Football Voodoo : Magic, Superstition and Religion in the Beautiful Game

Football Voodoo covers those areas where soccer collides with sorcery from players' superstitions and rituals, use of colour, symbols and invocation right the way up to hiring mediums, witches and shamans to invoke curses in a bid to change the course of a team's fortunes. This is a world of hexed grounds, unlucky shirts, magic horses and burying cattle under goalposts. A place where managers urinate on corner flags, goalkeepers in the six yard box and dog mascots on defenders. It's a light hearted and easy to read volume by Chris Roberts who was previously responsible for books on the history of nursery rhymes (Heavy Words Lightly Thrown) London's bridges (Cross River Traffic) and redundant English words (Lost English).

Ilustração: Daniel Morgenstern