Foul Play: The Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport

Foul Play: The Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport

by Mike Rowbottom (Author)

Synopsis

There is cheating. And then there is cheating. But where does one end and the other start? Doping. Fixing. Sledging. Intimidating. Time-wasting. Diving. Ever since sporting contests began there have been rules, and for many competitors those rules have been there to be broken. Or maybe just bent a little... Foul Play offers an inside track on the dark arts employed in sport to gain an unfair advantage - on the football or rugby field, on the tennis or squash court, on the athletics track and the golf course, even on the bowling green or the Subbuteo table. Some cheating in sport is considered virtually par for the course, while other forms are completely unacceptable. But who, ultimately, makes that judgement? From ball-tampering and bribery in cricket to rugby union's `Bloodgate' scandal; from Diego Maradona's Hand of God to Alex Ferguson's managerial mind games; from the dodgy dealing of the ancient Greeks and the wily cunning of W.G. Grace to the doping scandals engulfing Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong, it's all here. Foul Play - sometimes funny, sometimes shocking - provides all the evidence you'll ever need that the sporting world is often anything but.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 18 Jul 2013

ISBN 10: 1408155796
ISBN 13: 9781408155790
Book Overview: Foul Play looks at cheating in sport in all its guises: from doping to match-fixing, from tampering with equipment to mind games. Where to draw the line between gamesmanship and outright cheating? Foul Play investigates the lengths some people will go to just to win.

Media Reviews
The book contains so many tales of skulduggery that many are sure to be new to you. **** * Rugby World *
A timely book ... This is an illuminating, entertaining excursion into sport's moral maze. Fair play to the author * Independent on Sunday, Book of the Week *
Author Bio
Mike Rowbottom has written about sport for The Times, the Guardian, the Observer and the Independent for more than two decades and is now chief features writer for insidethegames.biz. He has covered the last six summer Olympics and four winter Olympics, as well as many other sports. He co-wrote Olympic athlete Roger Black's autobiography How Long's The Course? and is the author of Usain Bolt: Fast as Lightning.