The most improbable, fascinating and endlessly entertaining sporting facts and stories, from prehistory to the present day.

Did you know that Henry VIII owned the first pair of football boots? Or that David Attenborough is responsible for yellow tennis balls?

A Load of Old Balls is the curious story of us and sport. It's about our mind-blowingly determined attempts to be the fastest, the strongest, the most skillful. In this endlessly entertaining tale of play and belonging, astonishing violence and jaw-dropping cheating, we learn what led ancient Egyptian athletes to have their spleens removed and discover why Michael Palin was disqualified from a conker tournament. Crossing millennia, continents and cultures, Harkin and Ptaszynski – the brainy researchers for BBC's QI and co-hosts of No Such Thing As A Fish – show us sport as we've never seen it before.

"The trivia book of the season . . . magnificent." SPECTATOR

** Published in hardback as Everything to Play For.

About the Authors

Anna Ptaszynski and James Harkin are senior researchers, writers and script-editors for the BBC’s QI, and two-fourths of the award-winning podcast No Such Thing As A Fish. Between them, they have authored 13 books with the QI Elves and toured sell-out shows across the world, from the London Palladium to the Sydney Opera House. They are long-suffering fan of Charlton Athletic and the Jacksonville Jaguars, respectively.

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