100 years of Wembley Stadium told through 100 matches. 

The 1923 FA Cup final – aka the White Horse final – was the first football match played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium. Although best-remembered for non-playing reasons – notably its vast, well-beyond-capacity crowd, which had to be marshalled by a policeman atop a white horse – that afternoon marked the historic opening chapter of the stadium’s long and eventful history, of the stadium soon to be known simply as Wembley.
 
Over the 100 years since that overcrowded day, Wembley has established itself as the home of the beautiful game and, almost certainly, the world’s most famous football stadium. Wembley occupies a special place in the hearts of players and punters alike. Watching your team at Wembley is the highlight of a fan’s lifetime of support; playing there the fulfilment of a childhood dream. Its sacred pitch has been the crucible of so many classic matches across the decades. World Cups have been won here, as have European Championships, FA Cups, European Cups, play-off finals, home internationals and more.

Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches – from the well known to the unusual – that have shaped Wembley’s legacy and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past 100 years of football, and of Britain. We hear a ball boy’s perspective on the FA Cup Final when Bert Trautmann broke his neck, and from the other commentator of the 1966 World Cup Final.

Field of Dreams is the story of how football found its home. 
 

‘Gus Poyet declared it to be the toughest league in England. Neil Warnock went further, believing it to be the tightest division in Europe. Norwich boss Daniel Farke went further still: “The Championship, without any doubt, is the toughest league in the world.”‘

On the final day of the 2019/20 season, only four clubs in the Championship, England’s second tier of soccer, had nothing to play for, everyone else was fighting for promotion or survival. It’s stats like this that give the league its well-deserved reputation as the most exciting league in football. Anything can happen, and often does.

In The Hard Yards, Nige Tassell tells the Championship’s stories, uncovers its hidden gems and takes the reader on an entertaining and eye-opening tour of the 2020/21 season. Following three clubs in particular – newly promoted Wycombe Wanderers, newly relegated Bournemouth and stalwarts Sheffield Wednesday, who start the season on 12-point deficit – he’ll dip into the seasons of clubs across the league, interviewing managers, fans, kit men and chairmen. A world away from the glamour and melodrama of the Premiership, the Championship is the heart and soul of football and in The Hard Yards Nige Tassell will take it back to basics.

Praise for The Bottom Corner:
‘Warm and celebratory but also sharp and insightful, The Bottom Corner is a love letter to non-league football that is also a vivid snapshot of its place in our national life’ — Stuart Maconie

‘A wonderful journey through life in the lower reaches of the football pyramid. A fascinating tale of a very different world of football from that of the overpaid stars of the television age’ — Barry Davies

The gripping story of the greatest race in cycling history, when Greg LeMond cinched victory by a mere eight seconds.
For a race as long as the mighty Tour (three weeks of testing the limits of human endurance), to have the ultimate victory decided by a margin of just eight seconds almost boggles the mind. But that’s exactly what happened between American legend Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon. After more than 2,000 miles in the saddle, it remains the smallest margin of victory in the Tour’s one-hundred-plus-year history.
But as dramatic as that Sunday afternoon on the streets of Paris was, the race wasn’t just about that one time-trial. During the previous fortnight, the leader’s yellow jersey had swapped back and forth between LeMond and Fignon in a titanic struggle for supremacy. At no point during the entire three weeks were the pair separated by more than fifty-three seconds, a razor thin margin between ultimate triumph or agonizing torment.
In Three Weeks, Eight Seconds, Nige Tassell brings one of cycling’s most astonishing stories to life, examining that extraordinary race in all its multifaceted glory, complete with fresh first-hand testimony.