Inside the Hermit Kingdom: Football Stories from Stalinist Albania

Inside the Hermit Kingdom charts the history of Albanian football from 1945 to 1991, when the country was ruled by modern Europe’s most brutal and oppressive regime.

The book features a chronology of Albanian football history interspersed with iconic games that shaped the nation’s favourite sport. It details the matchday experience in Stalinist Albania, tells the story of a league footballer during the regime years and charts the growth of street football in Hoxhaist Tirana.

You’ll read about the demise of ’The Party’ and Stalinism in Albania and the effects their disintegration had on football, peering beyond 1991 into a future riddled with conflict, uncertainty and, oddly, hope.

The era is brought to life by the accounts of Albanians who lived through it, which capture the importance of football to a populace starved of any other source of communal enjoyment. The otherworldliness and innate cruelty of the Stalinist regime provide a terrifying backdrop to their tales.

Phil Harrison is an expert in the field of Cold War football, writing and co-editing for KIT Magazine and 3Retro, and has written articles in collaboration with TOFFS and Admiral marketing teams. Phil is the authoritative voice of the Fussball Geekz podcast and has guested on numerous other podcasts featuring discussions on Albanian and East German football.