History of Football: The Beautiful Game

Scheduled for release on August 14, Shock’s impending 7-disc celebration of the beautiful game provides a comprehensive overview of every facet of the game, its fans and its uncommonly rich history. 

Comprising 13 hour-long episodes and innumerable bonus features, History of Football celebrates the 19^th century origins of the world’s most widely-played sport with some astonishingly rare archival footage, explores important historical epochs as well as the arrival of pivotal clubs and players, takes a comprehensive glance at some of the game’s most enduring rivalries, explores the game as it evolved throughout the various continents and speculates on the future of the sport.  

Narrated by Terrence Stamp, each episode weaves archive and match footage with extensive interviews with players, owners and coaches, exploring every conceivable element of the game from superstars to hooliganism.  Interspersed throughout are thrilling snatches of matchplay and literally hundreds of goals – the vast amount of detail put into this series, as well as the sheer enormity of the project itself, mark it as an absolute must for football devotees the world over. 

Bonus Features

Each disc in this set comes with an hour or more worth of bonus content.  Some of the highlights include, from 1897, the oldest film of football being played anywhere in the world (thought to be a training session involving Arsenal), as well as excerpts from 10 other turn of the century matches for instance Blackburn v West Bromwich (1898), Tottenham Hotspur v Sheffield United (1901), the earliest recorded international match between Wales and Ireland in 1906, and snippets from a 1912 fixture between Man United and West Ham.  There are also brief highlights from a number of historical World Cup Clashes, a large selection of interviews, extensive biographies and more.  The historical value of such a collection is enormous; it’s just a shame some of the excerpts didn’t run longer.  Impression additions nonetheless. 

For those interested, the full breakdown is: 

Disc 1

Origins

Football Cultures

Extras:

- Stuart Hall on Football’s Unlikely Origins

- Football is an Old Italian Custom

- The Old Ashbourne Folk Game

- Early Football Match Archive

- Biographies

 

Disc 2

Evolution of the European Game

European Superpowers

Extras:

- 1934 World Cup FInal – Italy v Czechoslovakia

- 1938 World Cup FInal – Italy v Hungary

- 1954 World Cup FInal – West Germany v Hungary

- 1966 World Cup FInal – England v West Germany

- 1974 World Cup Final – West Germany v Holland

- 1982 World Cup FInal – Italy v West Germany

- 1990 World Cup FInal – West Germany v Argentina

- An Interview with Pepi Bican

- Biographies

 

Disc 3

Brazil

South American Superpowers

Extras:

- 1970 World Cup FInal – Uruguay v Argentina

- 1950 World Cup FInal – Uruguay v Brazil

- 1978 World Cup FInal – Argentina v Holland

- 1986 World Cup FInal – Argentina v West Germany

- 1958 World Cup FInal – Brazil v Sweden

- 1962 World Cup FInal – Brazil v Czechoslovakia

- 1970 World Cup FInal – Brazil v Italy

- 1994 World Cup FInal – Brazil v Italy

- The Ethics of Football

- Leaving Maradona out of the 1978 World Cup Squad

- Interviews

 

Disc 4

For Club and Country

The Dark Side

Extras:

- 5 European Championship Wrap-ups

- 11 Deleted Scenes from the Episode ‘The Dark Side’

- Biographies

 

Disc 5

Superstars

Media

Extras:

- Interviews with Pele, George Best, Ronaldo, Dino Zoff, Paolo Rossi, Jurgen Klinsmann, Maradona

- 1998 World Cup Wrap-up

- Additional Interviews

- Biographies

 

Disc 6

Africa

A Game for All

Extras:

- African Cup of Nations Highlights (1957 – 2000)

- Highlights from the Golden Era of the World Cup (1960 – 1970)

- Biographies

 

Disc 7

Futures

Extras:

- Asian Cup Highlights

- Spotlight on Sudan

- Interview with Kazu Miura

- Biographies