Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?

Ever since the children of penniless immigrants caught the train from Whitechapel to White Hart Lane - to be greeted with the refrain: 'Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?' - this forgotten tribe have helped to shape the Beautiful Game.

In telling the fascinating lives of these largely unsung trailblazers, Clavane uncovers a hidden history of Jewish involvement in English football. From Louis Bookman, the first Jew to play in England's top division, to the pugnacious winger Mark Lazarus, whose last-gasp goal won the 1967 League Cup for QPR, to shady figures like One-Armed Lou, a ticket tout who never told the story of his missing limb the same way twice, through to the businessmen who helped form the breakaway Premier League, and in the process changed the English game for ever.

“'Enthralling' Patrick Barclay.”

'[A] thought-provoking, absorbing exploration of what he terms 'English football's forgotten tribe'' Independent on Sunday. Independent on Sunday
'A splendid, warmly written slice of untold social history' New Statesman. New Statesman
Patrick Barclay

Anthony Clavane was born in Leeds in 1960. He started life as a history teacher and is now chief sports writer for the Sunday Mirror. He has won Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year and BT Regional Sportswriter of the Year awards. His previous book Promised Land: A Northern Love Story was named both Football Book of the Year and Sports Book of the Year by the National Sporting Club, Sports Book of the Year by The Radio 2 Book Club, and won the award for Football Book of the Year at the 2011 British Sports Book Awards.

Ever since the children of penniless immigrants caught the train from Whitechapel to White Hart Lane - to be greeted with the refrain: 'Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?' - this forgotten tribe have helped to shape the Beautiful Game. In telling the fascinating lives of these largely unsung trailblazers, Anthony Clavane uncovers a hidden history of Jewish involvement in English football. One that runs from Louis Bookman, the first Jew to play in England's top division, to the pugnacious winger Mark Lazarus, whose last-gasp goal won the 1967 League Cup for QPR, to shady figures like One-Armed Lou, a ticket tout who never told the story of his missing limb the same way twice, through to the businessmen who helped form the breakaway Premier League, and in the process changed the English game for ever.

Ever since the children of penniless immigrants caught the train from Whitechapel to White Hart Lane - to be greeted with the refrain: 'Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?' - this forgotten tribe have helped to shape the Beautiful Game. In telling the fascinating lives of these largely unsung trailblazers, Clavane uncovers a hidden history of Jewish involvement in English football. From Louis Bookman, the first Jew to play in England's top division, to the pugnacious winger Mark Lazarus, whose last-gasp goal won the 1967 League Cup for QPR, to shady figures like One-Armed Lou, a ticket tout who never told the story of his missing limb the same way twice, through to the businessmen who helped form the breakaway Premier League, and in the process changed the English game for ever.

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