bitterness and reticence and biographic nonsense

The leg’s better, much better, thanks. The bullet wound is healing painfully slowly, as is the way with someone in the early autumnal stages of life, so the wife (still laughing) assures me. Still no football though. Or running. It’s a bit rubbish.

And the football season’s finished.

Thesimplestgame would like to reticently and bitterly offer a heartless congratulations to the debt-ridden conglomerations who triumphed. Well-done’s must go to both Chelsea and Man (and boy) United.

Though on reflection, there is no need for bitterness or reticence. These clubs actually need our help. Yes, our help. Both squads will need large and exceptionally absorbent towels to dry their eyes after their respective puerile remonstrations and humiliating demonstrations of footballing impoverishment in the Champions League. Winning the Premiership or the vainglorious FA Cup cannot remove the images of forever-tarnished, fat and teary, petted-lips from our collective minds. It only makes their plight, a plight no football fan can afford or ignore.

So here’s thesimplestgame’s end of season charity plea: If anybody out there has a spare £750 million, could you help either of these dispassionate and unemboldened clubs, who, despite having the most expensive and roundly celebrated footballers on the planet, were unable to carry themselves with even a modicum of the decorum expected of professionals in other walks of life.

Maybe I’m bitter because I’d just got myself fit enough to play for the first time in years – a series of bulldozer throwing injuries had kept me from playing the beautiful game in my characteristically horrible and uncouth fashion for almost six years - and I find myself sidelined again. Maybe I’m bitter because the teams I follow lack the strength to carry the weight of these 'giant' clubs' debt-accumulating prowess. Maybe I’m just sick of watching pampered, excessively-paid, over-rated adult footballers kick-off like kindy kids. Maybe I'm just bitter.

Man (and boy) United Striker, Wayne Rooney, at 20 years old, agreed a 12-year contract with HarperCollins to write, that’s right, write a minimum of five books for an advance of £5m plus royalties.(He really is holding a Harry Potter book in his right hand.) If you were ever wondering where the boundaries of football fiction and non-fiction blurred together, thesimplestgame suspects that there would be a good place to start looking.

Fan fiction

Does it matter what team the protagonists in our football fiction support? Does it make a difference? Does it add to or take away from our reading experience? What about as a writer, should a writer have to consider their audience or fanbase? Is it possible to get a message to as many people as possible if you write about one team - more specifically the team you follow?

They say write about what you know. They also say a good writer can write about anything. Book shelves are filled with examples which prove both these theories.

Arsenal man, Nick Hornby bared his soul in Fever PItch, while Chelsea man Peter Gilmour bared his arse in Sexy Football. These two, I know for sure, have identified themselves as supporters of a particular club. Many others, who may or may not have some degree of club loyalty, have written football fiction.

Alan Bissett’s Boyracers are Rangers supporters and Irvine Welsh, famous for his love of the Edinburgh club, has Hibs fans all over his work. Dougie Brimson has written fiction about West Ham supporters in The Crew and Top Dog and a Watford supporter in Billy’s Log. John King’s first three novels are about a group of Chelsea supporters, does that mean he is as well?

I don’t know if Jonathon Tulloch is a Toon Army man, or if Laura Hird, like most of the main characters in her story This is My Story, This is My Song, is a Hearts supporter. Does it really matter? I don't think it's had an impact on the popularity of their work.

In Peter Gilmour's case, the exception in the list above, I would suggest the comparative lack of popularity of his book is probably due to the quality of the writing as opposed to people taking issue with the club he loves.

As a football fan it doesn’t concern me which team is involved. It's not like the writers are endorsing the club in the same way say Oasis would in sponsoring Manchester City, the club they follow. Wet Wet Wet's sponsorship of Clydebank is a bit different, lead singer Marti Pellow is a Rangers fan, but I'm getting away from my point here.

I don’t imagine David Peace would need to have been a Leeds United fan, or even a Brian Clough fan, to write such an astonishingly good book as The Damned United.

Should we concern ourselves with this stuff? What if you start to empathise with the characters and then they play against your favourite team? Talk about a conflict of interest. If we narrowed our reading to books about our own club we'd all be wearing eye patches, wouldn't we?

It is obviously entirely possible to get away with it though, most of the people I’ve listed here have, but it made me wonder if it's possible for a writer with no interest in football to write about it or that you could be interested in football without following a team?