It's nearly a century and a half since the first rules of football were thrased out in a London tavern. The lawmakers gathered there would hardly recognise the game as we now know it, with live television broadcasts and multiple camera angles, websites updating us on the facts and figures of our favourite clubs and personalities like Beckham, Gazza and Rooney making it onto as many newspaper front pages as back. Yet the game retains the basic premise as set out in 1863: the winning team is still the 11 men who score the most goals. The prizes not competed for — World Cup, Premiership, Champions League, Carling Cup — may be new, but the FA Cup, first contested in 1872, is still the most prestigious domestic knock-out competition around. This information-packed, fully illustrated book follows all the twists, turns and traditions that have made football the world's favourite game.
