More Than a Game: When Sport and History Collide by Jan Stradling
Sporting events are battles. To the fan they are simply battles waged between sportsmen and women, but the battle is sometimes part of something much bigger a war that may involve not only the players on the field but also their race, faith or political beliefs. More Than A Game looks at the fascinating stories behind some of the world's most famous sporting battles and examines the underlying reasons that made them so memorable from athlete Jesse Owens flying in the face of Hitler's white supremacy beliefs by winning four gold medals in the same day at the Berlin Olympics in 1936; to tennis player Billie Jean King serving hard to win the fight for women's equality by taking on self-declared male chauvinist pig Bobby Riggs; to Argentinian soccer legend Maradona hitting back at the English for the Falklands War with his 'Hand of God' goal. The book explores the dramatic, emotional sporting moments that captured the hearts of nations and reveals why they always were much more than a game.