Twenty years ago, Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-0. It was, by any reckoning, one of the most significant games the domestic game has ever seen. With virtually the last kick of the ball that season, The Gunners stole the title away from the perennial champions on goal difference.

Liverpudlian writer Andrew Hussey says that, even now, it is a source 'of acute physical pain'. Coming as it did so soon after Hillsborough, he says, 'it was a kind of metaphysical insult'. For Arsenal fans, the author Nick Hornby has already summed up the glory of the goal in Fever Pitch: 'the greatest moment ever'.

But author Jason Cowley, a lifelong Arsenal fan and a former editor of the Observer Sport Monthly, doesn't just rely on dramatising the already dramatic events of those 90 minutes plus stoppage time in The Last Game. His success is in considering the match and all that came with it as a watershed moment in history.

As you’d expect from a man now editing The New Statesman, Cowley incorporates the political aspect of the period – namely Thatcher's blunt refusal to find a solution to the hooliganiam of the 80s as well as the sweeping changes, including all-seater stadia, that came with the Taylor Report.

The focus, though, is largely on Hillsborough. The deaths of the 96 Liverpool fans in that FA Cup final had such a profound emotional effect on all involved that it can be easy to view it solely as a tragedy and fail to realise just how big an impact it had on the sport.

The Last Game takes these incidents and maps them onto Cowley's life, his relationship with his father and experience of the wider world. Read a couple of chapters and the subjects change rapidly, from a look into the mindset and influence of George Graham through to Cowley attempting to woo an Evertonian girl after an Echo and The Bunnymen gig; from Steve McMahon's recollections of his 'one-minute-to-go moment' in the big match through to Keith Allen’s attempts to get the England team to sing 'E for England' at Italia ‘90; and, in various guises, from life through to death.

It's biographical, anecdotal, factual and emotional, changing tack constantly. It's much the richer for it, too, seguing from topic to topic like a drunk at a dinner party, but it never feels clumsy or self-indulgent, always informative, considered and interesting.

For Liverpool fans, it's clearly an excruciating chapter in their history. In the aftermath of Heysel came Hillsborough, and, with the contribution of Michael Thomas, the 1988/89 season ultimately marked the beginning of the end for the club's domestic dominance. For many, too, it marked the beginning of the end of their love affair with the sport.

But the book is about much more than metaphysical insults and the greatest moment ever. The game has since changed beyond all recognition, with so much lost and so much gained. English football as it was may have died, but it's been reborn – now fashionable, popular and acceptable.  With a single football match at its core, Cowley has produced a genuinely fascinating book about life and death: in football, in history and, just as significantly, as individuals.