“Diary From The 2022 FIFA World Cup” — Book Promo
Argentina! Campeones Del Mundo!
The sub-title above is also the headline for the 27th and final chapter of my first self-published book which I first proudly released to the world at the end of April 2023. A concise description would be: in my frustration at this Qatar World Cup being played in the middle of an English winter and the middle of the English football season, I had a need to continue writing on all things football and so chose this shindig in the middle of a desert. I then requested a random number between 1 and 32 from my beautiful son, he chose the number 13, this number was represented by France and I therefore planned to write 7 articles following either France or their victors all the way through the Group Stages, the Round of 16, Quarter-Final, Semi-Final and onward to the final on 18th December 2022. 7 articles, a round-by-round progression of France (or any team that defeated them) and just some lighthearted writing fun until I could resume watching, cheering on and writing about my beloved Reds of Liverpool Football Club.
Those of you with a mathematics degree will already be pointing out the blindingly obvious that 7 articles doesn’t equate to 27 chapters and you’d be correct in your calculations. I also barely covered France, at all, and soon became swept up in the hullabaloo of a World Cup I wasn’t overly enamoured with in the lead up to the tournament and well, it was bitingly cold here in middle England and why not just wrap yourself in a duvet like a sausage roll, open another packet of chocolate biscuits and cheer on the underdogs from Japan and Senegal, Cameroon and Iran, Canada and the tournament’s huge over achievers, Morocco?
As my old friend Hunter S Thompson would have no doubt exclaimed
And why not?
So my writing, as it often does, veered away on several tangential lines and before I knew it I was opening yet another packet of chocolate biscuits and writing a diary on any and every game I watched and following the incredibly pleasing conclusion to the tournament, I formulated these daily diaries into my first self-published book.
Why incredibly pleasing? Well I have a not so secret love for the Argentina national team and to find out more, you’ll have to buy the book!
Or watch the multitude of videos linked below that accompany my book.
I’m currently in the process of turning this first self-published book into my first ever audiobook but I won’t elaborate on this any further at this stage as the tales of utter frustration I could tell on this subject would bring fountains of tears from a glass eye. Instead, I’ll confirm the book to be 189 pages in length over 27 chapters and, hopefully surprising to my readers, the book doesn’t always concern itself with the football and contains a through line as to why I have a not so secret love for “La Albiceleste” and other personal stories too.
I tried, but not overly so, to get this published via a traditional publisher, but without any form of representation, track record or an Agent, I knew I stood very little chance and so I took the great leap forward and decided to “publish and be damned” lest it sit forever inside the tiny confines of my mind or just an unrealised pipe dream.
Here’s the blurb on the reverse cover:
“After a decade of writing on cinema and film criticism, this is my first foray into the publishing realm and on my first sporting love, football”
“Father, Son and lapsed match going fan, rather than going to the citadel that is Anfield or nearby Goodison Park or Old Trafford, I now view the game through the objectivity prism of writing whilst railing against VAR and the unwanted, bureaucratic intrusion this is into our “Beautiful Game”. When not watching football, I still delight in finding new films to watch and critique and when not exploring the beautiful coastlines, rivers and countryside of England I can be found in my spiritual home of Ironbridge or spending precious time with my son”
As a way of self-promoting my book I decided in the Summer of 2023 to create my very first Youtube channel “The Blackford Book Club” and so following you’ll find a selection of videos of your humble narrator, author and self-publisher reading extracts and chapters from this book and, as you’ll quickly realise, these were recorded either in the lounge, the garden or even perched precariously on the end of a rickety old “fishing peg” on the banks of the River Severn here in middle England and with the incredible backdrop of Ironbridge, the world’s oldest iron bridge and World Heritage accredited site.
If you’re not a fan of Youtube, all of these videos and many more can also be found within my Rumble Channel under the same “The Blackford Book Club” name. So here follows a selection of videos, a couple of promotional images and a link to www.amazon.com where you can not only purchase my first ever self-published book but also read it for FREE should you have an Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” package.
As an independent writer, all support is gratefully received and I thank you for reading.
Thanks for reading. Here’s a selection of other articles recently published away from the twin subjects of sport and books:
