Stupendous Sports: Fantastic Football

According to FIFA, there are over 250 million people playing football in 200 countries, and an estimated 3.5 billion fans: nearly half the people in the world! All the more reason for there to be plenty of books about football for young fans who want to know about how football came about, the amazing stories connected to the sport and all the facts about how it’s played and who plays it.

Stupendous Sports: Fantastic Football begins with the origins of football in China more than 2000 years ago, followed by its existence later in England as “foteballe” – a rough, violent game which could feature hundreds of players, with goals miles apart and with so much fighting that King Edward II banned it in 1314. Fortunately, of course, football is very different nowadays, and the book also charts the rise of women’s football which is, today, rapidly growing into a very successful sport.

Following this with chapters on the positions of the players within a team, how a match works, skills and tactics and the future of the game, this amusing and well-written guide to football is a really enjoyable read, even for people who aren’t fans. However, its main appeal will be to die-hard football enthusiasts, who will find an awful lot to enjoy.