The dramatic and controversial history of the world’s leading tournament. Brian Glanville’s classic account is a celebration of the great players and matches from Uruguay in 1930 to Korea/Japan in 2002 – a bold attack on all those who have mismanaged the ‘beautiful game’.

A former Football Correspondent of the Sunday Times for thirty odd years and contributor to That Was The Week That Was for BBC Television. Brian has published some 20 novels in many different countries, including the widely successful, History of the World Cup andChampions of Europe.

Brian’s literary works cover a range of forms: a Florentino novel, A Roman Marriage, Along The Arno; five collections of short stories which have been read on BBC’s Radio 4; numerous plays, including A Visit To The Villa in which Sir John Gielgud recently played the lead; a musical,Underneath The Arches with Patrick Garland and Roy Hud; and The Olympian, The Rise of Gerry Logan which Franz Beckenbauer called the best novel on football he had ever read.

For decades Brian has been the English Correspondent for Italian sports dailies and has made infinite appearances on television and radio all over the world.