The Football Men

The great footballers and coaches are rarely glimpsed from up close. They shield themselves from the tabloids, hide their personalities behind professionalism, and in the words of the cliché, 'do their talking on the pitch'. This book gets up close to them. The Football Menis not a series of celebrity profiles, and it doesn't attempt to unearth secrets in the players' private lives. Rather, it portrays these men as three-dimensional human beings. It describes their upbringings, the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage that they bring to their relationships at work. This multimillion-pound, multinational world is mostly inhabited by ordinary men. The profiles in this book are sometimes funny, but never breathless or sensational. Some of the profiles in this book are based on interviews; others are the results of time the author spent with that person; sometimes the profile is a story of a country. All are fascinating and shed light on their subject to reveal things you wouldn't expect. From one of the great sports writers of our time this is a penetrating and surprising collection of articles on the figures that have defined the modern sporting world.

‘Football matters, as poetry does to some people and alcohol does to others… Football is inherent in the people… There is more eccentricity in deliberately disregarding it than in devoting a life to it. The way we play the game, organize it and reward it reflects the kind of community we are’ Written just two years after England’s ’66 triumph when the national game was at its zenith, Arthur Hopcraft’s The Football Man is repeatedly quoted as the best book ever written about the sport. This definitive, magisterial study of football and society profiles includes interviews with all-time greats like Bobby Charlton, George Best, Alf Ramsay, Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby and Nat Lofthouse. It is a snapshot of a pivotal era in sporting history; changes and decisions were made in the sixties that would create the game we know today. For many who are disenchanted with the modern game – the grip of businesses and corporations, the dominance of advertising, the extortionate ticket prices and inaccessible matches, the fickleness of teenage millionaires – The Football Man takes the reader back to the heart and soul of the national game when pitches were muddy and the players were footballers not brands. Voted in May 2005 as one of Observer’s top sports books of all time, this is a long-awaited reissue of the classic football ‘bible’. ‘Masterpiece among sports books’ Guardian ‘It remains one of my favourite football reads’ Graham Taylor

From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketball’s Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreal’s Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five streaight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants. In Giants Among Men, Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFL’s golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus. Central to Cavanaugh’s narrative, and emblematic of the Giants’ bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli, who anchored a Giants defense unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant “Dee-fense!” But while Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship with the fans, who were equally at east hobnobbing with Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx. But the Giants of this era didn’t merely affect the fans’ relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the NFL careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of future Hall of Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, and Y. A. Tittle, along with stars like Charlie Conerly, Rosey Grier, and Pat Summerall. Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of large-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.

One year before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball in 1947, four black players joined the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Rams to become the first professional football players of African-American descent in the modern era. While blacks had played on professional teams in the early days of pro football, none had joined a team since 1934. In this book twelve players who began their careers from 1946 to 1955 not only reminisce about the violence they faced on and off the field, the segregated hotels and restaurants, and general hostility that comes with being a trailblazer, but also of white players and coaches who assisted and supported them at various stages of their lives. Among the oral histories presented here are those of such Hall of Famers Bill Willis, Joe Perry, and George Taliaferro.

An in-depth and surprising look at the game, Sunday Morning Quarterback will dramatically change the way you watch football. You've heard all the football clichés: "Their offense is too predictable," or "They've got to win the turnover battle," or "They didn't make any halftime adjustments." Perhaps you've heard them so often that you've come to see them as obvious truths. Phil Simms, after an illustrious career as a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and a broadcaster, is here to tell you that these—and many other blanket statements taken as gospel—are all myths, and whoever says them has no idea of what they're talking about. Drilling deep into the core of football, Simms also shows the hidden signs that players look for that can determine the outcome of a game. Whether it's discovering how a linebacker positions his feet before he blitzes or how to react if the safety is eight or nine yards from the line of scrimmage, knowing these "dirty little secrets" gives players and their coaches a tremendous advantage. In addition, Simms shares his insights into the enormous challenges coaches face in today's game, evaluating the top coaches and what makes them successful. He takes a look at some of the greatest players he's played with and against, and what he misses most about the game—waking up Monday mornings feeling beat up and sore. He looks at the next generation of football players—his son, Tampa Bay's Chris Simms, among them. Through it all, Simms shares stories from his playing days with Bill Parcells and the New York Giants, and the inside access he's had as an announcer for one of the top NFL broadcasting teams in football. Fun and lively, Sunday Morning Quarterback should be required reading for anyone who loves football.

Provides a study of the founding fathers of college football and the evolution of the modern game in the years following World War II at Miami University of Ohio.

The Great Lakes State has produced over 450 football players who have played professionally in the N.F.L from 1970 - 2018. This book lists who they are and gives a brief summary of each player. From Hall of Fame players like Jerome Bettis, Joe DeLamielleure and Paul Krause to relatively unknowns like Dave Walter and Steve Carter. Find out who made it to the N.F.L from the Detroit Public High School League to the Metro Detroit Catholic League, out to western Michigan and the Ottawa - Kent Conference, and all points in between from the Upper Peninsula way down to the Kicking Mules of Temperance Bedford High School. See where these players are from, where they played High School ball, where they went to college and what they did in the Pro's. These are the men who made it to the N.F.L from the State of Michigan; these are the "State of Michigan Men - Football."

Brief biographies emphasizing the careers of seven professional football stars who are of smaller and lighter build than the average player.

Bear's Boys is a collection of inspiring stories featuring 36 men whose lives were altered by their encounter with the legendary coach while they were players and coaches at Alabama. The stories of star players such as Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, Marty Lyons, Bob Baumhower, Ozzie Newsome, and Gene Stallings show how the Coach forever changed them as young men and ball players on the field and later in life after football. When Bob Baumhower was released from the Dolphins in 1986, he immediately did what Coach Bryant would have done: he made a plan. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he snapped into practical mode. First, he sold his boat and his big house. Then, he systematically began exploring business opportunities and setting goals for the next several decades of his life. When he started his first restaurant, he knew he had yet another chance to apply the principles he learned on the football field in real life. "Coach Bryant said there's a lot of blood, sweat and guts between dreams and success," Baumhower said. "That's true in the restaurant business. . . . Today, every success I have, every win that I have, in my opinion, came from the fact that Coach Bryant cared enough to talk to me and turn the light on for me Includes stories for such men as Bob Baumhower Jeremiah Castille Paul Crane Sylvester Croom John Hannah Dennis Homan Scott Hunter Lee Roy Jordan E. J. Junior Woodrow Lowe Gaylon McCollough Don McNeal Mal Moore Joe Namath Billy Neighbors Ozzie Newsome Ray Perkins Gary Rutledge Howard Schnellenberger Ken Stabler Gene Stallings Dwight Stephenson Richard Todd Pat Trammell Tommy Wilcox