Football's Flaws & Foibles

by Richard Foster

Modern football is brilliant, and yet it is also utterly rubbish. For every part of the beautiful game that reminds us why we love it, there s another to drive us up the wall. Half-and-half scarves, designated singing sections, goal music and open letters - the list is endless. Football s Flaws & Foibles looks at some of the biggest transgressions and dissects just what lies at the heart of our annoyance. Featuring contributions from Kevin Day, Daniel Storey and more, this book provides moments of catharsis and debate in equal measure. If you ve ever paid for a plane to fly a banner over a football ground then this may not be the book for you, but for the rest of us this is a place to wallow in collective frustrations. So if you have ever been irritated, enraged, aggravated or exasperated by the game you love, this book is very you.

180 pages, Paperback

Published October 13, 2017

About the author

Richard Foster is a freelance sportswriter and author, mainly focusing on football. He is a regular features contributor for The Guardian Sport Network, plus a variety of websites and blogs mainly on the fortunes of Crystal Palace including The Set Pieces, HLTCO and Five Year Plan. He has also written pieces for The Football League, has appeared on talkSPORT, BBC London and various podcasts including Whistleblowers and The Palace Podcast.

Foster has written four books - the first, "The A-Z of Football Hates" is an irreverent look at what is rotten about the beautiful game and was published in August 2014.
"The Agony & The Ecstasy" - The Comprehensive History of the Football League Play-Offs, was originally published as a hardback edition in May 2015. A revised paperback edition to commemorate 30th anniversary of the Play-Offs came out in May 2017.

"Football's Flaws & Foibles" looks at the biggest transgressions of modern football, featuring such horrors as half-and-half scarves, plane protests and the England Band.
"World Cup Nuggets" is his latest book published in time for Russia 2018 it uncovers some of the weirder and more wonderful facts about "The Greatest Show on Earth".
He has also been contributing editor for two sports quotes books - "Talking Balls!" and "the Biggest Book of Talking Balls!".

He lives in North West London and is married with three children – all of whom are Palace fans.