ANNA BLACK – THIS GIRL CAN PLAY by Texi Smith

The fourth novel from author Texi Smith tells the story of Anna Black, a product of suburban Sydney’s large grassroots soccer clubs who blossoms into being a local star turning out for Australia’s biggest W-League clubs, and a regular starter with the Matildas. Anna Black – This girl can play charts Anna’s football journey culminating in the Matildas reaching the final of the 2023 World Cup on home soil and a move to the USA, as well as her life journey as she discovers that falling head-over-heels – something she thought was not for her – can and does happen.

Read our review here: Book Review: Anna (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: Popcorn Press. March 2021. Paperback: 262 pages)

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JARROD BLACK – GUILTY PARTY: ANOTHER UNASHAMED FOOTBALL NOVEL by Texi Smith

In the third instalment of the Jarrod Black series of ‘unashamed football novels’, the Australian journeyman footballer, Jarrod Black, finds himself on national team duty, running out on to his field of dreams, and caught up in a situation not of his making.

Read our review here: Book Review: Jarro (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: Popcorn Press. May 2020. Paperback: 306 pages)

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JARROD BLACK – HOSPITAL PASS: AN UNASHAMED FOOTBALL NOVEL by Texi Smith

Australian midfielder Jarrod Black is a Football League player in England, plying his trade in a team gunning for promotion.

With only a few games left to secure that automatic promotion spot, join our man as he lives through the highs and lows of the end of season dog fight.

Will off-field drama and major challenges unhinge the season?

From the author of Introducing Jarrod Black, this is another unashamed football novel.

Read our review here: Book Review: Jarrod Bl (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: Popcorn Press. March 2019. Paperback: 266 pages)

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INTRODUCING JARROD BLACK: AN UNASHAMED FOOTBALL NOVEL by Texi Smith

Aussie midfielder Jarrod Black is a successful player in the English Football League.

Whilst the Premier League has eluded him so far, and despite his advancing years, could this be the season when it all finally comes together?

Join our man on a journey through the eyes of a footballer and live the highs and lows as his career takes a twist.

The first in a fictional series following the life and career of Jarrod Black by Texi Smith.

Read our review here: Book Review: Introducing Jarrod Black – An Unashamed Football Novel by Texi Smith (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: Popcorn Press. March 2019. Paperback: 274 pages)

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WHEN THE SEAGULLS FOLLOW THE TRAWLER: FOOTBALL IN THE 90s by Tom Whitworth

Football changed in the 1990s. For better, for worse – but mainly for better. The shirts and shorts got baggier and brighter. Exotic-named players were enticed from overseas. New stadiums were built in the wake of the Taylor Report. The Premier League emerged, and England hosted its first international tournament since 1966. The era of ‘New Labour’ and ‘Cool Britannia’. It was the decade English football went mainstream.

In When the Seagulls Follow the Trawler author Tom Whitworth travels to the hotbeds of English football – the cities of London, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle – to meet the people who lived through that era of great change: the players and the managers, the owners and the fans. He looks back at key moments, the teams, the title races, the twists and turns, the characters and the rivalries. All from a decade when English football began to shrug off its bad-lad image – at least off the pitch – and move out of the darkness and into the light.

(Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd. March 2021. Paperback: 256 pages)

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MAN FRIDAY: THE SECOND HALF by Stuart Kane

It is July 1976 and Robin Friday is now a Third Division footballer, but he still dreams of reaching the top of his profession.

There is only one thing that stands in his way: himself.

Kane takes us inside the mind of Friday and brings him back to life in this vivid tale of one of football’s wildest men.

This biographical fiction finally reveals the details that led to his difficulties at Reading and Cardiff City before his tragic death aged just thirty-eight years old.

Read our review here: Book Review – Man Frid (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: Helpston Fuller. November 2020. Paperback: 324 pages)

 

 

 

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MAN FRIDAY: THE FIRST HALF by Stuart Kane

Robin Friday dreams of being a professional footballer: rejection, drugs, borstal, and a near-fatal industrial accident won’t stop him.

In early 1974, Reading’s manager, Charlie Hurley, signs Friday. After three games, it is plain to see that he’s a very special talent, but it’s also clear to Charlie Hurley that he has an untameable spirit on his hands.

This biographical fiction takes the reader into the nerve endings of Friday’s character, into the smaller moments, and brings him back to life and finishes in the summer of 1976. It is a story of love, crime, disloyalty, friendship, humour, and some battling football scenes.

This is Man Friday: the first half.

Read our review here: Book Review: Man Fri (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: Helpston Fuller. May 2020. Paperback: 326 pages)

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THE GREATEST FOOTBALLER YOU NEVER SAW: THE ROBIN FRIDAY STORY by Paul McGuigan & Paolo Hewitt

Robin Friday was an exceptional footballer who should have played for England. He never did.

Robin Friday was a brilliant player who could have played in the top flight. He never did. Why? Because Robin Friday was a man who would not bow down to anyone, who refused to take life seriously and who lived every moment as if it were his last. For anyone lucky enough to have seen him play, Robin Friday was up there with the greats. Take it from one who knows: ‘There is no doubt in my mind that if someone had taken a chance on him he would have set the top division alight,’ says the legendary Stan Bowles. ‘He could have gone right to the top, but he just went off the rails a bit.’ Loved and admired by everyone who saw him, Friday also had a dark side: troubled, strong-minded, reckless, he would end up destroying himself. Tragically, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, he died at the age of 38 without ever having fulfilled his potential.

This book provides the first full appreciation of a man too long forgotten by the world of football and will surely give him the cult status he deserves.

(Publisher: Mainstream Publishing. First published 1997. Paperback: 192 pages)

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A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME (THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY 2) by Gary Thacker

At the end of Thacker’s previous novel – The Games People Play – life had given aspiring manager Jon Moreton a good kicking and he was heading for the plane home.

He had failed to get his Spanish club, CD Retama, promoted and they looked set to fold. Sophia, his girlfriend/assistant coach, had left him, thinking he had conspired in the club’s demise.

As for his one-time friend Billy Swan, he was even more rock bottom, having succumbed to blackmail and sold out his mates.

In this much-anticipated sequel, will things take a turn for the better for Moreton? Will he cope back in England without Sophia? Will Swan turn up again like a bad penny? Has the Spain chapter of his life closed, or can anything be salvaged?

Expect a few twists in the tale, a few more jinking runs into the box and last-ditch, winning goals. It’s A Whole New Ball Game.

(Publisher: 1889 Books. November 2021. Paperback: 246 pages)

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THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY by Gary Thacker

Jon Moreton would have made it to the top-flight as a player: he had the mentality and ability, but his body let him down.

An old friend Charlie Broome comes to the rescue and gives him a break: managing the struggling Spanish amateur league side CD Retama.

Feathers are ruffled: he is mistrusted by the players and stand-in coach, Sophia Garrigues. Can he adapt to life in Spain and turn things around?

Plenty of twists and turns through the season in this tale of football, love, and betrayal.

Read our review here: Book Review: Th (footballbookreviews.com)

(Publisher: 1889 Books. October 2020. Paperback: 252 pages)

 

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