The Dynamo Football Bookclub

 

⚽️ “Episode 49: Reboot – The Michael Owen Story”

 

Is Michael Owen football’s oddest ball of all? 🧐

 

From the helicopter highs of that goal against Argentina 🚁⚽️ to the hamstring horrors that followed (quite a lot of them 😬), Owen’s career was a tale of glory, pain, and lots of grudges.

 

In this week’s episode, we dive into Reboot, Owen’s att...

☁️ The clouds have lifted over Old Trafford since the weekend with United’s smash-and-grab win down at Anfield — but has the storm truly passed? ⚡️

 

United’s failures on the pitch in recent years have only been compounded by the uncanny ability of their former flops to reach new heights away from the stifling drag around the Theatre of Dreams 🏟️.

 

In this epis...

⚽️ Episode 48: A Season with Verona — Tim Parks and the Tifosi 🇮🇹

 

After the drama of our last episode, we’re staying in Italy with another unfashionable football club. This time it’s Hellas Verona, a club known as much for its tifosi as for its football 🔵🟡

 

Back in 2000, British author and horny English teacher Tim Parks embarked on a wild year with the Ve...

🎙️ Episode Drop: Injury Time 17 – The Pig’s Head Derby: The Real Snake Draft

It’s 23 November 2002. Luis Figo trots over to take a corner for Real Madrid against Barcelona. Moments later, a severed pig’s head sails onto the pitch — lobbed by a fan of the club that claims to be “more than a football team.”

 

Once adored, now despised, Figo had become public enemy number one for the Blaugran...

🚨 Episode Drop! 🚨

 

Almost two years in, and on our 46th book, we think we’ve found the best one yet. Hold on to your hats, because Joe McGinniss’s The Miracle of Castel di Sangro is coming your way.

 

Alistair had never even heard of it (he blames the title). But have you? 🤔

 

Back in 1996, tiny Castel di Sangro — a town of just 5,...

⚽ Injury Time 16 is here! 📺🎙️

 

In this episode, we choose our greatest television lineups. There may be some personal and national biases at play as we pick the best presenters 🎤, pundits 💬, and commentators 🎧. Thankfully, 🤖 AI is on hand to settle the debate and decide whose lineup comes out on top.

 

Heated arguments 🔥, nostalgia 🕰️, and a few question...

🎧 Episode 46 is out now — and it’s the most Alistair-esque episode yet.

 

That’s right, we’re doing our best to distract poor Al from events at the City Ground by diving into Psycho — the autobiography of his all-time hero, Stuart Pearce. ❤️🌳

 

The all-tackling, all-scoring, punk-loving ...

🎧 Injury Time 15: The Mayor of Barnet Fair – Football’s Worst Haircuts 💈⚽

It’s a question as old as the combover: who had football’s worst-ever haircut? From tragic trims to peroxide crimes, we’ve gathered the very worst in a draft showdown that pits one smorgasbord of shockers against another.

There are two routes to hair hell:

1. Trying too...

🎧 Episode 45 is OUT NOW! ⚽🐭

 

He’s King Kev in England, Mäuserich (Mighty Mouse) in Germany — and everywhere he goes, he’s a two-time Ballon d’Or winner, European Cup champ, and all-round lovely fella. We are talking of course about Kevin Keegan.

Sure, he’s a bit hapless at times but in the words of Bill Shankly, Ke...

Matthew Jarvis 20:16 – “So the last shall be first, and the first last.” 

 

In this episode, we turn things on their head 🙃. We’re picking the worst players to notch up at least 100 Premier League appearances – that’s right, the aim of this draft is to lose. 🫣

 

Sure, if you’ve played 100 times in the EPL, you’re probably half-decent… but some of these lads wer...

📚 Episode 44 is here!

This week, we’re diving into The Soccer War by Ryszard Kapuściński 🇵🇱 — the legendary Polish reporter, a writer who happened to be a journalist (in his own words) and a man who played fast and loose with the truth, it seems.

 

⚔️ The book centres on the 1969 war between Central American neighb...

How do you follow a 5-time Ballon D’or winner? Well, with an 8-time Ballon D’or Winner of course. That’s right, its Part II of the Guillem Balague GOAT saga and our review of his biography of one Lionel Messi.

 

Originally published in 2013 but updated for the Argentina World Cup win in 2022, the book is a long one, covering the descent from heaven of the baby Messi to the u...

It’s our 28th episode and we are starting the new year with the first part of the Balague GOAT saga. First up is his award-winning biography of Cristiano Ronaldo.

 

This player certainly needs no introduction but if you insist then 5 Champions League wins, 5 Ballons D’or, and seven straight calendar years in which he scored more than 50 goals wil...

⚽ Injury Time 13: The Steve McMahon Windscreens Shield – a Wrong ’Uns draft ⚽

 

OUT NOW! 🎧

 

What makes a wrong ’un?

Cheating on your wife? ❌ Not necessarily.

Cheating on your wife for eight years… with your sister-in-law? ✅ That probably qualifies.

 

It’s hard to define, but you know one whe...

🎙️ Episode 43 of the Dynamo Football Bookclub is out!

 

💆‍♂️ Massage parlour, 💅 beauty parlour… Ray Parlour.

 

That’s right — it’s only Ray Parlour’s autobiography, The Romford Pelé! 📖⚽

 

Fun fact: Parlour has played in the Prem...

🎧 Episode 12 of Injury Time is here! 🎙️

 

It’s the Great African Draft Showdown — Johnny’s Danny Invincible 11s take on Alistair’s Orlando Pirates in a five-a-side battle to determine who really knows their African football EPL legends. 🇿🇦⚽🇪🇬🇨🇲

 

Our hosts pick their best five-a-side teams of African Premier League players and AI tells us who’d win...

🎙️ Episode 42 is LIVE!

📘 The Feet of the Chameleon – The Story of African Football by Ian Hawkey

⚽️🌍 An epic journey through the past, present & power of African football.

 

In this episode of the Dynamo Football Bookclub, we explore the rich, complex and utterly compelling story of football across Africa’s 54 nations 🇿🇲🇪🇬🇸🇳🇨🇲.

 

Having passed out Crouchie in the podcast charts a couple of weeks ago, we've decided to tackle more giants of the game 🤖

 

In Injury Time 11 🎙️ we tackle a question that’s baffled football fans for years: who are the greatest players standing at 6′5″ and above? 🏰

 

⚽ Have there been any genuinely decent towering strikers beyond the aforementioned Peter Crouch...

In Episode 41, we move beyond biographies and autobiographies for the first time and into the wonderful world of the language of football with Do You Speak Football by Tom Williams. 

In his book, Williams takes us, Palinesque, on a tour of the world explaining how football is spoken about by fans everywhere.

If you would like to find out where a defensive midfielder is known as a faecal plug, what To Zlatan means in French, or what...