PRE-ORDER: I Was Hooked – Green Grass, Fried Onions & Pipe Smoke – Your First Match

Arriving mid-October 2026

Do you remember your big-match debut? The day you finally got the call, and made the step-up from park games and Match of the Day highlights to the thrilling adult world of a real football match? That first sight of the big green pitch. Your sticker-album heroes, in the flesh. The noise and the smell and the language a million miles from Subbuteo matches and comic strips.

I Was Hooked bombards you with shared memories that will bring flooding back all the emotions of your first experience of football. But just as great a gift are the hugely varied stories – the incredible, unfakable details – that enable you to relive the greatest game-changing day in the lives of other overexcited young fans.

Poignant, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure, this book offers an insight into the uniquely eccentric yet strangely familiar experiences of 79 other football families – all with different homes, backgrounds, scarves and rituals. Everyday, legendary tales from the Lost World of Football. Published in 2026.