Worthwhile Football Books to Read

Kia ora all, no idea if a thread like this already exists, but thought I'd start one if not.

Received a copy of a new Aussie book, called The Coping Stone - all about the first time England went to Australia to play football.  It's interesting stuff, and has a NZ angle to it too (England were willing to come to NZ on the same tour, but apparently we pulled out because we didn't think there'd be enough interest for it to break even...)

The Australian football people faced massive challenges at the time, especially as other (bigger/more popular) sports wouldn't let them use major venues!!  So some classic tales, including one of the full English side playing a team made up of coalminers (who had done a half-day shift before the game) on a field that had been used for an agricultural show the day before...

A good read overall - if you enjoyed Passovotchka by David Downing then The Coping Stone is well worth your time.   

‘We Made Them Angry: Scotland at the World Cup Spain 82’ by Tom Brogan
(Pitch Publishing, 2022)
As someone who was a 17 year-old high school kid when the All Whites played in Spain '82, I thoroughly enjoyed this recent book on Scotland at the tournament (and the qualifying story, background on the Falklands War which finished just prior to the tournament, the story of manager Jock Stein and the leading players and the story of Scotland's opponents, including us!)
A whole chapter on Scotland v NZ and plenty other material about the All Whites throughout the book. Good research from published sources plus Brogan's own interviews with Adshead, Malcolmson & Rufer. I didn't realise that Jock Stein visited NZ to spy on the All Whites. What a great Scottish side that was - many of the best players in the old First Division were Scottish back then: Dalglish, Souness, Wark, Robertson, Hansen etc. And so many good Scottish players in that era like Andy Gray were never selected for a World Cup.
Christchurch City Library has it. Catalogue here: https://christchurch.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S37C1389300
Review:
https://www.on-magazine.co.uk/arts/book-review/sports/we-made-them-angry-tom-brogan/