“In form Higuain!! In form Higuain!!!!” 

We had to quietly contain our excitement as my friend, Jarrad, had packed this card on the FIFA 13 web app. Our history teacher gave us a really strange look as we were trying to act unphased in the back corner. The truth was that Jarrad and I couldn’t care less for their lesson on the federation of Australia because we had just picked up 200,000 dollars in the only economy we cared about - the Xbox 360 Ultimate Team economy.

But from that point onwards, Jarrad’s life and my life diverged quite heavily. He went on to become JarradHD, one of the biggest FIFA Youtubers around. As for me, I then went on to become that history teacher teaching federation.

My name’s Cam and I have a much more modest YouTube channel called Mr M History - ironically covering those parts of Australian history I cared so little for in high school. 

But you are allowed to enjoy two things at once. As I grew in my love of history, I still clocked serious hours on FIFA. In fact the night before my final school exam, I finished my 15th season of an Everton career mode. According to my parents, I was playing FIFA 2000 before I could really talk and football has always been the way in which I chronologise events from my childhood.

“When did Harry Potter 4 come out? Well I remember watching right after Australia played Uruguay so it must have been 2005.”

In my final year of teaching before leaving to do YouTube full time, I had a small Modern History class stacked with football fans. What I found was that football became a really helpful point of reference for much of the course. And so in 2024 while I was sitting in a rather long sermon at my church, my mind wandered to all the ways history and football have crossed over. There’s obviously far more examples than in just this book, but by looking at 10 examples, I am confident we can kick 3 goals:

  1. You (the ballers) will become much more historically literate

  2. You will emerge with the strongest ball knowledge in your circle

  3. You will at least change your mind on one thing