The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football by David Goldblatt has been announced as the winner of the 2015 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

David Goldblatt was born in London in 1965 and is a supporter of Tottenham Hotspurs and Bristol Rovers. He teaches sociology at Bristol University, reviews sports books for the TLS, and for some years wrote the Sporting Life column in Prospect magazine.

His other books include, The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football and Futebol Nation: A Footballing History of Brazil.

Reviews:

Brilliantly incisive. Goldblatt is not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been. Goldblatt’s book could hardly be more impressive (Dominic Sandbrook Sunday Times)

Offers an enlightening, enriching experience. It is based on a formidable range of sources, personal observation and a pleasingly sardonic turn of phrase. Not all football writers know their stuff, let alone the socio-economic context, but Goldblatt does. Altogether this is an exceptional book (David Kynaston Guardian)

Not just the best soccer book in many years but an exemplary account of the changing character of British society in the post-Thatcher era (David Runciman Wall Street Journal)

David Goldblatt examines [English football] peerlessly … A superb history of a sport and of a nation (Evening Standard)

Goldblatt is a trusted guide…Rich with statistics, this is an admirably balanced account of the beautiful game (Daily Mail)

Prodigious research and a fluent writing style … this is a fine book which should have an appeal much beyond the game (Mihir Bose Independent)

An encyclopaedic portrait of English football stripped of all the non-stop hype. The beautiful game is, after all, a dirty business (Financial Times: Life & Arts)

An intensely readable socioeconomic study of English football in the age of globalisation (New Statesman)

A book that informs and inspires, a truly great piece of writing (Philosophy Football)

The best pub talker of a book for years (Sunday Sport)

Goldblatt has a gift for exploring the way the game holds a mirror up to our lives…His deconstruction of the modern game could hardly be bettered (Observer)

A bold analysis of Britain’s economic and social change refracted through football (The Times)

A salient overview of the past quarter-century (Times Literary Supplement)