Injury Time: A Novel

Provided You Don't Kiss Me is a novel about a football player, Thom Callaghan, who is tempted back to his old club as caretaker manager to save it from relegation. He is pitted against Alex Ferguson's Manchester United and Arsene Wenger's Arsenal in the Premier League. The book explores the importance of football, and whether the prize of a personal triumph is worth it in the end.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 320 pages
Publication date: 18 August 2022
Publisher: Quercus Publishing

One of the finest football books I've ever read is John Motson's "Provided You Don't Kiss Me." Some people think that football is a matter of life and death. I am extremely dissatisfied with that mindset. I can assure you that it is far more significant than that. - Bill Shankly What Shankly said isn't even half-true. In fact, it's bollocks. Football isn't the be-all and end-all of everything. If nothing else, I know that much. As a player, Thom Callaghan was defined by the winning goal he scored in an FA Cup final. The goal wasn't the blessing he imagined it would be. His whole career was defined by that brief moment of glory. With his playing days over, Callaghan, still a local hero, is tempted back to his old club as caretaker manager. His task is to rescue it from relegation. He's got the job solely on the recommendation of his former boss and mentor Frank Mallory, now desperately ill and responsible for the team's precipitous decline. Callaghan is pitched into the Premier League during the last months of the 1996-1997 season, where - among reputations more gilded than his own - he finds himself pitted against the likes of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, chasing their fourth title in five years, and also one of the newest recruits to the English game, Arsene Wenger. Can Callaghan save his club from what seems the inevitability of the drop? Does Mallory - eccentric, inspirational, and manipulative - even want him to succeed? What if the prize of a personal triumph isn't worth it in the end? Injury Time is the first novel from the multiple award-winning sportswriter Duncan Hamilton.

Weight: 268g
Dimension: 129 x 198 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781529408447