The Football History Boys

To start off The Football History Boys would like to say we hope you had a Happy Christmas and wish you the very best for the New Year! However for me, whilst following the plethora of Christmas sport, there has been something that's been bugging me: as the World Cup approaches why are we having messy debates over foreign born players representing countries they reside in? It's something that needs clearing up and to do this we have to look at the Home Nations Agreement.

Now I'm not questioning the reasoning behind people being either for or against players representing neutralised countries, in fact I do think it's something that needs looking at; but what I'm not in favour of is seeing the high profile figures of the game getting the rules wrong. To understand the background of the debate lets look at some history... FIFA previously allowed a player to change his nationality, Real Madrid legends Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo di Stefano being the most notable examples…

In the past I have made no secret of my stance on the women's game, and regrettably, the answer was not wholly positive. However, since Gareth and I founded +The Football History Boys in February, I am pleased to say my view has made a complete u-turn, in doing so I have discovered a fondness for the history of women's football, both past and present. One of the major female teams of the modern-day is the Arsenal Ladies, who just five years ago where described as "better than the men". The North-London team has dominated women's football in Britain and abroad for the last ten years, but the recent emergence of the game as a whole has driven the development of numerous challengers to their crown. Is this the end of an era for Arsenal's Ladies?


Arsenal Ladies are the most successful women's British football club of all-time, since their formation in 1987, they have gone on to win fourteen league titles as well as the Women's Champions League in 2007. Ra…

Let’s travel back 40 years for a minute. The New York Cosmos have just brought Pele out of retirement, the soccer world takes notice. In his many autobiographies Pele mentions that European clubs were always after him to play. Then Steven Ross goes crazy, and tries to buy every player who has thought of soccer. Which, looking back at it now, wasn’t that bad. Could this have been the start of the Real Madrid teams of the 90’s, Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona’s “Dream Team”, or the AC Milan teams with Gullit, Rijkaard, Van Basten? Or would have Blackburn in the 90’s bought every top player (and missed on some) to win their league? Could this explain why Manchester City was taken-over by oil barons? 

There are countless soccer magazines out there, and I’ve read or bought pretty much all of the ones in America at some point. It is also very good that a big time magazine like +FourFourTwo talks about the NASL. “Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Giorgio Chinagalia, and Johan Neeskens, joined Pele…