It was the summer of 1983. Walsall were preparing for another season in the Third Division when British Airways' advertising people got in touch. The airline were embarking on an innovative promotional campaign and needed the club's help. To show how quickly continental cities could be reached from regional airports, they wanted to feature the team underneath the banner: 'They’re only 90 minutes away from a place in Europe.' Walsall were the only league club in the West Midlands never to h...

It is often tempting to believe in the grand sweep of history; to conclude that the triumphs of great teams were simply inevitable. The truth, however, is that history can turn on what appear, at frst glance, to be infnitesimally small events. Behind all those triumphs lie the countless disappointments of teams that were denied glory by a cruel bounce, the width of a crossbar or a dubious refereeing decision. Challenging the perception that the outcome of great clashes couldn't have been a...

A man walks into a Birmingham bookshop, buys a volume of poetry, and steps out into the road, where a jazz musician seems momentarily to bring the whole city together. In the second poem in Playing the Changes, the same thing happens, only half the words are redacted. Then the experience is retold as a Petrarchan sonnet; a children's skipping rhyme; an Acknowledgements page; a pastiche of Tristram Shandy...Drawing on the traditions of jazz improvisation and Oulipo...

Sixteen Walsall legends tell the stories behind their most memorable games for the club, enabling fans of all ages to relive these magic moments through the eyes and emotions of the men who were there. Stretching from Allan Clarke's memories of FA Cup glory to Adam Chambers's account of how Walsall finally reached Wembley after almost a century of trying, this unique collection covers some of the most enthralling encounters in the club's history. Along the way, Alan Buckley tells of how th...

African migrants have become increasingly demonised in public debate and political rhetoric. There is much speculation about the incentives and trajectories of Africans on the move, and often these speculations are implicitly or overtly geared towards discouraging and policing their movements. What is rarely understood or scrutinised however, are the intricate ways in which African migrants are marginalised and excluded from public discourse; not only in Europe but in migrant-receiving con...

Reflections on Life in Ghettos, Camps and Prisons explores the relationship between ghettos, camps, places of detention and prisons with a focus on those people who are confined, encamped, imprisoned, detained, stuck, or forcibly removed through the lens of ‘stuckness’.From a point of departure in anthropology, with important contributions from criminology, geography and philosophy, the chapters explore how life is lived in and across these sites of confinement by focusing...

Featuring essays by world-renowned scholars, Diasporas charts the various ways in which global population movements and associated social, political and cultural issues have been seen through the lens of diaspora.Wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, this collection considers critical concepts shaping the field, such as migration, ethnicity, post-colonialism and cosmopolitanism. It also examines key intersecting agendas and themes, including political economy, security, race, gender,...

Based on thorough ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in Tanzania this book provides a rich account of the benevolent “disciplining mechanisms” of humanitarian agencies, led by the UNHCR, and of the situated, dynamic, indeterminate, and fluid nature of identity (re)construction in the camp. While the refugees are expected to behave as innocent, helpless victims, the question of victimhood among Burundian Hutu is increasingly challenged, following the 1993 massacres in Burundi and the ...

General ThemeThe general theme of the books are to educate children from the ages of 4-9 to learn about the way different trucks provide a service to the world, such as where and how milk gets from the farm to the fridge, to how a television, radio, iPod gets to the shops, then to the home, though, there will not be any mention of the meat processing or fishing industries.Similarly to Thomas the Tank Engine, there are multiple truck characters in every story, with a twist of...

Brian Clough's forty-four-day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974 is one of the most infamous episodes in British football history.While the bestselling The Damned United was a fictional account of Clough's short-lived but controversial reign at the club, We Are the Damned United reveals the true story, as told by the players he managed at the time.It includes candid contributions from legendary names such as Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray and Terry Yorat...

An absolutely essential book for every modern football fan, about the development of Premier League tactics, published to coincide with 25 years of the competition.Back in 1992, English football was stuck in the dark ages, emerging from a five-year ban from European competition. The game was physical, bruising and attritional, based on strength over speed, aggression over finesse. It was the era of the midfield general, reducers, big men up front and getting it in the mixer; 4-4-2 ...

From subtle discrimination in everyday life and scandals in politics, to incidents like lynchings in the American South, cultural imperialism, and 'ethnic cleansing', racism exists in many different forms, in almost every facet of society. But what actually is race? How has racism come to be so firmly established? Why do so few people actually admit to being racist? How are race, ethnicity, and xenophobia related? Racism: A Very Short Introduction incorporates the latest research to demyst...