Balls - Paul Brown

Balls is an eclectic collection of amazing true stories from the world of football, revealing the bizarre and hilarious reality behind the beautiful game.

Favouring left-field over legend, the book celebrates colour-blind referees, colourful commentators, dodgy kits, dodgier haircuts, footballers called 'Primrose', players with prosthetic body parts, dangerous goal celebrations, suicidal own goals, pathetic penalty misses, God-fearing goalkeepers, gun-toting fans, shocking scandals, horrendous tragedies, bung-taking managers, UFO-spotting chairmen and loopy matches involving animals, robots and Nazis.

Recalling the antics of wayward geniuses like Paul Gascoigne, Diego Maradona and George Best, the book profiles football's craziest and most colourful characters:

What possessed a World Cup superstar to kidnap 120 Cameroonian pygmies?

Which ex-goalkeeper genuinely believes he is the Son of God?

Why was a former Southampton full-back offered the throne of Albania?

Was a former Everton striker really hung for stealing a sheep in Australia?

And whatever happened to Maradona's fake rubber penis?

Humorous and irreverent, the book presents hundreds of stories in chapters on sex, drugs, violence, rock 'n' roll and more, Balls is an unashamed celebration of the mad, bad and stupid aspects of football - the greatest game in the world.