Living in Australia has its ups and downs in terms of football. They’ve tended to rise and fall on the back of Socceroos success, but things have changed a great deal. There’s been some big ticket sales for the exhibition matches played in Melbourne recently with Real Madrid Roma and Manchester City demonstrating how far […]
Read more "An excellent contribution from Sepp!"Early last year, Emily Craven, Dan L. and I were having coffee. We met at Kelvingrove to discuss Locative Literature and the possibility that there was a way the University might be able to connect with Emily’s work. I’d pressganged Dan into being there. He and I had just started work on a journal article […]
Read more "Story City"John Turnbull, with the help of Alon Raab and Thom Satterlee, put together The Global Game, an anthology of important influential and downright fascinating football writing. The book, which gathered the classiest works from across the globe, was incredibly useful in my PhD research. It is one of the best books of and about football writing published to date. […]
Read more "John Turnbull and The Global Game"For as long as there’s been football, there has been great football writing. Geoffrey Green (non-fiction) and Robin Jenkins (fiction) and Brian Glanville (both) and Hugh McIlvanney (the man who described George Best’s feet as being as sensitive as a pickpocket’s hands) to name a few of my favourites. Jonathan Wilson, a modern contemporary, is […]
Read more "Finding good football writing"As well as playing and training for Chelsea (for the vast majority of his career), Manchester City (one season), and New York City (The US arm of Man City’s operations (we have Melbourne City in Aus)) and of course all his work with the England, Frank Lampard has penned a series of football novels for […]
Read more "The Magic of fiction and Frank Lampard"The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015. What a tournament! Unfortunately my telly is broken so I haven’t watched live games. Last time we moved, I pulled the ariel socket right off the back of it, which was all right, until we cut the Foxtel cord in favour of online streaming. I’m an eedjit, but I’ve been […]
Read more "The Matildas and a love of Women’s football"Everything about my reading and research of football novels (and I can say, hand on heart, my research has led me to read hundreds of them – not exaggerating) made me not want to read Mr Cleansheets. It looked every bit the mediocre romanticised tosh so often turned out when a failed footballer wrestles their […]
Read more "Keeping it Clean-ish: A review of Mr Cleansheets by Adrian Deans"Besides write about writing about football, I’m going to further impress upon your patience with another keen interest – location-based storytelling. I’m working on some research around it, because I did a wee bit a couple of years ago. But really its because the use of words and images and sound and puzzles in mostly […]
Read more "tell your story walking"Read at a time stories when Sepp Blatter feared entering the US in case the FBI collared him, Match-Fixer, Neil Humphreys’ 2009 novel offered a sharp reminder of the potential power of sports fiction. You could argue, it’s become sharper still as we watch el diablo Blatter crouch, wait for his moment to withdraw his resignation, and pounce on […]
Read more "Match Fixer – not a football novel."A guy I know and deeply love (he ain’t heavy…) has joined the ranks of those who find solace in the open waters and swimming in places in temperatures most people find rationally challenging. And he’s been writing about it: the shivers, the equipment, the mental undertakings. He also bangs his faux leather drum about his paleo […]
Read more "there’s loneliness in long distance swimming, but there’s a bit more to it than that…"
shugmcgowan 