The Damned Utd by David PeaceĪs a Leeds fan, people assume I'm offended by this reinforcement of the ' Dirty Leeds' myth. And like Storey – who played rugby league for Leeds – he knew what he was writing about, having turned out for the England Grammar School team. Like David Storey in This Sporting Life, he is unafraid to use sport as a metaphor for Yorkshire insularity. Hines's 20-page account of a football match was immortalised by Ken Loach in the film Kes. Hopefully, the critical and commercial success of The Damned Utd will inspire a new generation to write equally-original works about the passion, hubris and tragicomedy of the world's greatest game.' 1. In recent years there have been some tremendous football books, but writers have, on the whole, eschewed fiction. In the brilliant Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby restricted his musings on obsessive male behaviour, modern romance and Liam Brady to the safe confines of non-fiction. Philip Roth's The Great American Novel linked baseball with communism Don DeLillo's Underworld opened with the New York Giants winning the National League in 1951. The American national game has been well served by novelists.

The paucity of outstanding fiction about the sport remains mystifying. More than 400 years later, we are still waiting for The Great Football Novel. 'In King Lear, the boy Shakespeare has the Earl of Kent – the Joey Barton of the early 1600s – kicking Oswald and calling him a 'base football player'.

The football factory book