A random history of football

Nowadays a top Premiership football club can spend ?50 million on a Portuguese pin-up or a legendary Italian goalkeeper, but you cannot take into account the effects of a dodgy takeaway meal, a dropped bottle of aftershave on a goalkeeper´s toe, or the fact that your most creative player has to leave town because of a chance drunken encounter with another player´s wife. It is these random moments that have shaped football as much as the headline-grabbing Cantona kung fu kick and that Russian linesman in 1966. In this witty alternative history of football you will learn: * Different sizes of football were used in each half of the inaugural World Cup Final of 1930. * Sheffield United almost signed Diego Maradona. * Saddam Hussein changed the result of an Iraq versus Chelsea match. * Bury FC´s Robbie the Bobby tops the league of worst-behaved mascots. From the height of international football to the scandal of the Conference league Christmas party that cost far more than a bar-bill, Colin Murray tries his best to make you believe, once more, in football´s unpredictability.