The Ball is Round

Oct 8, 2024 2:30 PM

Author:David Goldblatt

The Ball is Round

THE DEFINITIVE, CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED BOOK ABOUT FOOTBALL

'Football conquered the world with its capacity to astonish, and this is its definitive history' The Independent

There may be no cultural practice more global than soccer. Rites of birth and marriage are infinitely diverse, but the rules of soccer are universal. No world religion can match its geographical scope. The single greatest simultaneous human collective experience is the World Cup final.

In this extraordinary tour de force, David Goldblatt tells the full story of football's rise from chaotic folk ritual to the world's most popular sport.

The Ball Is Roundilluminates football's role in the political and social histories of modern societies, but never loses sight of the beauty, joy, and excitement of the game.

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'Goldblatt writes with authority, humour, and passion, not least in the accounts of famous or significant matches scattered throughout the book' Times Literary Supplement

'Since it became a worldwide phenomenon, nobody has attempted to write an overall history of the game. Now David Goldblatt's stunning book will be the measure against which all other such volumes are judged' The Guardian

'Goldblatt's magnum opus . . . Anyone with a brain and an interest in football will enjoy this book' The Daily Telegraph (London)

Reviews

A tale anyone who has ever played football can relate to, a tale any number of people could have written. But I'm glad it was Barney Ronay who actually did it. His version is funny, sharp, poignant, his ear for conversation acute. And his prose is at times blissful, filling his book with observations that lift it way above being just an accumulation of park football yarns... he makes you care for a bunch of footballing saddos, root for them, really hope they manage to pull it off

—— Telegraph

Resounds with matey banter. His descriptions of the actual games are hilarious, and his book has more insight into the pleasures, pain and the point of football than the combined autobiographies of an entire premiership squad

—— Independent on Sunday

Hilarious ... affectionately captures the rites of passage of your average footy-mad guy

—— Metro

If Barney Ronay played football as well as he writes about it nobody would have heard of David Beckham

—— Harry Pearson

Michael writes about disaster, humiliation, rejection and ridicule - the hilarious truth

—— Nicholas Hytner

Brilliantly witty

—— Ed Smith , Daily Mail

It is wonderfully written - full of wit, gags, self-deprecating asides and a pure, unfettered understanding of a man's limitations - and it talks to all of us. You should buy it. You really should go out straight away and pick up a copy. It'll make you feel so much better

—— All Out Cricket

At last the work of genius that will finally bring the long-suffering cricket addict a measure of understanding in the world. A wonderful and very funny book

—— Sir Tim Rice

You read the wonderful Michael Simkins with a mixture of horror and delight

—— David Hare

One of Britain's funniest writers

—— Daily Mail

Extremely funny - whether or not you know your bails from your balls

—— Daily Mail

One of the funniest sporting memoirs ever

—— Sunday Telegraph

Almost painfully funny

—— Observer

An all-too honest account of a playing career that just got better and better, despite threatening to go off the rails.

—— Sunday Mercury

An extraordinary book.

—— Irish Independent

Harrowing and brutally honest...a gripping story.

—— Derby Evening Telegraph

Brutally honest.

—— The Irish Post

Less a football autobiography, more repentant confessional.

—— Kevin Hughes , FreeSport

stunning

—— FourFourTwo

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