Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Soccer vs the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics by Gabriel Kuhn
A timely and entertaining read on the history and development of the ‘beautiful game’
Trailblazers: Dick, Kerrs Ladies, 1921

THERE is a widely accepted idea that football emerged from working-class culture, went through a golden age as the people’s game and then sold its soul to Sky, Adidas and Coca Cola.

But Soccer vs the State, Gabriel Kuhn's lively and painstaking examination of the sport’s hidden history and competing cultures, reveals a more complex narrative.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
(L to R) How many Aunties?, Back Hares Mount, Leeds, 1978; M
Photography / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025

Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds

The crowd at Manchester Punk Festival 2024
Culture / 11 April 2025
11 April 2025
Ben Cowles speaks with IAN ‘TREE’ ROBINSON and ANDY DAVIES, two of the string pullers behind the Manchester Punk Festival, ahead of its 10th year show later this month
MURDER AFORETHOUGHT: The execution of 56 Poles in Bochnia, n
Books / 28 March 2025
28 March 2025
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
Literature / 25 March 2025
25 March 2025
JESSICA WIDNER explores how the twin themes of violence and love run through the novels of South Korean Nobel prize-winner Han Kang