Jumpers for Goalposts : How Football Sold Its Soul

Jumpers For Goalposts is a fascinating reflection on the history of British soccer, which examines why the charm, innocence, and good humor has disappeared from today's game, compared to the golden days of yesteryear. Smyth considers everything from the huge wage bills, to players' lack of loyalty to their clubs, and their escapades off the pitch. He concludes that the true beauty of football is when it's at its simplest. Including anecdotes from players, past and present, and other sporting insiders, Jumpers For Goalposts is an exhaustive study of whether football has lost its charm—and, perhaps more importantly, whether it can ever get it back. Jumpers for Goalposts is a fascinating and funny reflection on why football has changed so much since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, and why the old descriptions of the beautiful game and the peoples game no longer fit. Smyth & Turner look at all the things that have stripped the charm and innocence from football, a list that includes grotesque wages and transfer fees, diving, 4-5-1, TV overkill, political correctness and the lack of decent moustaches. With a wit and concern for the game we love, Jumpers for Goalposts is an engaging study of how football has sold its soul and, perhaps more importantly, whether it can get it back. "As a catalogue of all that is wrong with the game, the book is accurate and thorough. As rhetoric, it is stylish and irresistible ... It is not a new idea to index the simultaneous depravity and mundanity of modern football. But it has never been done as well as this. Richard Scudamore will despise every word, and there can be no higher praise than that." -- When Saturday Comes "Smyth and Turner have done an absolutely excellent job summing up the travails of the modern game in 'Jumpers for goalposts' there are numerous anecdotes that needed re-telling and the depth of knowledge and research contained in the book is staggering ... Kudos also to Smyth and Turner for finishing off the book with a humdinger of a conclusion. After flagging up all the problems with the game today, they set out to remedy them and come up with some fine suggestions. However unlikely, hopefully some of the game's administrators are reading this tome." -- 101greatgoals.com "'Jumpers for Goalposts' is a fascinating and funny reflection on why football has changed so much since the inception of the English Premier League in 1992, and why the old descriptions of 'the beautiful game' and 'the people's game' no longer fit." -- soccerlens.com On August 15th 1992, the Premier League kicked off for the very first time to the sound of money. That same season, a new kind of branded commercialism descended across the continent as the European Cup was re-launched as the Champions League. In 1994, the game's oldest trophy, the FA Cup, would become the last of English football's major competitions to fall to commercial sponsors. The early 1990s mark the moment at which the beautiful game, the sport of the common man, wound up on a market stall, complete with price tag. Of course the game needed to change - terraces had become ugly, dangerous places, blighted with racism and afflicted with the tragedies of Hillsborough and Heysel; on the mud-patches that passed for pitches, tackles were brutal, bone-crunching, and very much from behind. But rather than righting wrongs, pockets were lined as the legacy of football was cashed in. Rob Smyth and Georgina Turner explore the fan's-eye view of 21st-century football, a game that can be about breathtaking style, but very little substance; a grossly inflated memory of its former self where Football's Soul (TM) is an idea to be traded, not treasured. These days, at least as much energy is spent figuring out how to exploit money-spinning opportunities as holes in the opposition back four, with long-suffering supporters brazenly commodified along the way. Yet in the game of the people, for the people,'Jumpers for Goalposts'proves that the fans do know best and that to recover its soul, the beautiful game has to rediscover its roots. Jumpers For Goalposts is a fascinating reflection on the history of football, which examines why the charm, innocence and good humour has disappeared from today's game, compared to the golden days of yesteryear. Smyth considers everything from the huge wage bills, to players' lack of loyalty to their clubs and their escapdes off the pitch, via the MK Dons/Wimbledon FC controversy and huge sponsorship deals, to conclude that the true beauty of football is when it's at its simplest. Including anecdotes from players, past and present, and other sporting insiders, Jumpers For Goalposts is an exhaustive study of whether football has lost its charm - and, perhaps more importantly, whether it can ever get it back __Jumpers For Goalposts__ is a fascinating reflection on the history of British soccer, which examines why the charm, innocence, and good humor has disappeared from today's game, compared to the golden days of yesteryear. Smyth considers everything from the huge wage bills, to players' lack of loyalty to their clubs, and their escapades off the pitch. He concludes that the true beauty of football is when it's at its simplest. Including anecdotes from players, past and present, and other sporting insiders, __Jumpers For Goalposts__ is an exhaustive study of whether football has lost its charm—and, perhaps more importantly, whether it can ever get it back.