In the UK writing about football is looked down on by lots of people. Not everybody, but lots of people, all the same.
I have seen it.
I think this looking down attitude to football reading is bad for children.
I was doing a school event once. I had been talking to 80 boys about how I read about football in newspapers, magazines and books and that it helped make me into a football fiction author. During questions at the end, the teacher put her hand up.
'But are you going to write proper books?' she asked.
I'll never forget that. I had been working for an hour to convince these boys that you can read about anything you like, so long as you are reading. That if you read match reports about football in newspapers and magazine interviews with players, then you can call yourself a reader.
The teacher undermined the whole session, reinforcing the other view, that football writing isn't proper. And that you are only a proper reader if you reader proper books.
(By the way, most teachers are great and embrace and promote a great attitude to all reading all year round.)
I read on the BBC website this morning that Roy Keane (firecracker football figure) is having his autobiography written by Roddy Doyle (one of the most respected literary authors of the last quarter-century). Read more here.
That makes me happy. I'm no fan of Roy Keane, but a collaboration of football and writing like that will only help me to persuade teachers and children that you can read about football and for it to be proper.
It will join books like Fever Pitch and The Damned United - and hundreds more - that are superbly written books about something that matters a lot to millions of people. A game that captures and is a conduit for an array of human emotions.
And it is not just the case with adult books.
My Foul Play books are about a boy who takes on the corrupt chairmen, owners and players of football to make the game less cynical and more rooted in its fans.
Dan Freedman's Jamie Johnson books are about a boy working his way through the football system to become one of the world's greatest players. This is no glib series mimicking the FIFA video game. It is well thought out and written by a man who has worked for the FA and other media organisations at the heart of the game. And someone who cares about children's welfare within that machine.
Helena Pielichaty writes a series of books called Girls FC. A twelve book series about a girls' football team that girls I meet love because, amongst other things, it is the longest kids' football series in the UK - and it is about girls.
Mal Peet writes books set in South America. About football. His novel, Keeper, mixes magic realism with the World Cup to create one of the finest children's novels I have a ever read. And it is about football. I use it to encourage children - who like football but who say they don't like reading - to change and say...
... I am a reader.
Thank you so much for including my Girls FC series in your excellent blog, Tom. I have come across similar attitudes about the subject of football as being somehow less 'worthy.' The first promotional event I was asked to do with Girls FC was billed as being suitable for reluctant readers. That took me by surprise. Not that my books aren't suitable for reluctant readers - how brilliant if I find that audience! But why would Girls FC be more 'suitable' when my other books, written in a similar style, such as 'Clubbing Together' have never been seen classified as such? Football of course. There's a bit of snobbery about football in publishing, I'm afraid. I don't know where it comes from but it needs to stop as it's promoting a stereotype that no longer exists.
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