Description

A Times Best Sports Book of 2023

‘Fascinating’ Daily Telegraph

‘Lively, rich and readable’ The Spectator

‘Thoughtful and entertaining’ Guardian

‘Completely eye-opening – every page contains a gem’ Marina Hyde

The remarkable stories of how sport shaped the British people.

The history of Britain is inseparable from our love affair with sport. Many of our most dramatic social shifts have played out in sporting arenas: cricket and class mobility, rugby and regional rivalry, tennis and gender equality, golf and battles for land, boxing and race-relations. The sporting theatre has even accelerated radical change via heroes including independence fighters, suffragettes and Jewish bare-knuckle boxers crashing the established order. From jousting between kingdoms to the rise of the Commonwealth Games at the end of the imperial era, More Than a Game is the fascinating account of the games, players and audiences that have defined Britain’s past.

Publisher Review

A superb historical overview of the eternally close and often symbiotic relationship between British sport and British society. Capacious, full of telling detail, unfailingly readable and, perhaps above all, imbued with rock-solid judgment, it deserves to become a classic of sporting literature — David Kynaston Absolutely fascinating and completely eye-opening – every page contains a gem. I loved it — Marina Hyde, author of WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! A fascinating insight into how sport is both driven by and a driver of societal change — Jonathan Wilson, author of INVERTING THE PYRAMID A sparkling history that makes the reader keep murmuring “I never knew that” — Matthew Engel, author of ELEVEN MINUTES LATE An elegant, richly-textured history — Michael Taylor, author of THE INTEREST Horspool places sport at the heart of Britain’s story . . . A joy . . . More Than a Game observes the grand sweep of British sporting history playing out as a set of eye-opening facts — Sunday Telegraph Thoughtful and entertaining — Guardian More Than A Game brilliantly and evocatively details the way we shaped this obsession and how it came to shape us and, indeed, our landscape — The Times, Best Sports Books of the Year Horspool writes briskly and clearly . . . if you like to watch sport while thinking politics, this is the book for you — Literary Review He has a lovely eye for memorable details . . . The most powerful theme of Horspool’s book, though, is his attention to women’s sport, so often marginalised in older accounts — Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times Highly original . . . lively, rich and readable . . . the range of Horspool’s knowledge is impressive — Leo McKinstry, The Spectator Fascinating . . . More Than a Game observes the grand sweep of British sporting history playing out as a set of eye-opening facts — Daily Telegraph Illuminating . . . [Horspool] has a lovely eye for the informative detail — Times Literary Supplement Offers something rich, textured and complex: a thoughtful history of how sport has shaped society and vice versa. You will find delicious nuggets, several “I never knew that” fascinomas, and the overdue correction of long accepted narratives about our sport-obsessed nation — The Critic