Martin Cloake
Writing / Editing / Communications
About Me
I'm a writer and editor who has worked on innovative websites, top-selling consumer magazines, authoritative business publications and award-winning books. I've had leading roles on high-profile and successful magazine launches, set up production systems, recruited and managed teams, and taught journalism. And I'm the author of 15 books with combined sales of over 150,000 copies.
​
I love working with and bringing the best out of people, and my teamworking abilities and interpersonal skills have been recognised wherever I have worked. I'm values-driven, hard-working and able to think strategically, and I'm a confident networker and public speaker.
​
For 10 years I was a board member of a voluntary organisation, spending eight years as co-chair in a role that involved dealing with senior figures in the football industry, government and the national media.
Books
Still Dreaming (Hawksmoor Publishing 2023)
​
Authors Alex Fynn and Martin Cloake follow Tottenham Hotspur through the 2022/23 season, another in which promise came to nothing, and ask why it is that Spurs continually fail to take full advantage of opportunities presented by the modern game. A game the club helped create.
An essential read for Spurs fans, this is also a look at what success means in today’s global game, and what it takes to achieve it. It is a hard-hitting but balanced analysis of the way Tottenham Hotspur has been run for the last 20 years, written by two people who have close knowledge of the club.​
​
Still Dreaming follows on from 1996’s Dream On – “A Football Classic” FourFourTwo.
One Step from Glory (Pitch Publishing 2019)
With the tale of Tottenham Hotspur's extraordinary run to the 2019 Champions League Final in Madrid at its heart, One Step from Glory examines manager Mauricio Pochettino’s time at Tottenham Hotspur. The authors examine how Spurs confounded all predictions to enjoy their most successful ever Champions League campaign - and what it meant for the future. Using match reports from national newspapers to provide the narrative thread, we drew on our backgrounds in football to explain why this campaign so fired the imagination - in a season with no signings, played mostly without a home stadium.
​
“Authentic, bringing out the way supporters became intoxicated on a heady mixture of excitement and disbelief as the run progressed”. Tottenham on my Mind blog
“This book is a ship in a bottle, a fly trapped in amber, a collection of memories. It’s a means of reliving, even for a moment, that feeling you had when the third Lucas Moura goal went in the back of the net in Amsterdam, or the resigned frustration that fell like a wave after just 26 seconds in Madrid."
Cartilage Free Captain blog
The Lane (Vision Sports Publishing 2016)
The Lane is the official history of White Hart Lane stadium, a lavish 232-page coffee table treat featuring original articles and packed with stunning photography.
​
The book tells the story of the building and development of the stadium since 1899, and details some of the great players and matches that have graced the famous ground.
​
Amazon #1 bestseller
​
Winner, Illustrated Sports Book of the Year at the 2017 Cross Sports Book Awards.
Judges described it as "a beautiful book that captures the heart and soul of a historic and much-loved sporting location, taking the reader on a journey through its history and providing a fitting tribute to all those who played on its hallowed turf”.
A People's History of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club (Pitch Publishing 2016)
​
The first attempt to write the history of a club's support, written alongside respected Spurs blogger Alan Fisher, this book uses original research and interviews to piece together a unique perspective on what the club means to its fans. It includes sections on the battles between the club's fans and the club itself over the identity of Tottenham Hotspur and on the emergence of an international fan base that is creating its own culture of support. Along the way it introduces a rich cast of characters.
​
Amazon #1 bestseller
​
“A splendid chronicle of the club's fans”
Guardian Sports Books of the Year 2016
​
"Next time a shiny-suited PR man suggests fans are merely consumers insist he reads A People's History of THFC"
Michael Calvin
​
"Vivid and well-researched" When Saturday Comes ​​
We Are Tottenham (Mainstream 2004/Cloake & Powley 2013)
​
In-depth interviews with a selection of Tottenham Hotspur fans about their support for the football club, woven together with the story of a dramatic season.
​
We Are Tottenham topped The Independent newspaper’s Sports Books chart, and was reviewed positively in The Sunday Times and Time Out. The great football writer Hunter Davies wrote the foreword, commenting that “this is the kind of book every football club should have”.
Publicity for the book included being interviewed live by Danny Kelly on BBC Radio London, and taking part in a public reading with Spurs legend Dave Mackay at one of writer Paolo Hewitt’s regular London events.
​
The updated 2013 edition, with a new introduction by Adam and I and a new chapter catching up with many of the fans featured in the first edition, is now available in print and ebook editions.
Taking Our Ball Back (Martin Cloake 2014)
A collection of writing from the New Statesman online, The Football Pink, Thin White Line and In Bed With Maradona, as well as new material and commentary.
​
"The best writer on the politics of football culture today"

Steve Redhead
​
"A brilliant, brilliant read" Tony Evans, The Times
"The best single-volume coverage of football culture and
support in the modern era" Tottenham on my Mind
​
"Great analysis of important issues" Michael Calvin
"Well worth a look" Ian Ridley
Sound of the Crowd (Martin Cloake 2013)
At Tottenham Hotspur FC, the 1882 movement aims to "sing for the shirt", reviving a tradition that meant "how loud you sing and how passionate you became wasn't dependent on how well Tottenham were playing".
​
In this ebook, I talk to the fans mobilising, place the movement in the context of a history of independent supporter organisation at Spurs, and imagine a different future for a game that can seem dominated by a sterile, manufactured culture.
The Boys from White Hart Lane (Vision Sports Publishing 2008)
In-depth interviews with key members of the Tottenham Hotspur team of the early 1980s, with exclusive access to Steve Perryman, Osvaldo Ardiles, Ricky Villa, Peter Shreeve and other stars of the era.
​
"Fantastic, really interesting book about a special bunch of boys" Alan Brazil, Talksport
​
"Fabulous nostalgia-fest" Julie Welch
​
"A compelling examination of one of the great Spurs teams, written with great authority, insight and humour." Paolo Hewitt
​
“A nostalgic trawl through the 1980s" Mike Walters, Daily Mirror
​
"A classic" John Crace, The Guardian
Tottenham Hotspur official titles
I've been a writer and consulting editor on a number of official and award-winning Tottenham Hotspur books. The Spurs Miscellany series sold tens of thousands of copies and ran to four editions between 2006 and 2009, each updated. The format was revised in 2009 as The Pocket Book of Spurs, featuring new material and mini-features, plus illustrations by Roy of the Rovers artist Bob Bond.
​
61: The Spurs Double was the club's official 50th anniversary publication, celebrating the first modern league and cup Double. It was a commercial and critical success, and was voted Illustrated Sports Book of the Year by the National Sporting Book Club.
​
The Glory Glory Nights was produced to mark the 50th anniversary of Spurs becoming the first British football club to win a European trophy, and was shortlisted for Illustrated Sports Book of the Year.
The Tottenham Hotspur Opus was a luxury large format special project for the club's 125th anniversary, consisting of 300,000 words and 1,500 pictures and weighing in at 30kg. I was Editorial Consultant, advising on content, recruiting key members of staff, checking facts and reading proofs, and writing over 25,000 words of features. This ​​included interviews with club legends Martin Chivers and Martin Peters, and a 7,000-word essay on the history of supporter culture at the club. I also contributed a series of short pen-profiles with fans - including actress Patsy Kensit, DJ Norman Jay and NBA superstar Steve Nash, interviewed writer and fan Hunter Davies and wrote an appreciation of Julie Welch's classic TV film Those Glory Glory Days.​
​
These titles are now out of print.​​​​​​
National Union of Teachers projects
​
Pride, Passion, Professionalism is the official history of the NUT, produced as the union planned to merge with 
the Association of Teachers and Lecturers to form the National Education Union.
​
I was given four months to research and complete this 40,000-word project, working alongside researchers and 
NUT staff members. The union didn't want a flat official history, but instead wanted to tell the story of collective 
efforts to influence and establish education policy, with 
people at the heart of it.
​
The book was launched at the NUT's conference in Brighton at Easter 2018 and was greeted enthusiastically. Copies are handed out to teachers on NEU training courses.
​
Martin and Erica's Journey is a pamphlet aimed at secondary school children and produced by the NEU and HET. It tells the story of the journey made by Dr Martin Stern and his sister Erica across Europe escaping from the Nazis in the 1930s, and is intended as an educational memoir and testimony. It was released to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2009 and has proved a valueable resource in promoting discussion of equality, diversity and remembrance of the Holocaust.
Career
I'm a writer and editor who has worked for some of the biggest names in business, consumer and customer publishing and for membership and campaigning organisations. ​​
I began working in the trade when I finished a degree in social sciences at the Polytechnic of Central London, taking a job at the Time Out Group as a writer and sub-editor on the group's consumer guides. I went on to work as a layout sub and writer in the business press until landing a job on the subs' desk of Take a Break magazine when readership reached over two million a week.
Over the next few years I worked on some of the biggest-selling consumer titles in the UK, and was Deputy Chief Sub on the team that launched Heat magazine. I spent a month based in Rotterdam working as a writer and editor on UEFA's official website covering the Euro 2000 international football tournament, helping the site to become the first to rack up over one billion hits. I was Chief Sub on a number of consumer and customer publishing titles until taking on a role in project development for H Bauer, where I worked until setting up a freelance business.
I taught journalism at a number of colleges, worked for charities, trade unions and consultancies and wrote regularly about finance, the media, culture and technology for a number of publications and websites.
I returned to staff employment when I was approached to become Group Chief Sub at a start-up content agency, Progressive, and worked there as the agency grew to employ around 100 staff, before moving to Sunday. After that I spent a year setting up a global news and content operation for online share-trading company capital.com before being recruited by global compliant communications specialist Global Relay to build a specialist content service.
I've written and worked on 15 books, including two award-winning official publications for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, and the official history of the National Union of Teachers.
My written work has appeared regularly in the national press and specialist websites and I'm a regular guest on a number of football podcasts. I was co-chair of the Supporters' Trust at Tottenham Hotspur FC, a formally-constituted voluntary organisation representing fans at club and national level, for eight years. The role involved dealing with senior figures in the game and a significant amount of casework. ​