‘David Goldblatt is the greatest British sportswriter of the 21st century ? Injury Time is an absolute classic.’ James Montague, author of The Billionaires Club and Engulfed

Football, history and the state of the nation – and why it matters

Injury Time is a sharp and thought provoking look at contemporary British society through the lens of football; a society shaken by more than a decade of economic, political and social upheaval, whose causes and consequences have proved hard to grasp.

Set against the backdrop of Brexit, Covid and today’s ‘polycrisis’ – spanning economic decline, war in Europe, political unrest and climate change – this book argues that football provides an unmatched vantage point for understanding the nation’s state of affairs. From grassroots clubs battling for survival to the rise and fall of Russian oligarchs in the sport, the game’s tragedies and triumphs echo the larger shifts shaping Britain.

With striking examples such as Marcus Rashford’s anti-hunger campaign and the uproar surrounding Gary Lineker’s tweets, Injury Time underscores football’s central role in public conversation. Football, Goldblatt contends, is the ultimate societal bellwether – a reflection of Britain’s virtues and flaws alike.

‘David Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been’ – Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

In the twenty-first century football is first. First among sports themselves, but it now commands the allegiance, interest and engagement of more people in more places than any other phenomenon. In the three most populous nations on the earth – China, India and the United States where just twenty years ago football existed on the periphery of society – it has now arrived for good. Nations, peoples and neighbourhoods across the globe imagine and invent themselves through playing and following the game.

In The Age of Football, David Goldblatt charts football’s global cultural ascent, its economic transformation and deep politicization, taking in prison football in Uganda and amputee football in Angola, the role of football fans in the Arab Spring, the footballing presidencies of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, China’s declared intention to both host and win the World Cup by 2050, and the FIFA corruption scandal.

Following the intersection of the game with money, power and identity, like no sports historian before, Goldblatt’s sweeping story is remarkable in its scope, breathtaking in its depth of knowledge, and is a brilliantly original perspective of the twenty-first century. It is the account of how football has come to define every facet of our social, economic and cultural lives and at what cost, shaping who we think we are and who we want to be.