A selection of Goal-Post reviews, features and extracts:
Goal-Post: Victorian Football book review
footballbookreviews.com
“A wonderful journey of discovery, allowing the reader an insight into the birth and growth of football through those who were there in its formative years. If you are looking for a thought provoking read and a different perspective on the Beautiful Game, then this anthology is for you.” More
A history of match reports from the gas-lit era
Sports Journalists’ Association
“An anthology of some of the very best football writing from that gas-lit era of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. This collection of contemporary articles and extracts covers the birth and development of the game, many written by its first paid observers. It is a brilliant idea, thoughtfully executed.” More
Past master
When Saturday Comes
“There has been a recent growth of interest in Victorian football, possibly because, as the editor here speculates, we ‘have grown weary of certain aspects of modern football [and] will no doubt have much to admire in the Victorian game’.” More
Goal-Post in The Blizzard
An extract from The Blizzard Issue Seven
“In the run-up to the release of Issue Seven, we will be offering you a sneak peek at a couple of excerpts of articles from the forthcoming issue. The second is from another Blizzard debutant, Henry Leach, on following a football league team around the turn of the century.” More
Goal-Post on BBC World Football
BBC World Football
“We travel back to the earliest days of football as played by association rules.” Alan Green interviews Goal-Post editor Paul Brown (free download, interview begins around 18 minutes in). More
Goal-Post on RTE Sport at 7
Sport at 7 with Damien O’Meara, Tuesday 20th November
“We take a journey through the early days of soccer with the editor of a new anthology of Victoria football writing Paul Brown.” Damien O’Meara interviews the Goal-Post editor (free download, interview begins around 17 minutes in). More
A wealth of Victorian football history
Sunday Sun
“Footballers trying to con the refs, a need for goalline technology, and superstar players returning fat and unfit from their summers of excess… The complaints are the same as from any modern fan in any pub or on any terrace in the land. Except they’re not the gripes of present-day punters, but complaints from the Victorian era.” More
Celebrating Victoriana
Game of the People
“How marvellous it is that the roots of English football are finally being truly appreciated. A new book, Goal-Post, an anthology of Victorian football writing, has opened the door on a whole new genre of study in the game. What the book reveals is that the game has always attracted controversy, even in its gas-lit, hansom cab days. This tome contains tales of overpaid players, cheating, violence, legal battles and general bad behaviour. No change there, then.” More
Even Victorians needed goal-line technology
Derbyshire Telegraph
“A collection of contemporary articles and extracts covers the birth and development of the game. I was particularly amused by an article entitled How Referees Are Tricked. ‘A Referee’ tells us: ‘Some quick passing and a cross-shot into goal frequently results in the ball going just inside the posts. The referee is unable to keep up with the ball and consequently is uncertain whether it went between the posts or not.’ Goal-line technology certainly has been a long time in coming.” More
Review: Goal-Post: Victorian Football
Mist Rolling In
“Goal-Post has only just been released and brings to the table original Victorian writing on the game. Despite being focused on the Victorian era of the game it is interesting to note some of the topics which still resonate today. The book as a whole provides an excellent introduction to the early years of Association Football and possesses a variety of stories which keeps it fresh for the reader across the total of 21 articles and features.” More
Goal-Post: the first ever international football match (extract)
Unofficial Football World Championships
“This important match was played on the West of Scotland Cricket Ground, on Saturday, and resulted in a drawn game, after a splendid display of football in the really scientific sense of the word, and a most determined effort on the part of the representatives of the two nationalities to overcome each other.” More
Light fantastic: A look back at the first floodlit football match
Late Tackle issue 7
“In 1878, the year that Joseph Swan patented the incandescent light bulb, the first floodlit game of football took place – but it wasn’t a particular success. Up until then, the traditional 3pm kick off had been settled upon as a convenient time to ensure that the final whistle blew before the sun went down. However, frustrations over the failure to decide the 1876 FA Cup Final (when bad light curtailed extra time) brought calls for illuminated matches.” A detailed account of the first floodlit match appears in Goal-Post.
Goal-Post: an anthology of Victorian football writing
Stuff by Paul Brown
“It’s easy to get lost in the Victorian football archives, drawn into the boxes and binders and microfiches by colourful, first-hand accounts of the beginnings of the greatest game in the world. These writers were covering something that was fresh and new, and their enthusiasm is apparent in the articles collected in the book.” More
