The entire Ecuador team - all eleven players - were sent off in an international match in 1978! Because of a colour clash, Blackburn Rovers' players wore white evening dress shirts for their 1890 FA Cup final encounter with The Wednesday! In May 1950 Blackpool signed Billy Wright from a local junior club for a set of tangerine jerseys! These are just a few of the many hundreds of startling, unusual and improbable stories thrown up by the beautiful game over the years. In one of the most individual and irreverent collections of footballing facts ever produced, Tony Matthews has unearthed tales of the unexpected that will delight footy fans everywhere. Did you hear the one about the Argentine full-back who scored a hat-trick of own goals in less than an hour? Remember the England goalkeeper who was sent off after just twenty-seven seconds of a Premiership game in 1995? Read about them - and many, many others - here.

In 1920, the University of Texas Longhorns ate their mascot at a postseason banquet. In 1940, Turk Edwards of the Washington Redskins suffered a career-ending knee injury during the pre-game coin toss. In 1969, Clive Rush was nearly electrocuted while being introduced as the new coach of the Boston Patriots. During the 1893 Army-Navy game, a general punched a heckling admiral and challenged him to a duel, which resulted in President Grover Cleveland suspending the game for six years. Football’s Most Wanted™ features the worst players, the most inept teams, the strangest plays, the most bizarre nicknames, the most fantastic finishes, the dirtiest players, the oddest injures, the greatest upsets, and the most boneheaded calls in both professional and college football. Many of these 700 anecdotes, arranged in 70 top-ten lists, are published here for the first time. Football’s Most Wanted™ features the worst players, the most inept teams, the strangest plays, the most bizarre nicknames, the most fantastic finishes, the dirtiest players, the oddest injures, the greatest upsets, and the most boneheaded calls in both professional and college football. Many of these 700 anecdotes, arranged in 70 top-ten lists, are published here for the first time.

The Ultimate Companion to A Beautiful Game This new Rough Guide is the only soccer book of its kind. It uncovers the most amazing stories and the unlikeliest personalities on Planet Football, both past and present, that help to make soccer the greatest show on earth. We reveal the stories behind the mavericks and cult figures who make up the real heroes of the game - from cultured midfielders to jailbirds, drinkers to straight arrows, local legends to international wanderers. The book showcases an amazing and unusual roll-call of talent that stretches from Ferenc Puskas to Stan Bowles, Eric Cantona to Jose Chilavert and Garrincha to Perry Groves. Throughout, we run our eye over the special clubs - from the New York Cosmos to Berwick Rangers and Estudiantes; managers and football rivalries - from 'El Clásico' to the Faroe Islands derby; and recall extraordinary games from 'The Battle of Highbury' to underdog fixtures where the likes of Northern Ireland, Wimbledon, and Dynamo Kiev overcame the might of Spain, Liverpool, and the Nazis. Post-match analyses of football culture, ephemera, science, and some strange statistics, complete this ultimate fiesta of football fun. "Ain't it great to be alive? All you need is the green grass and a ball" -Pele

Football fans love lists: league tables; starting 11s; performance statistics. From the bestselling author of Hamlyn's Top 10 of Everything series comes a brand new collection of 250 exclusive lists that cover everything from the obvious to the obscure and uncover fascinating facts about the planet's favourite sport, including: Top 10 bestselling World Cup songs 10 World Cup unsung heroes Top 10 longest team names in the League of Wales 10 FA Cup giant-killers Top 10 highest-paid players 10 celebrities who had trials for professional clubs Top 10 football singles 10 unfortunately-named players Last 10 winners of the Mascot Derby 10 unusual football injuriesThe youngest goalscorers, the greatest comebacks, the worst disciplinary records and the most unusual club nicknames - all of these stats and more are revealed in this pocket-sized homage to the beautiful game. A conversational goldmine for men and the perfect present for the footy fanatic, Top 10 of Football is a must for every soccer-nut.

"Big Games provides readers with an in-depth look at ten of college football's biggest rivalries and what puts them in such rare company"--Page 2 of cover

The thrill of victory, the agony of a tight jockstrap. It’s the reason we love sports—you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes everything clicks, with the best athlete in the world competing at their peak, and the result is a thing of breathtaking beauty. But sometimes the opposite happens, resulting in moments of breathtaking hilarity, or astonishing inanity, or just plain head-scratching puzzlement. Welcome to The Stupidest Sports Book of All Time. Featuring: The most boring games in sports history Wise(ish) words on winning Stupid mascot antics The strangest things coaches have done to motivate teams And much, much more!

The Buckeye State has no shortage of strange, silly, goofy, quirky, eccentric, and just plain weird places, people, and things--if you know where to look. Discover the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock, the nation's only vacuum cleaner museum, Balto the Wonder Dog, the "bottomless" Blue Hole of Casalia, and lots more hard-to-believe stuff!

Readers will score a touchdown at their tailgate parties with Football’s Most Wanted™ II: The Top 10 Book of More Bruising Backs, Savage Sacks, and Gridiron Oddities by Walter Harvey. With fun facts and amazing anecdotes from professional and college football, it’s sure to delight fans new and old while presenting a wealth of interesting and amusing tidbits and trivia. Harvey takes over in the second half after a stellar performance by the starter, Football’s Most Wanted™, and is poised to lead your team to victory. With more than fifty additional top-ten lists on a plethora of pigskin possibilities, there’s something here for everybody. Harvey includes information on some of the greatest gridiron rivalries, amazing football streaks and records, the youngest coaches and oldest players, famous and defunct college football bowls, coaches who both excelled and failed when making the jump from college to the pros, and the most entertaining touchdown celebrations. He touches on footballers who go into commercials, introduces the famous “other halves” of football players, and even details ten of the longest scoring plays in NFL history. Football’s Most Wanted™ II: The Top 10 Book of More Bruising Backs, Savage Sacks, and Gridiron Oddities is a sure score for every fan.

Arguably the world's most popular sport, soccer has its own colorful lore, still little known in a nation only now beginning to give the game its due. This book offers the perfect opportunity to catch up on soccer's rich historyand to discover some of the funniest, most ironic, outlandish, and tragic stories ever to come out of the world of sports. Taking readers as far afield as the Faeroe Islands, Thailand, Madagascar, Belarus, Bhutan, and the North Pole, the selections inSoccer Storiesrange from the strange (Brazilian players paid in cattle by their cash-strapped club) to the wild (the Mexican prison warden who threw open all the cell doors in celebration of a World Cup victory) to the comical (the referee who ejected himself). Here is the plane crash that wiped out the Italian team on the eve of its fifth straight national championship; the spiteful African club that scored 149 goals against itself in one game; and the youngster who banked a shot into the goal off a passing seagull. As lively as it is informative,Soccer Storieswill engage fans of all levels.

No sport demands toughness more than professional football, and no sport celebrates it with as much joy, excitement, and pride. John Madden annually offers his picks of the top tough guys, and sick hits are shown repeatedly on jumbotrons nationwide and ESPN's Sportscenter. Anyone who's ever watched an NFL Films production can surely hear "the voice"--that distinctive narrator--lauding the warriors of the gridiron who lay it all out there. Imagine his voice as you say: "These tough men came to do battle today, and only the fiercest will win." Into this atmosphere comes Neil Reynolds, public relations manager for the NFL in Europe, and his new book Pain Gang: Pro Football's Fifty Toughest Players. From early day heroes, such as Bronko Nagurski, Clark Hinkle, and Frank "Bruiser" Kinard, to Hall of Famers like Ronnie Lott, Walter Payton, and Dick Butkus, to such modern-day iron men as Emmitt Smith, Brett Favre, and Rodney Harrison, Reynolds lauds some of the toughest, meanest, most inspirational, and hardest-working men in the roughest sport. He includes interviews with teammates, coaches, opponents, and the players themselves on what it means to be tough, how they characterize toughness, and even who was the toughest of them all. Some players fought through broken bones and tired bodies. Others laid out opponents with the hardest of hits. Still others proved themselves on the battlefields of World War II before joining this secondary field of battle. And some played hard and fast--mostly within the rules--in order to intimidate their opponents through sheer fear. Whatever their means, these guys were tough and knew it--and they made sure everyone else did as well. Meet the Pain Gang, and you'll know it too.