Cultured Football #243
Top picks of 2025
2025 has been a good year for Cultured Football. I’ve published 50 regular issues, a number of Cultured Football Shorts and the odd book review. More importantly, it has opened the door (I hope!) to a lot of great football writing: over these past twelve months we’ve shared links to 289 fantastic articles and put the spotlight on 196 different writers.
At a time when AI slop has become a thing and much of what we read feels automated and disposable, Cultured Football is deliberately human in how it curates football writing. All the articles we link to are manually selected - I go through a database of 200+ sites each week to make our picks - not hidden behind paywalls and largely from independent writers. No one can pay to have an article featured on Cultured Football; I only choose the articles that I really like and think that readers will enjoy.
Incredibly, 2026 marks five years of Cultured Football. The energy that led me to press send in January of 2021 hasn’t faded, and knowing that it now lands in thousands of inboxes each week is a constant nudge to raise the bar, and to try out a few ideas I have in mind.
What won’t change is the care taken in choosing what makes it into your inbox. However it evolves, Cultured Football will continue to be shaped by curiosity, independence, and a belief that good football writing still deserves to be found.
To close out the year, the final edition will revisit the five most clicked stories. They aren’t necessarily the “best” pieces, but they are the ones that resonated most.
The Myth Of The Wrexham Model
By Jordan Wise for GAMEPLAYER
If you’ve been following football as long as I have, it is hard not to feel good for the Wrexham fans who are finally seeing their club on the up after decades of struggles. Yet their success is bringing in a lot of people who are still new to the sport who feel that it is something that can be easily replicated. The kind of people who you could, unkindly, describe as having more money than sense.
Bonus Read: Birmingham City promoted from League One under Chris Davies
[Adam Bate x Skysport]
Whilst it is still unclear where Wrexham will be playing next season, there are no such doubts for Birmingham who have run away with League 1. And that, they say, is just the start.
Football’s class appropriation problem
By Josh Bland for Against the Run of Play
Football clubs are very quick to make use of their working class origins and surroundings when it suits them. And, then, quickly ignoring them when money comes into play.
Bonus Read: CAF Champions League final: the billionaire’s club
[Ali Howorth x On The Whistle]
It isn’t just in Europe that football has become a billionaire’s playground, it is very much the same in Africa where bankrolled clubs. Two of these will vie for the CAF Champions League. One is unpopular at home; the other hated.
Is there a limit to Brighton’s transfer strategy?
By Stefan Bienkowski for Bienkowski’s Bletherings
Brighton & Hove Albion’s much-lauded recruitment model - identifying undervalued talent, developing it, and selling at a premium - has been wildly successful and transformed them into a side no one takes lightly. Yet is there a limit to this model? Can they keep repeating the trick? Evidence elsewhere suggests not.
Thinking of someone who might enjoy Cultured Football? Let them know.
Football needs time to breathe
By Kyle Boas for Tactics Journal
This is not a long read. But an important one.
The myth and mystery of Indy Kaila: the X account that ‘won’ the transfer window
By Rory Smith for the Observer
If you don’t know who Indy Kaila is, then I invite you to move to the next article. If you do, I think you’ll find this a fascinating read.
Each week on Cultured Football we pick the five football stories from the previous seven days that we most enjoyed reading. If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, all you have to do is…
In Case You Missed It Here’s Last Week’s Most Read: Far have I travelled, much have I seen...
By David Marples for David Marples. A Sigh in the Wind.
“Another way to alleviate a tedious game of football is to note the weird and random advertising hoardings: Betterwave – what do you do? Is MFR Motors trustworthy? How much do EBay pay for a small board at Accrington? What exactly prompted Kellogg’s to pay for a small board? What the heck is Britcon and why are Scunthorpe so at the mercy of it? And scan hard enough – especially in the northwest – and you are never far away from a Rainham Steel advertisement.” Such a perceptive, self-aware and gently funny set of fifty observations from a fan who has completed the 92.
👌🏻👌🏻
This is why football is more interesting when you step back from the result and look at context and decisions. Reading it calmly changes the whole experience.