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Thank God for Football! Peter Lupson

ABOUT THE BOOK

How much do you really know about the origin of your club?

Would you like to read about it in fascinating detail?

Aston Villa
Barnsley
Birmingham City
Bolton Wanderers
Everton
Fulham
Liverpool
Manchester City
Queen’s Park Rangers
Southampton
Swindon Town
Tottenham Hotspur

Few people are aware that of the 38 clubs that have played in the English Premier League since its inception in the 1992-3 season, 12 can trace their origin directly to a church. However, the fact is that many of these 12 famous football clubs know little about their origins or founders.

John Motson, the ‘voice of football’ writes in the Foreword:
‘This book sets the record straight. Drawing on original materials from a variety of sources Peter Lupson has been able to bring these pioneers to life and to transport us back to the time in which they lived. Their remarkable contribution to our great national game is at last given the recognition it deserves. We have good reason to thank God for them.’

Thank God for Football! has inspired five Premiership clubs to restore their founders’ graves, two to induct their clergymen founders into their Halls of Fame, and another to change its badge.  The National Football Museum is currently planning a series of exhibitions nationwide to make known Peter Lupson’s research which it calls ‘the lost history of football’. Interest in his research has also led to an invitation to address a parliamentary group in the House of Commons.

PETER LUPSON’s academic credentials have been put to excellent use in the intensive research undertaken to compile this unique volume. He is the author of a number of successful school and university French and German text books, and for 12 years was Chief Examiner for GCE Advanced Level German for the University of Oxford. He is honorary life president of a semi-professional club in North Wales and the founder of a thriving church youth league on Merseyside. He currently combines part-time English teaching with writing.

ISBN: 1902694309, Publisher: Azure

Across The Park Peter Lupson

ABOUT THE BOOK

Stanley Park both divides and unites two of the greatest football clubs the world has ever seen: Everton and Liverpool.

This book is a celebration of the passion, roots and rivalry that the two clubs share. It tells the story of the church minister responsible for setting the ball rolling towards the clubs’ birth, the acrimonious split that led to the creation of Liverpool FC in 1892, and the hugely significant gestures of reconciliation that have followed throughout the years.

A portrait emerges of two clubs deeply embedded in the same community; two clubs that are prepared, when tragedy strikes, to put their differences aside for the sake of Merseyside as a whole. Supporters in red and blue stood side by side after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, and joined together to mourn the murder of schoolboy Rhys Jones in 2007.

Everton and Liverpool have shared chairmen, players and programmes – Everton even won their first league championship at Anfield. The ties between the teams are many and multifarious.

Across the Park tells the truth about Everton and Liverpool’s origins, dispelling the myth that the clubs were formed along sectarian lines. It also reveals how the famous Sandon Arms got its name, and honours for the first time the man responsible for the clubs’ birth – the Revd Ben Swift Chambers.

This is author Peter Lupson’s second book. His previous title, Thank God For Football!, which unearthed how a dozen top football clubs can trace their origins back to a church, was a sellout success.

ISBN: 9781906802127, Publisher: Sport Media

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