What You Think You Know About Football is Wrong: The Global Game’s Greatest Myths and Untruths

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Bloomsbury Publishing, Oct 31, 2019 - Sports & Recreation - 240 pages
Our view of football will never be the same again... Written by a world-respected football historian, this football history/gift title reveals the global game's greatest myths and untruths.

Football has been completely mythologized and many of the things football fans think they know about football and its history turn out not to be true. We want to believe the myths, and so they become accepted. So much football writing is not properly researched, and so the myths get repeated... again and again and again.

Backed up by the highest level of academic research yet written in an accessible, mass-market style, the book will explore the truth behind many accepted myths. For example, did you know:
- The Germans took football to Brazil, not the English
- Rugby and not football could quite easily have been the world's leading sport
- There are gay professional players ....and always have been!
- Goalkeepers should not dive for penalties
- Football hooliganism did not begin in England
- Shirt colours do make a difference
- Cambridge and not Sheffield is the home of the oldest football club in the world
- Arsenal should not be in the Premier League... they cheated to be there
- The Dynamo Kiev team were not executed after beating a German SS team in 1941
- England did not win the World Cup fairly in 1966 ... but not in the way you think!

Written by Kevin Moore, the founding director of the National Football Museum (the world's leading football museum), this thoroughly researched and authoritative book will debunk more than 50 of the greatest myths surrounding football.

From inside the book

Contents

The Germans do not always win on penalties
117
Home advantage is not as vital as we think and its value is declining
121
Its science not artistry that made the Brazilians the best at football
125
The World Cup has always been controversial
131
There are gay footballers and there always have been
137
The FA did not ban womens football in 1921
144
Football hooliganism is not the English disease
149
Footballers singing their national anthem does matter
153

Soccer and not American football could have been the main winter sport in the USA
34
Most fans are not loyal to one club they play the field
38
Black players are not new in English football
43
The English didnt spread football to Brazil it was the Germans
46
Theres no such problem as scoring too early
51
Cambridge and not Sheffield is home to the worlds oldest football club
54
Arsenal should not be in the Premier League
58
Leicester City will never win the Premier League again
62
The Dynamo Kiev team were not executed after beating a German SS team in 1942
66
20 is not the worst lead
70
Most football managers make no difference at all
73
Denis Laws backheel goal for Manchester City did not relegate Manchester United
78
Womens football is not new
81
Penalty shootouts are a lottery
85
It will never be a global game European countries will increasingly dominate the World Cup
90
Hooliganism is not and never has been a major problem in English football
95
Football shirt colours do matter
100
Africa is not and never has been a football backwater
103
English football has never been clean cheating has always been part of it
107
England is not the centre of football and for much of its history its been a backwater
113
The FIFA World Cup has not always been the most important international competition
157
The prawn sandwich brigade is not new
162
The Chinese did invent football
166
Womens soccer has never been more important than mens soccer in the USA
170
It will not be too hot to play football in Qatar
175
Its not a game of two halves
181
Wembley is not a worldclass stadium and never has been
184
Disabled players are not new they have always been part of the game
189
England will never win the World Cup again
193
Football in India is not new and has a greater tradition than cricket
197
The Zaire player in that World Cup moment did know the rules he was in fear of his life
202
There are great football films
207
The Premier League is not exciting its increasingly dull and predictable
212
Sir Alex Ferguson is not the greatest ever manager in English football
216
Association football will not last forever
220
Acknowledgements
223
Afterword
225
Bibliography
227
Copyright

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About the author (2019)

Dr Kevin Moore is the founding director of the National Football Museum (the world's leading football museum) and now serves in a research capacity at the Museum. He is on the editorial board of the world-leading academic journal for football, Soccer and Society, and holds key roles at the International Football Institute, the Chinese Football Museum and Indian Sports Museum.

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