Is there a sport you could turn professional at with only a year of coaching?

How can you give yourself a 1-in-12 chance of playing international soccer against Cristiano Ronaldo?

Which sport is the most profitable to participate in for the least amount of effort?

A highly amusing, alternative take on commonly accepted sporting knowledge. These, plus many more, are the questions posed and answered by Why Playing in Red Makes You a Winner... a diligently researched book that challenges us to use figures to take a quirky and sideways look at sport.

Packed with well-investigated observations and explanations of hidden phenomena, Why Playing in Red Makes You a Winner... explores the incredible idiosyncrasies that lie within world sport and will change perceptions of the games we love.

Written in a fun and accessible style by a bestselling author and featuring astute observations that range from the technical and serious to fun and entertaining, Why Playing in Red Makes You a Winner... offers a refreshing new take on major sports.

'A statto's delight. And with a smart variety of graphics alongside the author's myth-busting observations, it's a real page-turner' FourFourTwo.
'There's plenty of fun to be had' Independent on Sunday.

Gavin Newsham is an award-winning writer whose work regularly appears in the Sunday Times. His previous books include Once in a Lifetime, the story of the New York Cosmos and celebrated biographies of golfer John Daly (winner of NSC Best New Writer in 2004), The Official Treasures of Muhammad Ali and the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Fact File.