Injury Time
- Author David Goldblatt
- Narrator David Goldblatt
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date 14 August 2025
- Run Time 14 hours and 21 minutes
- Format x-book®
- Genre Football variants and related games, History of sport, Sociology: sport and leisure.
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What to expect
A Telegraph Best Book of 2025.
A News Statesman Book of the Year 2025.
‘David Goldblatt is possibly the best football historian there has ever been’. Dominic Sandbrook
‘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.
Critics Review
‘Stunningly researched, calmly presented and cumulatively shocking, David Goldblatt’s Injury Time is a work of searching and uncomfortable truths about the world of British football in the age of Brexit. We all knew that the age of relative innocence had long gone; but this extraordinarily knowledgeable, broad-based survey reveals as never before the challenges facing any serious attempt to restore the soul to our game.’ – David Kynaston, author of A Northern Wind
n‘David Goldblatt sets to tell the story of modern Britain through football – and, remarkably he succeeds. English football culture would be lost without him. He guides us through the madness.’ – Simon Kuper, bestselling author of Chums
n'Nobody knows more about football than Goldblatt' – Literary Review
n'illuminating' – The Telegraph
n'a forceful, informative read' – The Independent's Non-Fiction Book of the Month
n'an illuminating read for sport fans and non-fiction buffs alike' – The I
n'sharp and accessible… essential reading not just for football fans but for anyone seeking to understand Britain's current predicament' – Soccerbooks.co.uk
nMore from the same
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