Match Day

This collection of covers of official UK football programs - in American, that's soccer programs - includes every league club active from the end of World War II to the start of the Premiership (1992), which comes to more than 100 teams from across the United Kingdom. It covers the golden age of British football, a time of local pride and growing success, of "Roy of the Rovers" good feeling, all of which is reflected in period designs, colorful graphics and charming illustrations, far from the glossy corporate memorabilia that fans accumulate today. These pieces are rare and highly collectible, and the majority are reproduced in this book for the first time, but more importantly for most readers, they offer an armchair anthropologist's trip through 1960s, 70s and 80s England. By Bob Stanley, who worked as a freelance music writer with NME and Melody Maker before forming the group Saint Etienne, and with an introduction by Brian Glanville, a highly regarded sports writer and a leading authority on British soccer.