howay the lads

I've just been approached by some students from the University of Central Lancashire to write something about football for a charity anthology. It's to raise money for an organisation which helps some of the most disadvantaged children in the world to have access to sports, coaching, etc, as part of a normal healthy childhood. The idea is to launch it in time for the World Cup.

I never knew a thing about football until I had two boys. Football (soccer if you're reading this from the US) is sacred if you come from north of the River Tyne and south of Berwick, and I ended up writing two football books, The Doughnut Dilemma and The Jam Street Puzzle. I had a lot of help from the boys on the finer technical points, and Newcastle United was always at the back of my mind. That was a long time ago, but let's hope I can, as they say, get it in the back of the net.

If you don't understand the title of this entry, 'howay the lads' is the rallying cry of Newcastle United fans - or used to be, I don't think you hear it so much now. And I was there, on that memorable occasion, when President Jimmy Carter... but I'll tell you that next time.

Words the blog doesn't like - Berwick, doughnut, howay