Report: York Festival of Ideas with author Daniel Gray 'The Delights of Football'

On Saturday 7th June 2025 we had the honour of hosting author Daniel Gray at the University of York's Festival of Ideas.

Daniel has been on our radar since 2018, when his book Saturday, 3pm, was recommended. It was therefore a treat to finally meet the author and to share with our audience the opportunity to hear him read.

Daniel read selected passages from three of his books, including several from his more recent 'Delights of Football' series.

Daniel's writing has drawn comparison to the artwork of Lowry, for his ability to find delight in every day life in a way that resonates with his audience.

There was something for everyone in his observations on receiving the fixture list, watching referees fall over, the smell of pies and fried onions in and around the stadium.  He paints pictures with words and even the few people in the audience who weren't fans of football enjoyed the poetic prose.

Sighted in the audience was our guest speaker from last year, Dr Tosh Warwick, who kindly photographed the event.

Photo with thank to Dr Tosh Warwick

The Soccer Mad Boffins series within the York Festival of Ideas continues to draw and sizable, enthusiastic and diverse audience. We thank everyone who attends and to the university and especially the festival organisers, in particular Joan, Naomi and Caren, who have believed in us since we began and without whom these events would not be possible.

A complete list of our Festival of Ideas appearances is included below, with links to Youtube for those which were recorded and still available to watch online. Note that this does not include appearances at other events such as York Researchers Night, at which you may also have met us:

2025 with Daniel Gray 'The Delights of Football' click here to watch

2024 with Dr Tosh Warwick 'Lost Football Grounds' click here to watch

2023 with  Dr Alexander Jackson 'Curating the World's Game: An Audience with the National Football Museum'  click here to watch

2023 with Dr Duncan Stone 'Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket' click here to watch

2021 with football Referee Keith Hackett 'Rules of the Game: On and Off the Pitch'

2019 with investigate journalist David Conn 'The Business of Professional Football'

2019 with football agent Daniel Geey 'Done Deal: Premier League Big Business'

2018 with former FA Chairman and Director-General of the BBC Greg Dyke on 'The Business of World Cup Football'

New Research Publications

The soccer mad boffins are very pleased to announce that we have co-authored two exciting new book chapters, one about the history of UK leisure centres and the other a methods paper about doing archival research:

Gillett, A.G. and Tennent, K.D., 2023. Evolution of Public Services: The Case of UK Leisure Centres in the Late 20th Century. In Collective Entrepreneurship in the Contemporary European Services Industries: A Long Term Approach,, Perez, PF and San Roman, E (eds)., Emerald Publishing, pp.61-76.

Tennent, K.D. and Gillett, A.G., 2023. How to research in an archive. In Handbook of Historical Methods for Management (Decker, S., Foster, W.M., Giavonnoni, E., (eds), Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp.104-120.

The UK leisure centres chapter is a development of our award winning developmental paper presented at the British Academy of Management annual conference a couple of years ago. The book it is included in is the latest in the Frontiers of Management History series that we are the editors of.

The methods chapter is based on our own experience of archival research for organisational history.

Africa Business of Sport Podcast

The Soccer Mad Boffins were thrilled that our recent book chapter on the business history of the FIFA World Cup was the subject of discussion for a recent podcast by the Africa Business of Sport podcast.

Hosts Edem Spio and Jabu Mtwa had really enjoyed reading our work and their in-depth coverage of our chapter, and of others which formed the basis for subsequent episodes, is a great endorsement of the book.

Hear the episode here.

The Africa Business of Sport Podcast offers dynamic African perspectives on the biggest topics, stories, developments and talking points in the global sports business industry from the leading figures in the African sport business.

The Africa Business of Sport Podcast is an Africo Media Network production.

Call for papers: The origins and evolution of professional football clubs from a management and organizational history perspective

 Each week, millions of people around the globe consume association football as spectators.  They do so ‘in person’ at football grounds, or via broadcast media, meaning that the modern football consumer can enjoy the leagues of their own countries, or globally either as a live event or in pre-recorded or edited highlights format. In recent decades, association football has become a global phenomenon thanks to the appearance of new formats of television and to the liberalization of the transfer market. Football clubs are the basic unit of the chain of institutions – leagues and federations – which form the hierarchy of globalized football, and their management and organization are highly complex.

 

Indeed, the main beneficiaries of the accelerated globalization of football have been mainly the professional players and, especially, the big stars. This is not the case for the football clubs, which have many problems to convert the great availability to consume football into income and, above all, into profit (Gillett and Tennent, 2017). One of the reasons is the characteristics of a public good which define football, leading to the emergence of the problem of “appropriability” (Buchanan, 1965; Demsetz, 1970; Coase, 1988). Another lies in what has become known as the “economics of superstars” (Rosen, 1981), since extremely talented football players have a disproportionate bargaining power. This happens because owners of professional clubs tend to prioritise sporting success over profit (Sloane, 1971). As football has become liberalized, the capacity to attract the great figures from this sport is what has created the distinction between the clubs that have become global and those which have remained as local, the competitive capacities of which have declined significantly.

 

We are interested in organizing a session for the European Business History Association 2022 Congress. Our aim is to study the origins and evolution of professional football clubs from a management and organizational history approach. Studying the football industry from a business history perspective is not just relevant and important, but also allows participation in several of the debates open in business and economics fields, including the role played by consumers in the shaping and evolution of an industry; the evolution of an industry toward a structure with an ‘economics of superstars’ character and its consequences; the evolution of the distribution of income among workers (top players and the rest); strategies applied to appropriate the majority of the availability to pay to consume a good with the characteristics of a public good (or of a club); strategies for developing and retaining human capital; and international business and global expansion strategies.

 

The main objectives of this session are twofold: Firstly, to examine the history of sport (often looked at from a sociological or cultural perspective) through the business history lens, thus contributing to a developing stream of research including Dizin et al (2004), Walters and Hamil (2013), Gillett and Tennent (2017) and Fernández-de-Sevilla (2021). Secondly, following Gillett and Tennent (2020) to broaden the realm of business and management history by providing opportunities to look at themes such as project industries, or the role of not-for-profit organisations in busines. 

 

We are particularly interested in contributions looking at:

-       Case studies on individual football clubs,

-       Broader approaches addressing one country,

-       Comparative approaches across clubs, leagues, countries, federations/associations,

-       Studies on football associations (regional, national, or international),

-       Analyses focusing on the evolution on specific sub-sectors of the management and organization of professional football clubs (leagues, wages, television rights, advertisement, formative football, and the like),

-       The role of entrepreneurship in club’s creation as a non-profit organizations

 

The EBHA’s congress will take place on 22-24 June 2022 in Madrid, Spain.

 

Eligibility and how to apply:

            Applicants should submit an abstract of no more than 500 words (preferably around 350) outlining their proposal, and a short CV by 31 December 2021 to tomasfernandezdesevilla@ub.edu, mentioning ‘Session of Professional Football’ in the headline. Selected applicants will be informed by early January 2022.

            Please note that once arranged, the session will have to be approved by the congress organizers.

 

Organizers:

Dr. Tomàs Fernández de Sevilla (University of Barcelona)

Dr Alex G. Gillett (University of York)

Dr Kevin D. Tennent (University of York)

 

References:

-       Buchanan, James (1965). “An Economic Theory of Clubs,” Economica 32 (1): 1-14.

-       Coase, Ronald (1988). The Firm, the Market, and the Law. University of Chicago Press.

-       Demsetz, Harold (1970). “Full Access: The Private Production of Public Goods,” Journal of Law and Economics13 (2): 293-306.

-       Dixon, P., Garnham, N. and Jackson, A., 2004. Shareholders and Shareholding: The case of the football company in late Victorian England. Business History, 46(4), pp.503-524.

-       Fernández-de-Sevilla, T., 2021. Walking through the Dark: FC Barcelona and the Forced Closure of 1925. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 38 (6): 666-685.

-       Gillett, A.G. and Tennent, K.D., 2018. Shadow hybridity and the institutional logic of professional sport: Perpetuating a sporting business in times of rapid social and economic change. Journal of Management History.

-       Gillett, A.G. and Tennent, K.D., 2020. Sport and project management: a window into the development of temporary organizations. In Handbook of Research on Management and Organizational History. Edward Elgar Publishing.

-       Rosen, Sherwin (1981).“The Economics of Superstars,” American Economic Review 71(5):845-55.

-       Sloane, P. J. (1971), ‘The economics of professional football: The football club as utility maximiser’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 18 (2), 121-146.

-       Walters, G. and Hamil, S. (2013), “The contests for power and influence over the regulatory space within the English professional football industry, 1980-2012”, Business History, Vol. 55 No. 5, pp. 740-767. 

Award Winning Paper!!!

We were delighted to win the prestigious "best development paper" of the 'Management & Business History' track at the 2021 British Academy of Management (BAM) Annual Conference.

We presented our paper 'Evolution of Public Services: UK Leisure Centres in the Late 20th Century' which built upon the presentation given to the University of Reading ROSES seminar series in August.

We hope to develop this paper into a chapter for publication in a forthcoming book about the evolution of public services, to be published by Emerald in the 'frontiers of management history' book series.

York Festival of Ideas 2021: The Soccer Mad Boffins & Keith Hackett

We at SOCCERMADBOFFINS were delighted to participate again in the University of York Festival of Ideas.

Firstly, we hosted an online "ask the experts" session about 'The business of professional football' with the recent aborted idea of a European Super League the liveliest subject. We received many great questions and it was even suggested to us that we could take the event on tour!

Our main contribution, and one of THE key events of the entire festival, was hosting a presentation and conversation session with former high-profile FIFA listed football referee Keith Hackett about football's historic roots in Yorkshire, the evolution of the laws of the game, and personal reflections on his career and on football refereeing today.

The event with Keith entitled "Rules of the Game: On and off the pitch" is now available on YouTube, and can be viewed below.

Towards the end of the session we had so many questions from the audience that we ran out of time to include them all. Keith very kindly agreed to answer each question via email and that is included below the video (if it says 'video unavailable' just click on black box and it will direct you straight to it on Youtube):

Extra Q&A Questions:

We are rated as a very vocal group of fans and as such put a huge amount of pressure on referees so are there any plans to improve mental health in referees not just physical health?

KH: "When I took over the management of the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd, I introduced top Sports Psychologist Prof Craig Mahoney. He was superb working with the group of professional referees in group and face to face individual sessions. 

He sat in the Technical Area at some of the games in order to get a clear understanding of the pressures on match officials.  He looked at how he could help with reducing the pressure on match officials. One aspect was stadium familiarity so we appointed new officials onto the list to fourth official duty before sending them to referee.

He improved their interpersonal and communication skills. Body language and enhancing their ‘presence’ on the field of play.  Goal and target setting, keeping a diary and many other aspects, Prof Ian Maynard from Sheffield Hallam University then took over the role."

Referees never stop during a game, what is the physical training like? Do they train as players to keep up?

KH: "Referees in a Premier League game will on average cover a distance of 11500 meters in a game. A minimum of 1000 meters is at a speed of 7 meters per second. 

I employed two full time Sports Scientist. The first was Prof Matt Weston who embarked on a strategy of creating a lifestyle change in our match officials. He would issue various training schedules usually four a week taking into account games over the weekend and mid-week. High intensity, Recovery, etc. We also introduced pre-game warm ups for referees in order to avoid injury.  The second Sports Scientist would concentrate on CORE again to reduce injuries.

Incidentally I provided match officials with Polar Heart Monitors so that each of these training sessions was recorded and then downloaded after each session to the Sports Scientist.

Prozone recorded the movement profiles of the referees and I showed that slide in my presentation."

What have been the most physically challenging games that you have been involved with?

KH: "In the early eighties I was appointed to the FIFA U23 World Cup which tool place in Mexico. 

I officiated in Guadalajara USA V Russia, In Lyon. Holland V Brazil and at 5000 – 7000 feet above sea level 

These games were physically demanding. We were amateur referees with no guidance on the appropriate training sessions etc.

I also officiated many FA Challenge cup semi finals which were usually played at high intensity speed levels,

Many physical encounters including the Battle of Old Trafford where a twenty one men brawl took place. Both teams were deducted points the first and only time that this has happened.

.

With a very high pitvhed whistle been used by a traffic cop. This event took place on Day 2 of the UEFA Euro Championship. Having officiated in the opening fixture of the Euros yourself, what are your memories, what does the pressure feel like and how did you prepare?

I was appointed to the opening game of Euro 88 West Germany v Italy and flew into Dusseldorf with my two linesmen (Asst Refs) both FIFA International referees Neil Midgley and Brian Hill, Our preparation was to officiate three Football League games together. We then flew into Dusseldorf two days before the game, officiated the match and then returned home.

No training camps, no debate on our perforances. We also were made aware that we would only be officiating one game.

Danny Makkelie the 2020 opening game Italy v Turkey referee will have attended several training camps and along with eighteen other referees and twenty two VAR operators are based in Nyon, Geneva, they will be reviewing games, and been trained daily with the aid of Sports Scientists."

Have you ever lost the pea from your whistle?

KH: "I started off using an ACME THUNDERER WHISTLE but prior to officiating Inter Milan I was doing some sight seeing in the City centre and was taken aback with a very high pitched whistle that she was using. I made enquires and learned that it was an Italian Balilla whistle we then approached the officer in the centre of the road and my interpreter arranged for me to acquire one after he visited the local police station.I used this for the rest of my career.

Most Premier League referees now use a pealess FOX 40."

You spent some time officiating in the NASL. The NASL is known for having introduced some 'local' laws and presentational aspects to the game. These appear to have been partly down to practical situation (i.e., playing on narrow fields originally designed for American Football) and some to do with the expectations of the US sports consumer and advertisers, i.e., not keen on the idea of a 0-0 draw. What are your memories and reflections of that time? 

KH: "In 1981 I was invited to referee on the NORTH AMERICAN SOCCER LEAGUE which I readily accepted knowing that the experience of refereeing 24 games in an eight-week period would accelerate my career.

My base was the famous Waldorf Astoria, New York City but within hours of landing and securing my green ticket I was handed a folder full of airline tickets: Tampa Bay Rowdies (Florida) Vancouver Whitecaps, New York Cosmos, Tulsa, Portland, San Jose, Chicago Sting were posted on the roster of the first sheet.

My referees kit was provided and typical of American sport on the back I had the number 8, Guest Referee, my first game was Rowdies v Fort Lauderdale. I was driven onto the field in a Police car and the speakers announced has I got out of the car that I was Guest Referee Keeeeeeith Haaaackett all the way from England.  I gave a wave and then stood at the centre of the field whilst both teams were introduced one by one as, they ran out onto the pitch. It went something like, “Playing number 10, with 15 goals and three Assists we have former England International and Rowdies favourite player Rodney Marsh." I had received instructions that during each half I had to arrange two one-minute stoppages so that television could play appropriate ad breaks. I learned quickly that when I was going to apply a stoppage I would run to a player on the ground and instruct him to stay on the ground, calling for the Physio to come on and treat. With my arms above my head a would cross them to inform the independent timekeeper to stop the clock for 60 seconds.  After the 60 seconds the television crew standing at the side of the pitch would give me the signal to say the 60 seconds was up. A strong whistle then got the game underway.

Some of the games were played in Baseball and American Football Stadiums with Chicago’s Wrigley Field and New York Cosmo Giants Stadium remembered with fondness.

I had different pieces of law that the Americans applied to their competition which were not supported by FIFA:

OFFSIDE

The penalty area front line was extended across to each touchline and offside could only be flagged in that part of the field of play.  I remain supportive of that because there appeared to be less offside decisions and more excitement has wingers often gained possession of the ball inside their own half of the field of play and made dashing runs down the wings.

PENALTY SHOOT OUT TO DETERMINE THE WINNER OF THE MATCH

The field markings had a line in each half 35 yards away from the goal line. A countdown clock would be positioned close to the starting point of the player taking the penalty kick, The goalkeeper was positioned on the goal line. When I blew the whistle the attacker started to run with the ball. The goalkeeper could now run off his line to defend his goal or even make a challenge for the ball. The player taking the kick had to get his shot off within 5 seconds. Interestingly I loved it and of course no game could end in a draw. When the MLS was formed they operated the same shoot out procedure but later withdrew it

There were of course a variety of International players from Europe and South America across most of the teams, I recall on one game heading for Giants Stadium stuck in traffic in Lincoln Tunnel. The cab driver recognised someone who was running with a pair of soccer boots in his hands. He wound down the window and shouted for the runner to get in the cab. It was Carlos Alberto the Brazil team captain who a few years earlier had lifted the famous World Cup Trophy. The cab driver explained that I was the ref for the game.

We shook hands, smiled and with a couple of hundred yards to get to the Stadium entrance I jumped out of the cab and walked the rest of the way. 

In that game I produced an early yellow card to the Cosmo number nine who responded by shouting and standing like a Toreador, “Do you know who I am, no I said, but I do need your name, I am the famous GEORGIO CHINAGLIA.” He was not happy and uttered a few swear words has he walked away. 

After the game he came to my dressing room and I was expecting him to have a go at me. To my amazement he asked if I would give him my yellow card. I handed it over and he shouted “You crazy Englishmen, no one shows Georgio a yellow card. Playing that day alongside Carlos Alberto was Franz Beckenbaur and Julio Cesar Romero. Paraguay International.."

Thank you Keith for giving the talk and for taking the time to answer these questions

New Article Alert: Sport and Project Management

Greetings!

We are pleased to announce a new book chapter that we have authored has been published.

The paper entitled "Sport and project management: a window into the development of temporary organizations" is included as a chapter within the Handbook of Research on Management and Organizational History, published by Edward Elgar Publications as part of their 'Research Handbooks on Business & Management' Series. 

Abstract:

The historical study of project-based industries allows largely unexploited opportunities for empirical, methodological and theoretical contributions to the field of management history. McDowell (2015) and Scranton (2014) demonstrate that the study of projects can enable an understanding of temporary and virtual organizations that link together multiple agencies each contributing to an overall value or ‘legacy’ comprising outputs and outcomes. This chapter proposes that researching global or continental scale sport mega-event projects can capture these attributes, for example the delivery and associated long-term legacy of the Olympic Games or FIFA World Cup. Project management history therefore offers a window into the delivery of a project as well as a broader opportunity to study the ways that organizations and individuals within them cooperate to deliver outcomes allowing management historians to contribute to debates around the usefulness of such events to society, as well as the institutional context within which they are nested.



The reference details are as follows:

The Chapter:

Gillett, A.G. and Tennent, K.D., 2020. Sport and project management: a window into the development of temporary organizations. In Handbook of Research on Management and Organizational History. Edward Elgar Publishing. 

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788118491.00016

About the book:

Emerging from what was a somewhat staid sub-discipline, there is currently a battle for the soul of Management and Organizational History (MOH), at the centre of which is a widespread concern that much recent work has been more about how one should or might do history rather than actually doing historical work. If ever there was a time for a new volume on MOH, this is certainly it.

The Handbook, which is edited by Kyle Bruce, comprises many interesting and useful chapter clustered into three sections. Part 1 is concerned with 'Classic Foundations', Part 2 gives a platform to 'Alternative Voices' and Part 3 is 'About History'.

Our Chapter is located within Part 2.

Published:

1 April 2020

ISBN:

9781788118484

eISBN:

9781788118491

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788118491

Pages:

 320

Enjoying the World Cup? Looking for something to listen to while you wait for your next fix of televised football? Remember we have a FREE podcast all about the history of football and the world cup, with an emphasis on the 1966 tournament: 

https://soundcloud.com/the-story-of-things/two-the-story-of-football

Also on itunes!

Using History in Management/Business Education

Today, Kevin D. Tennent and Alex G. Gillett present a poster co-authored with Bill Foster (Alberta University, Canada) at University of York's Annual Teaching & Learning Conference.

Here is a photo of our poster:

Frontiers of Management History Book Series launched in conjunction with Emerald!

Soccer-Mad Boffins sign the contract at Emerald HQ

Frontiers of Management History is a new book series that will be published globally by Emerald Publishing.  

The series aims to provide an outlet for forward-thinking management and business historians, whose work addresses new perspectives, theories, frameworks, critiques, and applications for practice. By doing so, Frontiers of Management History will create a new space in which to champion the craft of the historian together with the method of the social scientist, two approaches which in today’s interdisciplinary environment are increasingly ‘speaking’ to each other.

Niall Kennedy (Emerald) with Kevin and Alex

The series will include edited collections as well as authored volumes of management history, and the series editors welcome theoretical, empirical and historiographical contributions concerned with organisations from various sectors. 

For more information or to propose an idea for a book, please email:

frontiersofmanagementhistory@gmail.com

Photo credit: Mick from Emerald

Soccer Mad Boffins Appear at University of Hull

On Thursday 30th November we travelled through the snow across Yorkshire, to Hull and back.

The occasion was a research lecture hosted by the Marketing and Business Strategy subject group of Hull Business School, all about our work on the FIFA World Cups of 1966 and 1994.

Entitled 'Opportunities for All the Team: The 1966 and 1994 FIFA World Cups' the lecture was based on a working paper which we are developing for publication in a forthcoming special issue of a well known sports history journal.

We thoroughly enjoyed presenting our work to our friends at Hull, and hope to be back soon.

Alex and Kevin with lecture slides

Spotlight on: Professor Jim Walvin

It has been around a year since our book 'Foundations of Managing Sporting Events: Organising the 1966 FIFA World Cup' was published by Routledge.  We are still really proud of the book and the response it has been getting.

Equally, we were delighted that the book received its foreword from none other than James Walvin, Professor of History Emeritus at University of York, and himself an author and editor of over thirty books including some of the seminal works on association football.

We thought it would be interesting to mark the anniversary of 'Foundations of Managing Sporting Events...' 1st birthday by turning the spotlight on Professor Walvin and his work which has informed our own writing.

Professor Jim Walvin outside the King's Manor Building, University of York

Professor Walvin is a life-long supporter of Manchester United.  His dedication to the club can be traced back to the 1940s, a long time before the 'prawn sandwich brigade' took up their executive boxes at Old Trafford. In fact, Jim's match-day snack of choice is the classic "a cup of Bovril" and the first 'home' match that he attended, in 1948, wasn't even at Old Trafford, due to the stadium and pitch having been damaged by German bombs a few years earlier during World War II.  Instead, whilst Old Trafford awaited the completion of its repairs, the Red Devils ground-shared Manchester City’s Maine Road stadium, and it was here that young Jim stood behind City 'keeper Frank Swift's goal: "He was a giant of a man who picked the ball up with one hand. I remember there were huge crowds on the terraces back then, and coming from the pitch was a strong smell of liniment  - an oil that the players used to relieve muscle strains and pains."   

Frank Swift, Manchester City & England's goalkeeper

However, Jim's first footballing memory can be traced to a few months earlier, when he listened with his father to the radio broadcast of the 1948 FA cup final. United beat a strong Blackpool team featuring the two prolific ‘Stans’ (Mathews and Mortensen) 4-2.  The memory is particularly notable for James because it was the first game that he ever listened to on the radio with his dad, who by half time was noticeably agitated by the score (Blackpool were leading 2-1). The vivid memory came in useful to Prof Walvin at a conference decades later, when a delegate who happened to be a Wolverhampton Wanderers supporter decided to test the extent of his knowledge and support for Manchester Utd by asking a question that he thought he might not be able to answer: the score line of the 1948 FA Cup Final! To the delegates astonishment Jim replied correctly and also recounted the half-time score and the names of the goal scorers!

Two other games were though even more memorable for him, in his words, "for very different reasons".  The first fixture after the Munich air disaster was "an absurdly emotional occasion.   We beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 at old Trafford, in front of an enormous crowd" whilst the 1968 European Cup Final at which United beat Benfica at Wembley is another favourite moment.

Over the years, James witnessed some truly great soccer matches and some of its most esteemed players including the Manchester United greats Duncan Edwards and George Best who he names alongside Pele as all-time his favourite players.

It was during his youth then that football fever first took hold and together with his naturally studious nature the foundations were laid for a future research direction. "Needless to say, my favourite stadium is Old Trafford. It was a regular haunt for me as a schoolboy. I'd spend a morning in the library, and then take the train to Old Trafford, then go back to the library for the evening. Little swot!"

Historical photo of Manchester United's Old Trafford Stadium 

Pursuing a career as a historian, James began his first book, which was not about football, fifty years ago (1967) a task that took three years to complete and publish. His first book on football, 'The Peoples Game - The Social History of British Football' came a few years later and started out as historian of late 18th century working class life: Whilst in Jamaica in 1974 he read CER James' book on cricket and thought it would be interesting to write something similar on football for the simple reason there was "not much available academically about football and English society".

Published in 1975 'The Peoples Game…' was well received and is arguably an important starting point or catalyst for the plethora of work on football and society that began to appear soon after.  However, despite the books success and influence it was not until the mid-1980s that Prof Walvin began his next book on football. 'Football & the Decline of Britain' was a "response to the rubbish written about football disasters, particularly by the newspapers. Disgusting things were being said about football fans. Yes hooliganism and racism existed in some quarters, but it was wrong that everyone was being damned for that. So I wrote the book in one summer, 1985, whilst lecturing in Australia. Revisiting it today, it holds up better than I’d thought". Published a year later, in 1986, it is indeed a well-informed and passionately written work on a controversial era for football.

It was around a decade and a half before James once more published on football, this time a revised edition of his first tome entitled 'The People's Game: The History of Football Revisited' which saw light of day in 2000. The original had been popular "so the publisher asked if I’d revise it and bring it back in print".   It’s a great read and its publication was timely, corresponding with the growing nostalgia for (as well as academic interest in) football history during that time, and of course corresponding with that year's UEFA European Football Championship.  

He followed it up a year later with 'The Only Game', a book more obviously targeting the mainstream football fan than the sport historian, and gave greater emphasis to 'contemporary' issues such as racism and violence "to bring it up to date". Less celebrated than 'The People's Game' or its revised edition, perhaps due to "the difficulty in bridging academic and popular/mainstream audiences", it is nonetheless interesting to read Professor Walvin's take on such matters.

Despite his long-time interest in the game and his success as a football writer, Prof Walvin remains modest about his achievements - and of his ability to predict score lines "don’t listen to me! especially predictions of games", and today focusses on his other research interests, notably the topics of slavery and the sugar trade.  He still enjoys the game though and reading about soccer and sport generally, and lists his favourite sport writers as Hugh Macillvaney, " who has written a collection of essays about sport in general including a terrific essay on boxer Muhammad Ali " and Tony Mason, in Jim's opinion "the first academic to write a serious book on football" although he adds with a smile "but Tony tells me I beat him to the best title!"

At the time of writing, Professor Walvin is finishing a new book on the history of sugar, which he describes as taking his journey as a research academic "full circle".   "Sugar is a big, big issue for health and social reasons.  This new book is built on all of the work I’ve done on slavery. Next I’ll do another book on the overthrowing of the slave empire - in the space of a lifetime it vanishes but was unchallenged for 300 years. What changed? That's a really interesting complex story."

Sugar by James Walvin was published by Robinson on July 13th 2017