Extra Time - Tapa blanda

Any serious football fan will know, anyone who doesn't go to every game, home and away, from Arsenal to Vladikavkaz is a part-time supporter. Kevin Sampson gets to 90% of Liverpool's matches. His sharp, perceptive and very funny account of the agonies and ecstasies of following a sleeping giant will touch even the most recalcitrant Man Utd. fan, most of whom will recognise the ailment. His journeys take us from a pre-season friendly at Crewe to Chelsea, Celtic, Newcastle, and beyond. We meet Blackburn fish-ticklers and Bolton riot police; one-eyed barmaids and stewards with circular noses ; angry British Rail ticket inspectors and non-kinky masseuses. We follow the romantic progress of his bachelor friends Jegsy, and aging lothario and Danny, a shy bricklayer who's looking for a young Nessie Shankley. Most of all we follow the hopes and dreams of the football fan in all of us, a man of 36 who still falls asleep at night selecting his ideal 11 and awaiting the call from Roy Evans. This is a wry and wonderfully observed book for football fans everywhere.

Kevin Sampson is the author of eight novels, as well as Extra Time, his account of a season in the life of a Liverpool FC fanatic, and the moving narrative of the Hillsborough tragedy, Hillsborough Voices. He has also contributed to football anthologies, including Here We Go Gathering Cups in May and Redmen, which he also edited.
Kevin is a regular contributor to the Guardian, Observer and the award-winning LFC podcast, The Anfield Wrap. He lives on Merseyside where he is a long-term supporter of CALM, a charity specialising in the mental health needs of young males.
You can find him at @ksampsonwriter on Twitter.