Roger Bennett Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Roger Bennett is one half of the Men in Blazers duo who has been a long time soccer and culture commentator. The author was born and brought up in Liverpool in the United Kingdom, even though he was never quite as fascinated with the UK as she was with the United States.

He spent his teen years living in what was a decaying industrial city and went to a strict private school. As such, he always spent much of his time looking for hope and inspiration from across the Atlantic in the US. During this time, he spent a lot of time consuming the “Beastie Boys,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Miami Vice.”

While he was born in Britain, he fell in love with the Chicago Bears and the NFL after he spent some time in Chicago in 1985. He would eventually move to the United States and take up American citizenship.

He is now part of the Men in Blazer crew that provides one of the most entertaining and wildly informative podcasts about soccer. Even though it has been several years since he moved to the United States, his enthusiasm for the US and its homegrown sports has not yet faded. He published Reborn in the USA, his debut memoir in 2021.

Growing up as a teenager in Liverpool, Roger Bennett always felt like an outsider. He was Jewish kid that went to private school and lived in a working class and very catholic city. Needless to say, he was not a very popular kid in his school or in the neighborhood.

But there was always that one ideal and idea that always burned in the teenager’s heart. He dreamed of the United States with its beautiful women, sun kissed skies and MacDonald’s eating children with upturned collars. He always felt that his dull gray world became more colorful whenever he embraced popular American culture.

He was first introduced to the culture through “The Love Boat” which he says was his gateway drug. He would then move on to embrace the likes of Tracy Chapman, Rolling Stone, Run-DMC, John Hughes films and the NFL. These were things the ordinary American teen lived on.

But then he became friends with an American teenager who invited him to visit him in Chicago. He spent more than a month in Chicago and this would be a life changing moment. He would go to watch the Chicago Bears and from that night he knew just how much freedom and independence he had been missing.

The Liverpool of the 1980s in which Roger Bennett grew up was a dreary city. It was also a very dark time for the United Kingdom as industry had collapsed, unemployment had soared and the economy had plummeted, particularly in the north of England.

Liverpool then was akin to Baltimore, even if it was lacking the crab cake upside. It was hard to imagine that it was the gateway to the UK during the empire period, from which everything industrial was made and exported. The port had lost all its glamour as business was not so good and the empire was long gone.
Bennett always felt like his life was lived in black and white and it was at this time that he began to read everything about America. His memoir “Reborn in the USA” captures the universality of growing up, growing pains and finally coming out of where you came from.

The work is full of the 90s and 80s culture both from the United States and the United Kingdom. The coming of age story is also a love letter to America that comes with a hilarious and heartfelt sense of humor that Bennett is known for.

“Reborn in the USA” by Roger Bennett is a homage to the author’s new homeland of America. He had lived as a rank outsider in Liverpool as a teenager and was always obsessed with the borderline hooligan and deviant behaviour of his American peers.

Combined with the fact that he was the son of a prominent judge who was a huge campaigner of the hated Margaret Thatcher, he had few friends.
Since he was ostracized in the working class neighborhood and in school, the most fun he had was when he was watching Miami Vice and The Love Boat, reading years old copies of Rolling Stone, listening to metal music and rap and playing chess with his grandfather.

During this time, he always thought of himself as an American stuck in Liverpool, England. Roger is the voice of every teenager who would love to leave their hometown and head to a more exciting life full of adventure. These are teenagers that will do anything to get away from the awful formative years.
It is a moving yet funny story that beautifully tells of the universality of growing pains all over the world. When he finally gets the chance to travel to the United States and enjoy what had only been a dream, he takes it. The story expresses the reckless abandon that is typical of youth and young adulthood.

The ESPN World Cup Companion by Roger Bennett takes a dive into one of the most exciting sporting events in the World Cup.
For a full month every four years billions around the globe rearrange their lives, ignore their spouses and families and play hooky so that they can watch 22 men pursue athletic immortality and a small gold statue by kicking a ball around.

The work was written just before the 2010 World, which was very significant as it was the first to ever be held in Africa. The author writes an elegant and lively guide that is full of historical photos that celebrate the World Cup all the way from 1930.

It highlights the Cult Figures, Greatest Players, Rivalries, Games, Players and the best teams of each era. The two authors relish the game of football with all its brutality, beauty, subtlety and vulgarity, as they examine all elements of World Cup culture.

It captures the biggest divers and divas, the DNA of the biggest teams, the five soccer fans from hell, the physics of the freekick and the penalty shootout psychodrama.