Coffee Table Book of: Water Polo (Hardcover)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Water Polo is a large format book of water polo, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the ball, caps with ear guards, floating goals and their nets, pools at dawn and dusk, the gear being made and cared for, and a few players seen far off in plain caps.

The kit is laid out plain: a yellow ball afloat on still water, two balls of different sizes side by side, white, dark blue and red caps with their round ear guards, the corner of a goal and its knotted net, a hand pump, a mesh bag of balls, a whistle on a cord, a tough close cut suit and a medicine ball for training on land.

The making follows a cap stitched at the sewing machine, new balls racked in the factory, a net mended knot by knot and a goal frame given a fresh white coat, then the care of the pool: drained, covered, its lane ropes reeled away and its nets hung to dry. The past runs from a laced leather ball and a cloth cap without ear guards to wooden goal posts in a river, a wool costume, a cork float, old indoor baths with iron galleries, open air lidos and sea baths filled by the tide.

Then the places, empty at every hour and in every season: pools in mist at first light, in summer rain and thunder, in autumn leaves, fog, frost and snow, under a full moon and under floodlights, goals moored in a mountain lake, a harbour and a tidal sea pool, and a few small players far off, racing for the ball, passing, shooting and rising high to block.

Short notes run through the book, on the rules and how the game is played, the gear and how it is made, and the history of the sport: the ball floats high on the water, and its pebbled skin lets a wet hand grip it, early balls were leather, and they soaked up water and grew heavy as a game went on, players tread water with the eggbeater, a kick that keeps both hands free for the ball, and the ball used in games for women is a little smaller than the one used by men.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.