A load of old balls

For the last eighteen months, in between the occasional football match and that aggravating thing called work, yours truly has been cobbling together an account of the 2008/09 football season as told by an English bloke with a huge vested interest in a local amateur football club. Now those words have been muddled together to become the first draft of what I'm hoping will become a book, (of sorts). The thing is what took months and months to knockup takes no time at all to read back, at this point the scale of the proof reading/editing task becomes apparent.

On Friday afternoon, February the 19th I was presented with fifteen months of coffee and, (once or twice), beer generated musings in the form of a four part manuscript. Wow! was the initial reaction, I did that I thought as the chest puffed up in self admiration. Unfortunately, a cursory read revealed the truth, reading back over what you've written late at night with tiredness or alcohol creeping up unannounced, or feeling pissed off for whatever reason, doesn't make for good copy. In many ways the hard work starts now to try and "even out" the mood of the thing. Curiously, from memory, the last thing at night bits read better than the passages tapped out in happier moments.

Anyway, that's my problem not yours, I wrote it and I need to fix it. The point of this shorter than usual blog is to enlist the help of friends, football fans and any other readers, (who really should get out more), to conjure up a decent title for the finished product. As you can see from the attached image, the project does have a working title but a bit of an obvious one, and, from what I've seen of the first printed pages, "A load of old balls" sums up things perfectly. Obviously, I need something quite a bit better, which is where you come in.

Briefly, to try and help you out, the book chronicles my travels with Santa Pola CF, home and away during the 2008/09 season, together with various different visits to other local football clubs and other football themed chapters. I just need to call it something. "A load of old balls" was just what I used to find it again quickly on my lap top and pen drive, but that's far from an ideal title for a book. I have no shortage of my own ideas for the final title, but sometimes when you brainstorm somethng, the answer may be elsewhere. Leave a comment here if you want to make a book title suggestion or have any questions. The preferred choice of title will be acknowledged in the forward to the book.

Just to be clear, any surplus revenues over my costs will be shared between local charities and Santa Pola Club de Futbol. This will never be William Hill Sports Book of The Year but simply a bit of a laugh by a footy fan who takes the piss out of everything, himself included, in a way that everyone can enjoy.
PHOTOS:
Top - Initial cover design by Nano Tirri
Bottom - Me, photo by Mark Welton