Juve!
The definitive history of the iconic football club: the glory, the scandal, the stars and its enduring influence on Italian life.
Juventus utterly dominates the Italian game. Home to some of the biggest names in sport, it has won title after title, trophy after trophy. However, parallel to the success and myth, there's a murkier reality. For one hundred years the club and its billionaire owners, the Agnelli family, have been synonymous with match-fixing, doping, political chicanery and more. While La Vecchia Signora remains Italy's best-supported team, it's also its most despised.
Juve! charts the story of Italy's great sporting dynasty, chronicling the triumphs and tragedies of the Agnellis, and of the icons - Boniperti, Del Piero, Ronaldo - who have been their sporting emissaries for almost a century. The pride of Italy or its dark heart? Footballing colossus or vanity project? With this unique institution, as with so much about life in Italy, things are seldom black and white...
'Superbly entertaining and incisive' TLS
'A compelling case for a football club encapsulating the entire psyche of Italy' Observer
Herbie Sykes was born in England in 1967. He attended a secondary modern school in rural Lincolnshire, but what he studied was principally Manchester City and the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign.
In 1991 he took the train from Lincoln to Turin, and there he watched his first derby. He subsequently wrote about it for the mythical City fanzine, Blueprint, and became a regular visitor to Turin long before Ryanair. He met his wife there whilst writing a book about the Giro d’Italia, and has reported extensively on the city and its football teams.
His 2014 book, The Race Against the Stasi, won the cycling category of the British Sports Book Awards, and was shortlisted in the Outstanding Sports Writing category.