Foul Play
What's Wrong with Sport
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Icon Books
Published:3rd Apr '08
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
Common wisdom decrees that sport has an overwhelmingly positive influence on our civilisation. It's good for your health, builds character, unites nations and generates peace and love and understanding across the globe...Or so we are told by sporting evangelists who spread the word on the back - and now increasingly the front - pages of our newspapers. But are we being sold a lie? "Foul Play" shows how our belief in the value of sport is misplaced.Tracing the history of organised game-playing, it argues that sport is a last refuge for sexism, racism, homophobia and animal cruelty. It cites neglected research in psychology, showing how playing sport tends to impinge negatively on your morals. And it asks why sports fans are so judgemental about what is, after all, only a game."Foul Play" is for anyone who believes that their head is not just for keepie-uppies.
‘One of the year’s most amusing reads, a carefully controlled rant backed with well-researched facts, which makes for thought-provoking, if not always comfortable, reading.’ -- Observer
‘This is a timely book, and one that, being written in very easy-to-read prose, takes the fight right to the enemy.’ -- Guardian
‘Foul Play offers an impressive extended essay into sport’s many failings.’ -- Metro
‘The book is provocative, well-researched and turns up a lot of interesting and amusing anecdotal evidence.’ -- Daily Telegraph
‘It is eminently readable, humorous in parts, breathtakingly cynical in others, but throughout argues that sport is bad for mind, body and soul.’ -- Scotland on Sunday
‘Entertaining, thought-provoking and well worth a read.’ -- Scotland on Sunday
‘Well, Joe Humprhreys is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore, and has written a shibboleth-busting polemic to prove it. No opportunity is overlooked not only to debunk popular assumptions of the social and personal utility of sport but to expose the various hypocrisies and inconsistencies of the major sports’ governing bodies.’ -- Irish Times
ISBN: 9781840468908
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
208 pages