Book Review: Football for Brains! by Steven End

The lockdown during COVID saw people turn to various activities whilst at home. For Steven End it provided the opportunity to produce a book, prompted by the loss of a relative to dementia and the increasing cases in the football world, called Football for Brains! The title reflecting that this is predominantly a quiz book of football questions to get the grey matter ticking, and additionally that the author is making donation to The Scores Project (details below) looking into dementia at the University of East Anglia.

It is not End’s first writing venture, having independently published the Ups and Downs of Ipswich Town in December 1997. This latest offering though whilst dominated by over 700 football quiz questions (741 to be precise), there are also some very short articles on the following, Collecting Cards and Stickers, A diary of a memorabilia Collector, Football Programme Reviews, eBay news and views before and during lockdown, Football in Lockdown, Promotion Winning Canaries, and Family Footie between lockdowns.

Like any good quizzer will know, the questions are only easy if you know the answer! To give you an indication of the type of questions there are in this book, here are the first and last questions.

(1) Everton beat Liverpool 2-0 in the Premier League on 20^th February 2021. Can you remember the last time Everton overcame Liverpool in the Premier League?

(741) Brett Emerson played internationally for which country?

The questions vary in style, so there are some anagrams, some multiple choice, some true or false and as above just straight questions, which take in non-league players, managers and teams all the way through to the international game.

It would perhaps have been good to have sections within the questions so that for instance, readers would be presented with a set of questions on stadiums and grounds, another on players and so on. However, this is a book that will be ideal for those away days sat on a train or in the car as fans travel to games or for those having a few pre-match drinks.

As detailed above, a donation from the sale of each book goes to The Scores Project which is an independent research study designed to better understand the cognitive health of athletes as they age. Their current focus is on former professional footballers and studying links between dementia, head injuries and heading the ball.

(Independently published. April 2021. Paperback: 100 pages)