The Ugly Game

How Football Lost Its Magic and What It Could Learn from the NFL

Martin Calladine

• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785310270
• Year: 2015

A passionate, funny book of essays comparing soccer, often unfavorably, with American football
At its best, European football is a glorious, uplifting, unifying sport. But it hasn't been at its best for some time. Disillusioned by corruption scandals, billionaire club owners, and an ever-smaller group of title challengers, Martin Calladine drifted away from the game that had defined 25 years of his life. He found solace in an unexpected place: American football. Despite the glitz and the endless ad breaks, the NFL has a curiously Corinthian purity: preventing teams buying success by sharing TV money equally, having a strict salary cap, and, with the draft, letting the worst teams get the pick of the best new players. The Ugly Game is a funny, angry book of essays for fans of European football setting out where the game has gone wrong and showing that, perhaps surprisingly, the NFL has many of the answers.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. ‘I only expect one of you to come out of this room alive…’
• 2. ‘If that’s not legal, I don’t know what is…’
• 3. ‘Average footballer, excellent plumber…’
• 4. ‘In goes Massing and, oh, he won’t get past that challenge…’
• 5. ‘John Williams, a former postman from Swansea…’
• 6. ‘Who are they?’ ‘Exactly…’
• 7. ‘It just gets everybody to slow down… open their mind.’
• 8. ‘I made a mistake. I accept full responsibility.’
• 9. ‘I make my own decisions and I can hope for better.’
• 10. ‘I can see the pub from here!’
• 11. ‘I didn’t want to be in a league where I can’t compete on management.’
• 12. ‘This guy’s got a rocket-booster strapped to his back!’
• 13. ‘He would have to be on the programme to tell me exactly what he was thinking there.’
• 14. ‘A worthless trinket that will do nothing to feed my family.’
• 15. ‘I’m going to crush you on here because I’m tired of hearing about it.’
• 16. ‘I just gave it a try and it went out in a special way.’
• 17. ‘I’m going all in with Andy Impey.’
• 18. ‘I feel numb. Too much is not enough.’
• 19. ‘When I was green in judgment: cold in blood…’
• 20. ‘It was meant in a Frankie Howerd style way.’
• Endnotes
• Picture credits