The following interview appeared in the Christmas 2001 issue of Blah Blah, the Thames Valley listings magazine

'For Whom The Ball Rolls' ‚ interview with ace soccer writer, Ian Plenderleith, by Paul Jennings

The footie season is well under way now and if, like me, you're an ardent follower of the beautiful game, then 'For Whom The Ball Rolls' is a must-read. So much football writing consists of turgid autobiographies that don't have much light to throw on their subject, or are accounts by 'hard man' hooligans revelling in kicking the shit out of rival fans. But this little gem from Ian Plenderleith bucks the trend completely. This is a collection of short stories, mostly about football, which actually pushes the boundaries of football writing. Written by someone whose obvious love of the game comes shining through in every tale, Plenderleith delves deep into the psyche of both footie fans and players. There is an underlying darkness in the stories coupled with a great grasp of the absurd. Well-crafted and intelligent, the has author used the short story form to maximum effect.

A former journalist based at BBC Monitoring in Caversham, Ian now resides in the USA. From his home in Washington DC, Ian talked to Blah Blah...

The first story in the collection, 'Save of the Day', reads like autobiography - how much of you is in the book? Is there any resemblance between the thirtysomething crises-ridden males in some of the stories and the author?

'Save of the Day' is broadly autobiographical, as most reviewers have

guessed, and is the only story based on an incident that actually happened

to me. The story that most reflects me though is 'Fitchie Gets The Point' as

there's a part of me in all three of the male characters. Sometimes I'm like

Fitchie, the gibbering football enthusiast who won't shut up; sometimes I'm

like the narrator, slightly detached but keen enough to go and watch games

and get excited; and on occasions I've been like the supercilious Sadler,

shunning football in favour of 'better' intellectual pursuits - such phases

never lasted long, though, and were mainly confined to when I was a student

searching for (and failing to find) new directions. Another story many

people relate to is the one where the football fan has to sit next to his

bored corporate client at the England v Germany match. I've done corporate

socialising in my time as a journalist, and it's not something I ever want

to go back to.

The short story isn't the most popular medium with publishers and the

reading public - why did you choose it? Do you think any of the stories

could be expanded? Will you stick with the medium, or are you experimenting with other things?

I started out writing short stories simply because I wasn't ready to start

writing novels, so it was a learning curve thing. It's very difficult to

persuade either agents or publishers to take any notice of you when you're a

new writer, especially if you're writing short stories. But I thought that

if I could write stories on one theme then someone might take a look, and as

publishers are very keen on football books at the moment, and have been for

the past five years, I settled on football as a central subject. So, it was

quite a calculated decision. Once I'd decided to do that, the ideas started

coming, and I was fortunate that Ian Preece, my editor at Orion, was

interested when I sent him the first few that I wrote, which gave me the

motivation to keep going.

I'm not sure any of them would work if they were expanded. But if a

publisher offered me fifty grand to write a novel-length version of 'The Day

FIFA Came To Lincolnshire' then I'm sure it would concentrate my mind.

In general, it's sad that so few people read short stories now

(although they do in the US still), and an indication of how lazy we have

become as readers. There are so many novels you read where one idea or theme is stretched out too long and you think it could have been written as a good short story instead. Now no one writes short stories because they think no one reads them. No one reads them because there are so few around, and

publishing houses are too conservative to gamble with them.

I'm still writing them, at the moment I'm writing a book of love short stories, 'Ages In Love', working through the concept of love as seen through the eyes of people ranging from a seven year old boy through to a man on his deathbed. I imagine that they will be unsellable.

I recently finished writing a novel called 'Nightmare Girl'Ý that can best

be described as a domestic black comedy pulp fiction thriller. Unfortunately

my agent's having trouble persuading publishing houses that such a genre

exists. I've recently started a new novel, but even I'm not sure what it's

supposed to be about yet.

How did you find the change from writing journalism to fiction?

I'm still a freelance journalist, with my most regular stuff being for When Saturday Comes and a column on US football at onetouchfootball.com. So I still write both. Writing fiction has given me the chance to make up stories, which is what all journalists secretly want to do.

What would you say to people who have noted that there's little point

writing fiction about football, because the sport itself throws up so many

stories?

To me that's like saying there's no point in writing fiction at all, because

real life throws up so many stories. Sure, there's no point in writing a

story about Mudchester United winning the FA Cup, but most of the stories in

'For Whom The Ball Rolls' only use football as a basis, or as a setting to

work around.

It's strange, though, that football and fiction rarely work together,

either on the page or on film. In baseball, I'm told, there are countless

examples of great works in both genres.

What do you think of the whole Hornby/Parsons Lads Lit genre? Do you

consider yourself a part of it?

I think Hornby's latest, 'How To Be Good', is excellent, a real return to

form after 'About A Boy'. I've not read anything by Tony Parsons, and don't

know who else might be included in the category 'Lads Lit'. I doubt that

'Lads Lit' is really a genre, rather a convenient label for journalists.

And finally, how does the experience of following football in the USA compare to back home?

I'm enjoying watching 'soccer' in the US, and I'm looking forward to following the US team at the World Cup. The new professional league here (Major League Soccer) has just completed its sixth season, although they have a long way to go before it becomes a viable business (very important in the US). There's a strong base of mainly Latino support, and that should steadily grow over the coming years as soccer is becoming a huge grass-roots sport at schools level. It's good that the game is so low key here and not subject to the inflated hype of the major Euro-leagues and the Champions League, or indeed the most popular sports here like gridiron, basketball, and baseball. It's still very much just about the game, not the showbiz-style personalities involved.

I still try to listen to Lincoln City's games on the Radio Lincolnshire

internet feed on Saturday mornings. I've even managed to see them three

times this year on visits back to the UK. There's something about supporting

a team like Lincoln from an early age (my Dad took me to Sincil Bank for the

first time when I was six) that helps prepare you for life - you rarely

build your hopes up high enough to have them dashed into disappointment.