England

Foul Football

by Michael Coleman, Mike Phillips (Illustrator)

Michael Coleman tackles the foul and fabulous history of one of our great national sides, from the first international match against Scotland in 1872 to the present day. Stuffed full of stats including the best and worst players and managers, matches, goal-scorers, defeats and wins, "England" covers the glory days of the 1960s, the highs and lows of the 70s and 80s and brings us bang up to date with the reign of Sven and his men. Readers can test their trivia knowledge in the painful penalties and shocking shirts quizzes and re-create the magic matches with their mates. Plus they'll meet the England All-stars, including the triumphant team of 66. It's a nail-biting tale - right up to the final whistle, so if you want to be in the game, get Foul Football.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2006

About the author

Coleman was born in Forest Gate, a suburb in east London. Not long after he was born, his family moved a few miles east to Barking. At the time of his arrival, the area was just starting to recover from the damage it had received during World War II. He lived in a house on Bevan Avenue, named after Aneurin Bevan the architect of the National Health Service. He lived in that estate for 20 years. The area helped develop Coleman's love of sport due to the oblong shaped lanes of grass leading up the estate, which could be used as mini-stadiums. He pretended to play at various sporting events of the time, e.g. the Melbourne Olympics of 1956, the soccer Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, and the games at Lords Cricket ground. He still has medals he won for being school champion in the 100m sprint and the long jump. As said by Coleman himself "My information series Foul Football tries to convey some of the magic I felt about the game of soccer by relating the weird and wonderful history of the game and the personalities it has seen over the years. On the fiction side, my series about a junior soccer team called Angels FC tries to bring out the humour and sheer fun that you’ll find at the heart of the game when it’s played by youngsters who don’t even know how to spell the word cynicism." Coleman had his first children’s book published when he was 46 years of age. He has also said: "I didn't [want to become a writer] at first. I used to teach computer science at a university and my first book was a boring one about computers. I livened it up by putting a few jokes in. At the end I thought I'd try writing a few more things, but this time forgetting about the computers and concentrating on the jokes. After lots of failures I realised that youngsters enjoy jokes more than adults and started writing for them. Eighty books later, I'm still doing it...I write both fact and fiction. The Foul Football series are favourite fact books, simply because they're about football. On the fiction side, I'm just finishing a trilogy called The Bearkingdom. They're dark and scary, quite different to anything I've written before."

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so intrigued by his laughing I had to read it myself. I too ended up laughing out loud. So I give this book five stars and recomend it to any footy fan. All the facts and figures are presented in a humerous manner that kids and adults alike can enjoy.

[Emil · Rating 4 out of 5]

England, Foul Football, by Michael Coleman. This book is non-fiction. Coleman writes sport books. I chose this book because I like football so I though I might want to read it.

This book is pretty much all about England's matches like England v Scotland, some matches they played against foreign teams like Austria, some of England's managers such as Dons Dud's, how England did in the world cup like in 1966, when they won, their losses to some other teams like when they played Argentina, they lost on penalty shootout and their most famous players like David Beckham. It was pretty much England's history from 1870 until 2006!

I liked this book because I pretty much knew NOTHING about England's football history so pretty much everything I read in this book was knew to me. Like pretty much all I knew about England's history was I only knew one manager which is Roy Hudson, a couple players like Rooney, Joe Hart, David Beckham and a couple
more. Out of 10, I would give it around a 8.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

easy going football fact book about england fotball team