Metro
FOUL PLAY
What's WRONG with Sport
Shortlisted for the 2008 William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year Award.
'One of the year's most amusing reads, a carefully controlled rant backed up with well-researched facts.'
Observer
'impressive... Joe Humphreys writes from a fan's viewpoint and the moment of clarity that most football supporters eventually have – "What's the point of all this, why am I letting it affect my life so much?"'
Metro
'...this is a timely book, and one that, being written in very easy-to-read prose, takes the fight right to the enemy. And the enemy is the moronic football fan (ie, the dedicated one)... and indeed everyone who claims that sport builds character.'
Nicholas Lezard's paperback choice, The Guardian
'humorous... breathtakingly cynical... entertaining, thought-provoking and well worth a read'
Richard Moore, Scotland On Sunday
'I liked ‘Foul Play’, I enjoyed reading it, agreed with some of it and found most of it thought-provoking, but I won’t be joining Joe Humphreys in his New Age playground.'
Stephen Wilson, Dublin Review of Books
'An anecdote at the end, about rodeo cowboys faced with the cruelty of their sport, suggests there is hope. Read it,' James Mitchell, The Star, Johannesburg
‘Humphreys isn't just content to list the multitude of sins perpetrated by sport, but is happy to take a controversial line on doping and steroids (ach, what's the harm?) and to insist that watching sport rots the brain.’
Brian Donaldson, The List
'an entertaining work audaciously subtitled What's Wrong With Sport... Humphreys has landed himself with the task of explaining why sport is bad for us, and he has worked very hard at it.'
Andrew Baker, Sports Feature Writer, Telegraph.
'Joe Humphreys is mad as hell and he's not going to take it any more, and has written a shibboleth-busting polemic to prove it. No opportunity is overlooked not only to debunk popular assumptions about the social and personal utility of sport but to expose the various hypocrisies and inconsistencies of the major sports' governing bodies… Foul Play will be generate arguments that last well beyond half time.'
George O'Brien, editor of Playing the Field: Irish Writers on Sport, in a review for The Irish Times
‘It’s rare to find a book that makes you think about sport as a whole and not one small, easily-contained corner of it. You won’t agree with a good 40 per cent of what’s in here but that would be a terrible reason not to read it.’
Malachy Clerkin, The Sunday Tribune
'The author... rightly concludes that sport is one of the least self-critical areas of modern life. Written from the perspective of a knowledgeable fan... this book will certainly shake some long-held beliefs.'
James Copnall, Times Literary Review
FOUL PLAY
What's WRONG with Sport
is published by Icon Books, London (April 2008)
Comments can be posted to Joe Humphreys at: whatswrongwithsport@gmail.com