A People's History of Football

Mickaël Correia is a journalist at Mediapart. He is the author of several books, and his work focuses on social and ecological struggles as well as working-class culture. He has written for Le Monde Diplomatique, Le Canard Enchaîné and La Revue du Crieur. His passion for football began when he was 4, with kickabouts on the streets of Roubaix. Fionn Petch is a Scottish translator with a doctorate in philosophy from the National University of Mexico. As a translator, he has translated fiction, poetry, drama and children's books. He also works on books and exhibition catalogues on art and architecture. Among his noted translations are A Straggly Smile by Vanessa Saint Cyr, The Distance Between Us by Renato Cisneros and Fireflies by Luis Sagasti.

Introduction: Football grounds, grounds of struggle

Part I: Defend: Working class resistance to the bourgeois order

1. Kicking off: Riotous balls and social control

2. Normalising bodies, shaping minds: The birth of an industrial sport

3. The people's game: Football as a cultural trait of the working class

4. The Munitionnettes: The saga of the first women football players in Britain

5. Class against class: Working-class football in France, an extension of the field of struggle

Part II: Attack: Assault on dictatorships

6. 'A small way of saying "no"': Italy, the USSR, Spain: stadiums under totalitarian regimes

7. Ball at the feet against the iron fist: Football's resistance to Nazi domination

8. 'Corinthian democracy': Football and self-organisation against the Brazilian dictatorship

9. On the front line, Tahrir Square: Ultras Ahlawy fans at the heart of the 2011 revolution in Egypt

Part III: Dribble: Outmanoeuvring colonialism 

10. The Algerian Independence Eleven: A liberation struggle in football boots

11. When Palestine occupies the pitch: Football as a political weapon in the hands of the Palestinians

12. Dribbling the ball, a decolonial art: Afro-Brazilian identities and indigenous resistance in football

13. Sending colonialism off: Football and emancipation struggles in sub-Saharan Africa

Part IV: Support: Collective passions and popular cultures

14. 'You'll Never Walk Alone': Hooliganism and subcultures in British stands

15. The twelfth man: The Italian ultras movement: from political militancy to supporter autonomy

16. 'God and the devil': Maradona, between popular passion and fan cult

17. 'We are lovers, not fighters': Istanbul's ultras and Turkish power

Part V: Outflank: Facing the football industry: fight and reinvent

18. Football for footballers!: From May'68 to the fans' revolt

19. Tackling sexism: Women's football against the French sporting patriarchy

20. "Here it's about punk football": Fan-owned clubs in England

21. Play on the left wing: Hamburg’s FC Sankt Pauli or the pirates of the football business

22. Wild balls, balls on the margins: Street football wrong-foots at the institutional game



Postscript to the English edition

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

Index