2/2 England's State of Emergency - and Football's: Book Talk with the venerable David Goldblatt

This is PART 2 of a two-part episode. The 1st part aired two weeks ago, and is the most recent on on the Assistant Professor of Football. Please add a like, a comment, a star rating or spread the word by mouth!I was a little starstruck when David Goldblatt showed up on my screen today. His books have done very well for very good reason. You may have read The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football or The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football.David is a sociologist, has a part time academic home in the US as well, at Pitzer college in LA, and this one, Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency, is a book for the moment. The thesis is simple: a lot of the spaces for communicalism have been devolved in neoliberal Great Britain. But football is the dominant cultural form in modern Britain, not only a reflection or mirror, but the “central metaphorical space” in which the country still speaks with itself. It is in the game, he believes, that English people clearly see themselves. The good and the bad. And the potential for the good, and the bad. Part 2 will come out in 2 weeksLINK: Injury Time, book pageNEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup) Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook. If you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, pleaseRecommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help. Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige LindInstrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/