This is Our Game: Inside the World’s Greatest Football Cities
Joel Rookwood and Daniel Fieldsend
The awkward photoshoot had ended and I was relieved to receive the first question. Writer and TV presenter Toni Padilla was interviewing me in a Barcelona bar for a piece on football and identity for Ara, the Catalan daily newspaper. We compared our home towns of Barcelona and Liverpool – which I framed as ‘football cities’. The notion resonated. With eyes alight with curiosity, he looked up from his notepad to ask: ‘What’s a football city?’ It was a lightbulb moment. It has taken over a decade to write, but This is Our Game is a book which provides an answer to that question.
I was in Barcelona leading a university trip for students on my football degree in Liverpool. Among them was Daniel Fieldsend. After graduating, Dan wrote two fascinating books (The European Game: The Secrets of European Football Success and Locãl – a Club and its City: Liverpool’s Social History). I approached Dan to collaborate on a book on football cities, building on themes of his earlier works. The finished project is fittingly bookended by our chapter on Liverpool and a chapter from Toni on Barcelona.
Having travelled to 180 countries, this book could have centred on football-focused travels to these places. Yet the vision for this project was to capture stories from these locations, giving voice to unique insider insights, written by those from or closely connected to their cities.
Football can provide a means of understanding how people across the planet think and act. It binds and divides like little else can. This book reveals the atmospheres, unpicks the fables and describes the fashions, tensions and triumphs of twenty-two unique football environments – a number fitting for the arenas of the game. The text reveals insider insights into the football world, with contributions from journalists, authors, presenters, academics, photographers and actors.
Our journey through some of the world’s greatest football cities begins with an exploration of Liverpool by Joel Rookwood and Daniel Fieldsend, followed by Paddy Hoey’s guide to Glasgow and Uli Hesse’s depiction of Dortmund. Attention then switches to South America, with Roberto Parrottino’s account of Buenos Aires, Arlen Buchara’s insights into Rosario and Fred Caleira’s portrayal of Rio de Janeiro.
Returning to Europe, Marco Ciriello’s narration of Naples is followed by Christian Bromberger’s story of Marseille and Nebojša Marković’s biography of Belgrade. The chapters which follow are Omar Elbanoubi’s portrait of Cairo, Jinane Enasri’s chronicle of Casablanca and Mehmet Senol’s recollections of Istanbul.
The subsequent focus on Europe is provided by Davide Grassi’s musings on Milan, Leontine van Melle’s evocation of Amsterdam and Fabrizio Gabrielli’s rendering of Rome. The next chapters are Roger Magazine’s narrative of Mexico City, Scott French’s telling of Los Angeles, Katrin Figge’s interpretation of Jakarta and Samantha Lewis’s memories of Sydney.
The book finishes in Europe, with Aitor A. Salinas-Armendariz’s section on Bilbao, Angel del Riego’s impressions of Madrid and Toni Padilla’s summation of Barcelona.
Football allows people across the world to speak a shared language. It’s a sport that can transcend borders, social class and generations, binding people separated by time and space through common rhythms of passion, hope, identity, and community struggles.
This book reflects a fascination with what football means to inhabitants of different cities, which is something we all share an interest in. After all, this is our game.