Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Behind the Curtain | 2006 | Buy |
| Sunderland: A Club Transformed | 2007 | Buy |
| Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics | 2008 | Buy |
| The Anatomy of England: A History in Ten Matches | 2010 | Buy |
| Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You | 2011 | Buy |
| The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper | 2012 | Buy |
| Kick and Run: Memoir with Soccer Ball | 2013 | Buy |
| The Anatomy of Liverpool: A History in Ten Matches | 2013 | Buy |
| Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina | 2016 | Buy |
| The Anatomy of Manchester United : A History in Ten Matches | 2017 | Buy |
| The Barcelona Inheritance / The Barcelona Legacy | 2018 | Buy |
| The Names Heard Long Ago: How the Golden Age of Hungarian Football Shaped the Modern Game | 2019 | Buy |
| Two Brothers | 2022 | Buy |
Jonathan Wilson is a British sports journalist and author who has written extensively about football (soccer) history and tactics. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and other publications, and has been a co-editor of The Blizzard, a quarterly journal of football writing. His thirteen non-fiction books cover a wide range of football history, from tactical analysis to biography to club and national team histories.
Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (2008) is his most influential book. It traces the evolution of football formation and tactical thinking from the game’s origins to the modern era and has been translated into multiple languages. Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You (2011) is a thorough biography of one of English football’s most complex figures. The Anatomy of England (2010), The Anatomy of Liverpool (2013), and The Anatomy of Manchester United (2017) each use ten key matches to tell the broader story of a club or national side.
His later books include Angels With Dirty Faces (2016), a history of Argentine football, and The Names Heard Long Ago (2019), about Hungarian football’s influence on the global game. Two Brothers (2022) is a more personal work. Wilson’s writing is analytical and historically grounded, aimed at readers who want football history with intellectual depth rather than pure fan celebration.