Any Chance of a Game?

'I played at primary and secondary school: in corridors, on the playing fields, at the bus stop on the way home; at university (three times a week); and then after that in pub teams, indoor leagues, park pitch free-for-alls, on beaches and lawns, in airport departure lounges and motorway service stations. From schoolboy promise to the beginnings of athletic decay, football - the basic pleasure of kicking a ball, the attachments of teams, friendships, and moments of pointless but irreducible triumph - just refuses to go away.' "Any Chance of a Game?" is the story of a season playing for a Sunday league football team and a personal journey to discover why Barney, and men like him everywhere, need to play football and just what they take from it and its attendant culture. Each chapter follows a successive key match during the season and then uses it to go on a thematic mazy dribble - childhood, friendships, memory, violence, love, women, winning, class, nationality and being a man. This is an amusing tale that will ring true with anyone who's ever kicked a ball in muddied anger.
It's about embrocation, showering together, half-time oranges, half-time punch-ups, existential angst and wanting to run forever on wet grass.