Some years ago I challenged myself to start taking photos of the Tor that would never make it onto a picture postcard, but ironically they became so popular on my Normal For Glastonbury blog that I turned them into a book of postcards, the postcards were so popular that last year I decided to put the same images on a calendar. It’s fun, quirky, practical and makes the ideal gift! Tor! challenges the myth that German football is ‘predictable’ or ‘efficient’ and brings to life the fascinating array of characters who shaped it: the betrayed pioneer Walther Bensemann the enigmatic genius Sepp Herberger the all-conquering Franz Beckenbauer the misfit Lothar Matthäus the coaches reshaping the modern game and even the radio commentator Herbert Zimmermann, whose ecstatic cries of ‘Tor!’ greeted the winning goal in the 1954 World Cup final and helped change a whole nation’s view of itself.įully revised and updated, Tor! is the definitive history of German football.My ‘Crap Views of Glastonbury Tor’ full-colour A3 Wall Calendar for 2023 is now available. Tor! (Goal!) traces the extraordinary story of Germany’s club and international football, from the days when it was regarded as a dangerously foreign pastime, through the horrors of the Nazi years, to the postwar triumphs, the World Cup victories, and all the way up to the present day. Germany did not have professional players or a national league until the 1960s, yet it became one of the most successful football nations in the world. ‘Have you read Tor!? That’s a book about German football, that's a really good book that’ – Mark E.
‘Beautifully crafted, demolishes myths with the cold-blooded efficiency of a literary Gerd Müller’ – The Times ‘In Hesse’s capable hands, the history of German football seems more entertaining, unpredictable and scandal-infested than England’s’ – FourFourTwo ‘without question the most entertaining historical football book ever written’ – The Guardian
Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award
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