SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
David Goldblatt’s ‘The Game of Our Lives’ has won the 27th William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award”.
The awards’ judging panel described the book as an “exceptional winner”, beating a strong shortlist of five other contenders to win the £27,000 prize.
‘The Game of Our Lives’ is a study of modern football and its impacts on wider society and peoples identity. The book further examines football effects on urban identities and its relation with class, race and sexuality.
Goldblatt is a writer and broadcaster who has made sports documentaries for BBC Radio. His previous books includeThe Ball is Round: A Global History of Football (Penguin) and Futebol Nation (Penguin).
Chairman of the judging panel, John Gaustad, said: “This is a serious, insightful yet compellingly readable book on a subject that affects the lives of everyone in the country, be they football fans or not. Goldblatt looks at football through the prism of its economic, cultural and reputational effect on the UK, and pulls no punches in his conclusions. The Game of Our Lives will become required reading for anyone studying the history of late 20th and early 21st Century Britain.”
William Hill spokesman and co-founder of the award, Graham Sharpe, said: “Goldblatt expertly charts how football has changed, and the country with it, in recent years, and makes a convincing case that the sport is as much of a cultural and economic barometer for England’s well-being as music, literature, film and television. It is an exceptional winner – it has to be, up against this incredible shortlist.”
