The Penalty Kick

‘Football, in the 1880s, was a rough and dangerous game. To address the abhorrent state the sport was in, William McCrum proposed a new and drastic sanction: the penalty kick.’

In 1891, a new measure against an excess of foul play was introduced into football by an amateur goalkeeper from County Armagh. Today Rule 13 has modernized the world’s most popular game – notably, through the shootout – in ways that continue to influence the sport, and have an astonishing psychological grip on our imaginations. A tale of sportsmanship, chance, and obsession, The Penalty Kick explores a doomed father-son relationship that could have been torn from the pages of a late-Victorian novel; the addiction of risk; and the edgy, ruthless, and egalitarian spirit of the people of Northern Ireland.