Cultured Football's Gift Guide 2025: Books & Magazines

Books, Magazines & Other Publications

Every week I get to share the best football writing I can find, but December always feels a little different, and it feels like the right moment to do something extra. So, just like last year, I’m putting together a small gift guide; simply a collection of things I genuinely like, would happily receive myself.

For today, I’m looking to the things that built Cultured Football in the first place: books, magazines and publications that capture the game’s stories in their purest form. Pieces you can pick up, leaf through, revisit, and share.

Think of this instalment as a nod to the writers, editors and illustrators who keep football’s culture alive on the page and as another small way of saying thank you for being part of Cultured Football throughout the year.

Football Kit Italia by John Blair

This is a richly illustrated celebration of what many consider the golden decade of Italian football, covering the years 1992 to 2002. Football Kit Italia takes readers on a season by season and club by club tour of the kits, players and stories that defined that era, bringing back the colour, style and atmosphere of Football Italia. Filled with classic designs from brands like Kappa and Diadora and shirts worn by legends such as Roberto Baggio, John Blair’s latest book blends history and nostalgia into a vivid portrait of a period that shaped the modern game.

Dinkit Football Publications

Dinkit Papers is a beautifully crafted series of independent football publications that focus on the culture, design and history of the game. Each edition explores a specific theme, from stadium seat typography to visual details that make football’s environments so distinctive. Printed on high quality, sustainably sourced paper and produced with real care, these papers feel like a blend of art project and football archive. If you appreciate the small design details that give football its character, then this is for you.

Beyond the Cemetery End: Lost British Grounds & Stands 1995-2024

Step into a nostalgic voyage through three decades of British football heritage with Beyond The Cemetery End: Lost British Grounds & Stands 1995-2024. This richly illustrated 312-page A4 landscape volume chronicles more than 500 vanished stadiums and stands, capturing the beauty, grit and fleeting glory of grounds that once echoed with thousands of voices. With around 850 photographs and detailed year-by-year entries, the book doesn’t just catalogue structures but it tells the stories of when and how they emerged, lived and ultimately disappeared. This is a book that will stir the soul of anyone who still feels a tug of emotion for the places where their football memories were first made.

Cropped by Football Grounds Frenzy

A hardback book of 114 pages, Cropped features 80 football grounds, many photographed decades ago which in some cases are long unchanged, rebuilt, or even lost to time. It uses a unique cropping method to bring out surprising new perspectives from old images, showing grounds from outside views to stands, full-ground views, and even grounds as they sit in the landscape. Blending nostalgia with careful archival photography, it offers readers a visual journey through the history and atmosphere of football grounds as captured over many years.

The Power and the Glory by Jonathan Wilson

With 2026 being marked with the World Cup, expect a flurry of book around that competition. Many will be worth reading but the pick of those published so far is The Power and the Glory: The Definitive Story of the World Cup. In this sweeping, meticulously crafted chronicle, author Jonathan Wilson traces the evolution of the FIFA World Cup from its humble beginnings in 1930 through to the complex, politically charged tournaments of today. As always with Wilson, this looks beyond just football and goes into how it intersects with history, society, and politics.

And a Few Others…

In recent months, Cultured Football has been featuring a number of book extracts including those from Shoulders of Titans by Mat Guy and Dreams and Songs to Sing: A People’s History of Liverpool FC From Shankly to Klopp by Alan McDougall. Both come highly recommended.

Here, I have to mention my own book Echoes of an Italian Summer: Stories from Italia 90. It is a nostalgic, detailed journey through the stories behind Italia 90 shedding new light on the tournament by focusing not on the matches, but on untold tales, forgotten characters and quirky moments that shaped its legacy.

And, finally, a reminder that all subscribers of Cultured Football can download a free ebook, Master of the Azzurri: The Life of Enzo Bearzot.

Disclaimer: we don’t earn anything from any of the links or purchases in this guide, and we haven’t personally tried every single item included. These are simply things we genuinely like the look of and wanted to share. As always, treat this as a starting point: explore, compare, and do your own research to make sure they’re right for you.

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, you’re in the right place!

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