Matthew Wood’s cover illustration for John Wheatcroft’s collection of football-related short stories, The Strange Death Of Football
YORK author and journalist John Wheatcroft set out to write a volume of stories in which football was the subject or the starting point.
“I’m using the sport to explore universal themes such as love, friendship, family and loss,” he says of The Strange Death Of Football’s resulting tales of winners and losers. “Even the pastiche boys’ football story, Portsmouth v Jupiter, satirises English post-war insularity.”
Introducing the stories, John says: “The lives of two international players are changed forever following a road accident. A young orphan learns lessons for life from his great-uncle, helped by a shared love of fooball, words and story-telling.
“A referee faces the toughest decision of his career in a testimonial match. A vicar thinks about his life and faith as he watches his relegation-bound team losing heavily.
“These inter-connected stories often have the feel of a novel as their protagonists, from Manchester to Portsmouth and Glasgow to Naples, cope with life’s highs and lows. For them, football is occasionally a curse, more often a blessing but always more than a game. There’s also a sting in the tail, a warning from the future.”
After publishing two novels, Here In The Cull Valley (2016) and Rocket Boy (2019), John has ventured into short stories for the first time. “However, to some extent I’ve tried to have it both ways, giving the 11 stories the occasional feel of a novel by revisiting characters and themes.
“With one stand-alone exception, The Footballer In Spite Of Himself, every story ties up with at least one other tale. The book also offers a picture of what football was like during different stages of its development, from war-time to the modern (and perhaps final!) era.”
Nostalgia plays its part, albeit without the slightest sentimentality. “The misery of one former player in the 1950s (in The Daft Wee Game) suggests that there was never a truly golden age for the sport,” contends John.
Author John Wheatcroft
“The sting in the tail, which explains the title, is a rather gloomy view of football’s (and the world’s) future, although it should perhaps be read as a warning rather than a prediction. In any case, many stories are quite upbeat and the protagonists predominantly likeable. Problems and conflict arise from how other people (and the football world) treat them.”
Sports journalist, broadcaster and My Father And Other Working-Class Football Heroes author Gary Imlach says of the book: “Like all well-chosen starting XIs, this book is more than the sum of its parts. The stories play off each other, key figures recur, connections reveal themselves. The result is a heartfelt narrative that’s as much about family as football.”
The Guardian sports journalist, author, tactical historian and The Blizzard editor Jonathan Wilson describes The Strange Death Of Football as “a beautiful album of short stories that performs the rare feat of using football successfully as a stage, a structuring device and a metaphor. Wise and moving.”
“Both Gary and Jonathan seem to have really understood what I was aiming for,” says John.
Tickets for today’s 75-minute launch can be bought via Explore York’s tickettailor.com site, priced at £2.50. Published by Blue Bunting, of York, the book also is on sale at Little Apple Bookshop, High Petergate, York.
Author’s note by John Wheatcroft
“MOST of my football sides [in The Strange Death Of Football] are current names or clubs that existed in the past. The exceptions are Inter Campania, Valley Cordials and the war-time Forces United.
One story, The Footballer In Spite Of Himself, contains some unfamiliar teams. Most football fans with an interest in the past will have heard of Ardwick and Newton Heath. Not so many, perhaps, will know that Oldham Athletic were Pina Villa and Stockport County were Heaton Norris Rovers.
“It’s my whimsical nod to the way the history of football might have panned out quite differently. After all, Bury were winners of the FA Cup twice before Manchester City and Manchester United won anything. And United survived by the skin of their teeth during the inter-war years.
Perhaps, had they folded, there might have been a ‘phoenix club’ like FC Newton Heath. And Manchester Central might have thrived.”