The Rough Guide to Cult Football (Rough Guides, £7.99)

FOOTBALL has changed a lot in the past 30 years. It has gone from being the preserve of your average working man - all beer, meat pies and anoraks - to something altogether more "cool".

The comparable lifestyles of today's heroes - the Beckhams and Zidanes of this world - to yesterday's giants - Stanley Matthews or, say, Bobby Moore - only serves to highlight this change all the more acutely.

However, lurking not too far beneath the surface of today's fashionable aficionado, is the sheepskin coat-clad, statistics-obsessed diehard fan of yesteryear.

And this is where The Rough Guide to Cult Football comes in.

Funny, informative and packed full of obscure statistics and information, it is the perfect footy fan's stocking filler.

You can almost hear the pub conversations now, all starting with that timeless opening gambit: "Did you know...."

Reviews, articles, club and player profiles, best commentary moments, worst football films... Cult Football is as full of information as one of Rough Guide's more usual country guides.

Jim Collins