Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Behind the Curtain | 2006 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 2 | Sunderland: A Club Transformed | 2007 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 3 | Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics | 2008 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 4 | The Anatomy of England: A History in Ten Matches | 2010 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 5 | Brian Clough: Nobody Ever Says Thank You | 2011 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 6 | The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper | 2012 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 7 | Kick and Run: Memoir with Soccer Ball | 2013 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 8 | The Anatomy of Liverpool: A History in Ten Matches | 2013 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 9 | Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina | 2016 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 10 | The Anatomy of Manchester United : A History in Ten Matches | 2017 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 11 | The Barcelona Inheritance / The Barcelona Legacy | 2018 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 12 | The Names Heard Long Ago: How the Golden Age of Hungarian Football Shaped the Modern Game | 2019 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
| 13 | Two Brothers | 2022 | Jonathan Wilson | Buy |
Jonathan Wilson’s thirteen non-fiction books on football span sixteen years of writing and cover a broad range of topics within the sport. The collection includes tactical history, club history, national team history, biography, and memoir. Behind the Curtain (2006) looked at football in Eastern Europe, while his debut was followed quickly by the narrower focus of Sunderland: A Club Transformed (2007).
Inverting the Pyramid (2008) became the work Wilson is best known for. The book’s examination of how football formations developed over more than a century established him as one of the sport’s leading historians. His Anatomy series – England (2010), Liverpool (2013), Manchester United (2017) – uses a format of ten significant matches to build a portrait of each subject.
The later books broaden his geographic focus. Angels With Dirty Faces (2016) covers Argentine football’s long history, and The Names Heard Long Ago (2019) addresses the Hungarian golden age of the 1950s and its lasting influence on how the game is played. Two Brothers (2022) closes the list. Readers with a general interest in football history can start with Inverting the Pyramid; those focused on a specific club or era can pick the relevant Anatomy volume.