Football is habitually, sometimes fatally - well, it's a funny old game of two halves, innit? - afflicted by woolly writing, so a comprehensive reference book which is also cogently expressed is a joy to behold. This history of the World Cup has a venerable air, as well it might, since it began life in 1973 as The Sunday Times History of the World Cup and has expanded and updated itself to take account of the tournaments played since then. It also takes account, as best it can, of next year's finals in France - a neat closure of sorts, for the World Cup was dreamed up by two Frenchmen, Jules Rimet and Henri Delaunay. Glanville traces the competition's development in teeming, three-dimensional detail from its inauspicious beginning in Uruguay in 1930 to the faded glamour of USA 1994; every detail is in place, every player recreated, every marvellous moment relived. You don't read this book - you hear it, smell it, feel it crunch into your gut. A.W.Reviewers: Brian Fallon, Arminta Wallace, Eileen Battersby