A history of the team as told through stories of 101 players and managers who guided it through lows and highs to success.Liverpool: The Story of a Football Club in 101 Lives tells the history of the Anfield club through the biographies of key individuals associated with the Merseysiders from their formation in the gas-lit days of Victorian Britain through to the present day.From John Houlding, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool who was the founder of the c...

A history of the Gunners told through in-depth biographies of the team's key players on and off the pitch, from its late 19th century beginnings to today.Arsenal: The Story of a Football Club in 101 Lives tells the history of the team through the biographies of key individuals associated with the club from its formation in the gas-lit days of Victorian Britain through to the present day.From David Danskin, the Scottish mechanical engineer and footbal...

This "startlingly good and vividly illuminating book" sheds new light on the Fascist sports spectacle that transfixed the world ( The Spectator).For two weeks in August 1936, Nazi Germany achieved an astonishing propaganda coup when it staged the Olympic Games in Berlin. Hiding their anti-Semitism and plans for territorial expansion, the Nazis exploited the Olympic ideal, dazzling visiting spectators and journalists alike with an image of a peaceful, toler...

'I was 12th man for England against Wales at Wembley. Within a few minutes, the Welsh half-back broke his collar bone. They had no reserves and I as the only spare player to hand. That's how I made my international debut - for Wales.' - Stan Mortensen, Blackpool and England.When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, football came to an abrupt halt. Large crowds were banned, stadiums were given over to military use, most players joined up. Then it was r...

A biographical account of growing up in Derby in the 1940s and '50s from local author and columnist Anton Rippon.

Did you know that Derbyshire can boast at least three Nobel Laureates and numerous Olympians? This book features more than 100 of the most interesting and influential people of Derbyshire from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century.

Anton Rippon is a Derby boy, born and bred. He is also one of the city's best-known writers and personalities, with a string of highly acclaimed books to his name. For the past eight years, he has written a popular weekly column in the Derby Telegraph in which he takes a whimsical, often sideways, look at life in Derby, both the serious side and the frivolous. In the process he captures perfectly the essence of this sturdy Midlands city.Sometimes commenting on current events, sometimes loo...

Gunther Plschow of the German Imperial Navy holds a unique place in history—during the First World War he was the only German prisoner of war ever to escape from the British mainland and make it all the way back to the Fatherland. Yet, although his daring break for freedom in 1915 is astonishing in its own right, Plschow was much more than simply an escaped POW. He was also a fearless aviator who flew against the British and Japanese in the Far East, and he was an explorer. After the war, ...

This portrait of early-WWII British life "nicely weaves together anecdotes and stories of actual individuals that help illustrate the overall experience" ( The NYMAS Review).On New Year's Day 1940, the people of Britain looked back on the first four months of the Second World War with a sort of puzzled unease. Wartime life was nothing like what they'd imagined. Unlike in the First World War, there was no fighting on the Western Front. Inde...

The British are well known for their unique sense of humour - for the ability to see the funny side even in the most dire situation - and it was that humour that helped the nation through the dark days of the Second World War. In this heartwarming, often amusing and sometimes heartbreakingly sad book, Anton Rippon has gathered together stories from people all over the country that reveal the strange, incredible and downright funny things that happened to them between 1939 and 1945....

Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: Football explores some of the most bizarre football events throughout history, from its birth during the Industrial Revolution, to the major tournaments of the Beautiful Game in the 21st century. From the player sold for £10 and a box of kippers, to unusual injuries on the pitch, this book gathers some of the most curious moments of footballing history, a game that continues to be both an amazing entertainment spectacle and extraordinarily accessible...

It might have ended 80 years ago, but we still have a warm, nostalgic relationship with the Second World War, due in no small part to the love we have for the entertainment from those turbulent times.Singers like Vera Lynn – the ‘Forces Sweetheart’ – Gracie Fields, Anne Shelton, and the Andrews Sisters, bandleader Glenn Miller whose fate is still a mystery, films like Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, Mrs Miniver, In Which We Serve, Goodbye Mr ...