gift for exploring the way the game holds a mirror up to our lives ... His deconstruction of the modern game could hardly be bettered

Observer

[A] bold analysis of Britain's economic and social change refracted through football

The Times

A salient overview of the past quarter-century

Times Literary Supplement