Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, Chapter A: Something Which All True Sportsmen Deplore

It's time for the third chapter of Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, and this week we're taking the England national team from their formation up to the start of WW2.

This book is made up of two stories, which are deeply intersected but also quite separate; the club game and the national game. Chapters that are numbered are broadly about the game, while chapters primarily about the England international team are lettered. I tried not to be over-zealous about it, though. This chapter zips through England, the home nations’ tendency to pick a fight with FIFA at just about any opportunity, and how the England team ended up giving a Nazi salute on a pitch in Berlin in front of 120,000 Germans, among other things.