Mr Corinthian (Pa Jackson and the Casual Corinthians)

Mr Corinthian is the first-ever biography of Nicholas Lane ('Pa') Jackson, founding father of the famous Corinthian Football Club. This team of amateur gentlemen was a phenomenon in the game's early years. Achieving victories over FA Cup winners and league champions, their players twice comprised the whole England national team, while their overseas tours introduced the game to countries that would later become footballing superpowers. Jackson has been hailed as the architect, visionary and genius behind this celebrated club. But 'Pa', as he was affectionately known, was not what he seemed. An incorrigible self-publicist and social climber, he cultivated the appearance of a sophisticated English gentleman and a 'grand old man of sport'. For the last 100 years, his version of the Corinthian story, as told to club members, has been accepted as a faithful record of events - but it wasn't. Did the club's historians conspire to fabricate an undeserved reputation? This book is a search for the truth.