Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot

by Steve Menary

Once in a while, a book comes along with an unusual subject matter that captures the imagination. Menary's Outcasts! falls into that category. A fascinating insight into all the various factors that have to be taken into account when looking to become a "football nation."

Genres: Nonfiction, Soccer, Football, Sports

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2007

Reviews

[Martin Faulkner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some years out of date now (obviously) but still an interesting read. I found it mildly ironic that the author repeatedly added "(sic)" to quotes from non-native speakers while himself committing numerous sins - factual errors, misspellings of place names, inconsistent tenses in match reports, etc. - that a decent proofreader ought to have picked up. Maybe this was corrected in later editions, but I'm nerdy enough to allow that kind of thing to spoil my enjoyment somewhat...

[Ipswichblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about the football teams of the world who FIFA won’t admit mainly for political reasons however this book was written nearly 20 years ago so two countries in the book, Kosovo and Gibralter now play in tournament qualifying.

[Lorcán Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and interesting idea but I found reading it very much a slog.

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the idea of this book — looking at issues of nationality and statehood through the lens of football:

“In an era when politics means less and less, particularly in more industrialized countries, when fewer and fewer people turn out to vote, sport crystallises the notion of a nation perhaps more than anything else. ...
As the world's most popular team sport, football keeps alive the idea of a national identity undefined by political borders better than most. The notion of Englishness and Scottishness, for example, has been kept alive by sport as much as anything else since the Act of the Union in 1707. In places where identity is slowly starting to mean less and less, in an age of globalization where satellite TV is watering down local sports in favour of global brands, some peoples are trying to keep alive an identity that is being lost, through football.”

The author tracks the progress — usually slow, frustrating, and contentious — towards international recognition (whether at the highest levels, or simply to get an occasional match) by teams from the Channel Islands, Greenland, the Falklands, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Northern Cyprus, Occitània, Monaco, Kosova, Zanzibar, Tibet, North Mariana, the Vatican, and Sápmi.

Unfortunately the book is in dire need of a good editor. The book keeps cutting between general history lessons of the various nations; the history of football within them; the quest for international recognition of their football associations; and (surprisingly detailed) reports on some of the matches they actually get to play (e.g. at the Island Games). Each of these can be quite interesting, but they don't cohere well, and the book ends up incredibly disjointed, failing, as a result, to tell any compelling story.

[Gayathiri · Rating 2 out of 5]

This actually gets 2.5 - it didn't really hold my interest. Well-researched otherwise, and its premise is certainly something that football fans should know about.