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This is Our Game: Inside the World's Greatest Soccer Cities
"Reminds me of why I love football - at its heart, it's a reflection of the communities that are built around it. A special book." - Jamie Carragher
You know when you’re in a Football City.
The murals, the billboards, the graffiti, the colours on the bars and pubs. No two football cities are the same. That cross on the club badge, commemorating a 1st century fisherman martyr (Ajax). The ‘cemetery’ of graves dedicated to the club’s league rivals (Napoli). The guttural roar of fans chanting “Aupa Athletic, aupa Euskal Herria!” – a fierce declaration of Basque pride and identity, echoing through San Mamés like a battle cry (Bilbao).
In a world of increasing corporate and homogenous sport, football cities preserve culture and exhibit the particular and the unique with glorious passion. Fandom in a football city is for for boys and girls, for elderly men and the infirm; for the fashionable, the outcasts and the it gives their days meaning and clarity – it can unite divided cities and divide the otherwise united.
This is Our Game is a celebration of these unique fan cultures. Part travel, part social history, giving voice to distinctive local experiences, revealing the atmospheres, attitudes, fables, fashions, tensions and triumphs of twenty-two unique places and communities across all continents. It was the Russian composer (and FC Zenit fan) Dmitri Shostakovich who “Football is the ballet of the masses.” This book takes us inside the dance.
You know when you’re in a Football City.
The murals, the billboards, the graffiti, the colours on the bars and pubs. No two football cities are the same. That cross on the club badge, commemorating a 1st century fisherman martyr (Ajax). The ‘cemetery’ of graves dedicated to the club’s league rivals (Napoli). The guttural roar of fans chanting “Aupa Athletic, aupa Euskal Herria!” – a fierce declaration of Basque pride and identity, echoing through San Mamés like a battle cry (Bilbao).
In a world of increasing corporate and homogenous sport, football cities preserve culture and exhibit the particular and the unique with glorious passion. Fandom in a football city is for for boys and girls, for elderly men and the infirm; for the fashionable, the outcasts and the it gives their days meaning and clarity – it can unite divided cities and divide the otherwise united.
This is Our Game is a celebration of these unique fan cultures. Part travel, part social history, giving voice to distinctive local experiences, revealing the atmospheres, attitudes, fables, fashions, tensions and triumphs of twenty-two unique places and communities across all continents. It was the Russian composer (and FC Zenit fan) Dmitri Shostakovich who “Football is the ballet of the masses.” This book takes us inside the dance.
304 pages, Paperback
Published June 9, 2026
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Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This books takes an interesting subject, fan rivalry and football culture in various cities around the world, and makes it really dull.
It reads like an academic book, describing the facts pretty dryly. Most chapters read thus, potted history of the clubs involved, some social history and then key moments in the teams rivalries. It would have been livened up by interviews with the ultras leaders or members or just fans on derby day.
Gave up after the Istanbul chapter. Not for me Jeff.
Netgalley arc
It reads like an academic book, describing the facts pretty dryly. Most chapters read thus, potted history of the clubs involved, some social history and then key moments in the teams rivalries. It would have been livened up by interviews with the ultras leaders or members or just fans on derby day.
Gave up after the Istanbul chapter. Not for me Jeff.
Netgalley arc
Displaying 1 of 1 review