Product details
- ISBN 9781836803034
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 31 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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From dirty old streets and cobbled alleys to five-a-side pitches and sun-soaked beaches, Street Football: The Real Grassroots of the Beautiful Game explores where football is truly born. David Proudlove dives into the raw culture of the informal game, with its improvised rules and boundless creativity, which shape players long before the stadium lights and TV cameras appear. Through stories, historical perspectives, global snapshots and personal experience – from the working-class streets of northern England to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the housing projects of Marseille – this book reveals how freedom, local rivalry and a sense of community forge technique, resilience and sheer joy. Street Football is a tribute to the kids and the spaces that keep football honest and authentic, reminding us that its truest form lives far from VAR, academies and contracts. The book lays bare how the culture of the street has shaped the game as we know it.
David Proudlove is the author of When the Circus Leaves Town and Work and Play: The Industrial Roots of English Football. For more than a decade he wrote a weekly column for the North Staffordshire daily newspaper The Sentinel, and his work appeared regularly in the former Stoke City fanzine Duck. Today, he produces content for the Football Heritage website and podcast and often collaborates with artists and fellow writers.
