SYNOPSIS

Footy Rocks brings together 50 of the finest, most whacked out and original musings on football to be written this century.

John Nicholson has, since 2001, been writing pieces for the biggest, best and most popular football web site on the internet football365.com. Over that period of time he's made tens of thousands of readers every week laugh out loud, seeth with anger and also just scratch their heads and say 'what the hell is he on about?.

For years he's been asked to bring out a 'Greatest Hits' book. His trademark rambling stories of rock n roll based dissolution with a bit of football tagged on at the end are here.

Sex and drugs and rock n roll are never far away from John's football writing and contained in this book are some of his most classic moments such as The Barnsley Surrealist Collective where John undergoes a psychotropic narcotic experiment to see why people go to see rubbish football.

Other infamous episodes here include 'Avery 70's Xmas' when the author witnesses a most unusual Xmas present being administered to a friend in Middlesbrough's Holgate End by a Suzi Quatro look-a-like. There are tales of John's days of touring around his beloved California in a band which he uses as anaolgies for all manner of contepmorary football issues.

A whole cast of characters emerge; Hairy Tony, Hunter, Lenny, Edie, Two Red Setters in Jedburgh, a man with his own Love Pump and famously Frankie who fell in love with Graeme Souness are all here and many, many more in 50 mad, bad and dangerous to know columns. In amongst the madness are some serious rants about the state of the game and the people who run, play and watch it.

John has written a new, substantial intro to each piece to set it's context. This is a great read, not just for anyone who loves football but for anyone who enjoys talk of sex and drugs and rock and roll and drinking Armadillo sherry out of milk bottles.

But it doesn't stop there. Two major new previously unpublished writings are also included here. 'What's What: A Rock n Roll Granddad' takes us back to late 60s Castleford and with a suprisingly sensitive evocation of those days brings us closer to understanding why as one reader from Keighley once asked John 'Why are you so mad?'.

Finally, 'Code of the Road' is an excerpt from the book of the same name that will be published early in 2007. It's already being called, mostly by John himself, as a rambling rock n roll road movie of book about him and his mates touring around California playing music and falling in and out of love with La La Land and all its devils and angels. This is just a taste of the salty stuff you can expect when the book comes out.

Footy Rocks! is a book for everyone with a passion for having a good time, all the time.

Paperback: 293 pages
ISBN: 0-9554029-0-5
Publisher:  Northern Monkey Publishing | wishlist | login | contact | your stuff