The Boy on the Shed:A remarkable sporting memoir with a foreword by Alan Shearer: Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year

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Review ------ This will be one of the most talked about football books of 2018. (Henry Winter) A remarkable piece of writing...Life, death, love, leaving home, motherly relationships, striving, all weaved into the football journey and every page I found myself relating to his experiences, some very personal...So much more than a sporting memoir. You could take so much from it without an interest in football. (Simon Bird, Football Correspondent, Daily Mirror) An excellent read. (Alan Shearer) Paul Ferris has a good story to tell, in fact several, Irish and Geordie, politics and football, and he tells it well, avoiding the obvious pitfalls of trying to be either lyrical or philosophical or too clever. (Hunter Davies) It is also not a run-of-the-mill book about football, but a well-rounded, exceedingly candid account of his life on and off the pitch and of his family, warts and all. (Belfast Telegraph) Unique, interesting, extremely emotive and gives some in that supporters have never heard before...His story is raw and will keep you engaged without using any exaggerations which try to win over readers...Ferris has pushed himself forward extremely well in his new book, so well that any Newcastle supporter's book collection will be incomplete without The Boy on the Shed in it. (Newcastle Chronicle) Paul Ferris has written a book that transcends genres...Ferris writes with the sort of fluency that, on the pitch, once impressed peers such as Paul coigne.Ferris has gone beyond standard sports autobiographies. The Boy On The Shed is of a time and place, of Ireland, of Northern Ireland, of growing up a Catholic on a Protestant estate in Lisburn in the 1970s. It is a story of everyday sectarianism and its effects...These books offer a window on another world. Paul Ferris spent much of his childhood in Lisburn looking through one. What he saw, how he understood it and didn't understand it, is gripping. (Irish Times) Once opened, you will be unable to put it down. (Chronicle Live) Superb (Oliver Holt) What a life, what a book...it is excellent. Sports book of the year. (BBC Radio 2 Simon Mayo) Book Description ---------------- A remarkable sporting memoir with a foreword by Alan Shearer