For Whom The Ball Rolls [Paperback]

"Stories that bring out the passion, fears, hopes and failures of his characters, football fans or not."

"[Plenderleith's] is a bittersweet world in which football can bring joy, misery and bewilderment in the same story."

"Delicious black comedy ideal not just for football fanatics, but anyone with a wry sense of humour."

"This is a cracker of a book. Tough, tender, colloquial, lyrical. An impressive debut."

The ex-pro sitting in front of the TV, interminably replaying the last moment of his career; the political activist who's struggling to concentrate on a political seminar because he knows a vital international match is being shown in the bar; the failed, alcoholic actor who reflects on life from inside the club mascot; the quiet left-back who never speaks to any of his team-mates . . . Ian Plenderleith gets inside the heads of all his characters in this wonderfully eclectic collection of stories with football as their base, though not necessarily their theme. Beyond that are a handful of non-football stories to prove that life does exist away from the sporting turf, touching on subjects such as the loneliness of mail-order brides and deranged central European traffic police.

Media reviews of 'For Whom The Ball Rolls'
[From Total Football, March 2001]: A collection of whimsical football short stories with a sting in the tales... As a dip-into volume, there will be few better books written this year... These are well-crafted tales from a writer with a good grasp of the dynamics of the short story and a firm grip on the reality (and surreality) of what it means to be a football fan. If you're looking for a football book that goes beyond the player autobiography or club history, your search is now over. **** Richard Jones. RB

[From football365.com]:

REVIEWING football books is a double-edged sword. As you wade through page after page of dull-as-dishwater tomes explaining in excruciating detail that football is now heavily influenced by money and football/violence books in which ugly blokes with beer bellies tell you that they're very, very hard, the only thing to keep you awake is the knowledge that there are books like For Whom The Ball Rolls out there. Books written by people who love football.

Although this book is an entirely fictional collection of short stories, it manages to capture precisely what the game means to so many people in a way that no in depth academic study of footy, no matter how well meaning, ever will....

**** Mark Poole --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Ian Plenderleith is the author of For Whom the Ball Rolls and is a regular contributor to When Saturday Comes magazine.