The Oval World | Tony Collins

Subtitle: A Global History of Rugby
Author: Tony Collins
Publisher: Bloomsbury (2015)
ISBN-10: 1408843714
ISBN-13: 9781408843710
Condition: Very Good. The cover has some scratches and wear to edges and corners. Some light marks on the outside edges of the pages. Very slight reading crease down the spine.
Binding: Softcover 
Pages: 551
Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.2 x 4.2 cm
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by Tony Collins
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Rugby has always been a sport with as much drama off the field as on it. For every thrilling last-minute Jonny Wilkinson drop-goal to win the world cup or Jonah Lomu rampage down the touchline for a try, there has been a split, a feud or a controversy.

The Oval World is the first full-length history of rugby on a world scale - from its origins in the village-based football games of medieval times up to the globalised sport of the twenty-first century, now played in well over 100 countries.

It tells the story of how a game played in an obscure English public school became the winter sport of the British Empire, spread to France, Argentina, Japan and the rest of the world and commanded a global television audience of over four billion for the last world cup final.