Roddy Doyle's Dublin-based account of the Republic of Ireland's triumphant journey through Italia '90 is one of the pieces in this anthology of football writing. The spectrum of international, Premier League, Scottish and lower division football is covered - from life on the road with Leeds in the early 1970s, through boardroom shenanigans at Oxford in the '80s, to the world of a Watford ballboy. Nick Hornby writes on Cambridge's worst season ever, Harry Pearson watches Middlesbrough fail to achieve promotion, D.J. Taylor rejoices at Carrow Road and Giles Smith considers his 1973/4 Chelsea programme collection.