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The Boy on the Shed:A remarkable sporting memoir with a foreword by Alan Shearer

On sale

22nd February 2018

Price: £20

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Selected: ebook / ISBN-13: 9781473666726

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*Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year*
*Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award*
*The Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year*
*The Times Sports Book of the Year*
*Telegraph Football Book of the Year*

Readers love The Boy on the Shed

‘A journey full of emotion . . . Spectacular’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Honest, insightful and shows how football really has to sort itself out’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Paul Ferris writes from the heart, a wonderful book’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
‘Exceptional’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Ferris’s wonderful memoir represents a twin triumph. He has endured every kind of setback in life but has invariably reinvented himself; and his writing is a pure pleasure.’ The Sunday Times

‘Enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.’ Telegraph

‘A masterpiece’ Brian McNally

‘Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris’s The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.’ Guardian

‘Fascinating and stylishly told.’ David Walsh, bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins
__________

The Boy on the Shed is a story of love and fate. At 16, Paul Ferris becomes Newcastle United’s youngest-ever first-teamer. Like many a tricky winger from Northern Ireland, he is hailed as ‘the new George Best’.

As a player and later a physio and member of the Magpies’ managerial team, Paul’s career acquaints him not only with Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish and Bobby Robson, Ruud Gullit, Paul Gascoigne and Alan Shearer but also with injury, insecurity and disappointment.

Talented and carefree on the pitch, shy and anxious off it, he earns a tilt at stardom. His first spell at Newcastle turns sour, as does his return as a physio, although obtaining a Masters degree shows him what he could achieve away from football.

Written with brutal candour, dark humour and consummate style, The Boy on the Shed is a riveting and moving account of a life less ordinary.
__________

Reviews

The Guardian
Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris's The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception, which sets a short career with Newcastle United against the backdrop of a Catholic childhood in a protestant stronghold of Northern Ireland. He's witty, emotional and painfully self-revealing. If, as Alan Shearer intimates in the foreword, a second book is on the way, he may turn out to be the new Frank McCourt.
Alyson Rudd, The Times
Ferris writes so well about the sensation of playing that those who have never kicked a ball are given a glimpse of how to be a footballer. This is so much more than a memoir about the game, however. This is rare male honesty about crippling shyness, love and despair and so very moving about the relationship between a mother and her son.
David Walsh, The Sunday Times
If by any chance you like a good book and you are not averse to sport, even football, take this recommendation. It is called The Boy on the Shed and it was written by Paul Ferris. Ferris's story is fascinating and stylishly told.
i Paper
In a genre too often mired in platitudes, former Newcastle and Northern Ireland winger Ferris's account of growing up Catholic in Protestant Lisburn - and the football career that promised him a way out - stands out for its honesty and humour.
Irish Tatler
A fascinating life story, bearing much heart and soul as well as being 'warts and all'. It is well worth reading for its honesty and its insights by any reader and will be a particularly absorbing read for anyone with an interest or love for 'the beautiful game' as well as Ulster readers and those who remember the would-be local football star from these shores.
Ulster Tatler
This is a fascinating life story, bearing much heart and soul as well as being warts and all'. It is well worth reading for its honesty and its insights by any reader and will be a particularly absorbing read for anyone with an interest or love for 'the beautiful game'.
Daily Express
A roller coaster read with appeal beyond football fans, this is a tale of struggle and tragedy, of love and hope, and offers humbling reality as an alternative to the traditional "rags to riches" adventure.
Robert Crampton, The Times
In literary terms, his autobiography is far and away the best book here. Not for nothing was it shortlisted for the William Hill sports book of the year award. As with Nick Hornby's peerless classic it will endure beyond a convenient Christmas stocking filler for your dad. That's because it's not about sport, but rather about the far bigger themes of family, pain, identity, masculinity and loss.
The Telegraph
The Boy on the Shed has enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.
The Times
Ferris's wonderful memoir represents a twin triumph ... and his writing is a pure pleasure.
Irish Independent
Ferris's book offers new insights into professional sport - and what happens when the dream curdles.
Henry Winter
This will be one of the most talked about football books of 2018.
Simon Bird, Football Correspondent, Daily Mirror
A remarkable piece of writing...Life, death, love, leaving home, motherly relationships, striving, all weaved into the football journey and every page I found myself relating to his experiences, some very personal...So much more than a sporting memoir. You could take so much from it without an interest in football.
Alan Shearer
An excellent read.
Hunter Davies
Paul Ferris has a good story to tell, in fact several, Irish and Geordie, politics and football, and he tells it well, avoiding the obvious pitfalls of trying to be either lyrical or philosophical or too clever.
Belfast Telegraph
It is also not a run-of-the-mill book about football, but a well-rounded, exceedingly candid account of his life on and off the pitch and of his family, warts and all.
Newcastle Chronicle
Unique, interesting, extremely emotive and gives some insight that supporters have never heard before...His story is raw and will keep you engaged without using any exaggerations which try to win over readers...Ferris has pushed himself forward extremely well in his new book, so well that any Newcastle supporter's book collection will be incomplete without The Boy on the Shed in it.
Irish Times
Paul Ferris has written a book that transcends genres...Ferris writes with the sort of fluency that, on the pitch, once impressed peers such as Paul Gascoigne.Ferris has gone beyond standard sports autobiographies. The Boy On The Shed is of a time and place, of Ireland, of Northern Ireland, of growing up a Catholic on a Protestant estate in Lisburn in the 1970s. It is a story of everyday sectarianism and its effects...These books offer a window on another world. Paul Ferris spent much of his childhood in Lisburn looking through one. What he saw, how he understood it and didn't understand it, is gripping.
Chronicle Live
Once opened, you will be unable to put it down.
Oliver Holt
Superb
BBC Radio 2 Simon Mayo
What a life, what a book...it is excellent. Sports book of the year.
Sunday Times Northern Ireland
A stirring testament to the strength of the human condition and the power of ideas.
Press Association
An early contender for sports book of the year, The Boy On The Shed is not only a great story of a man who came tantalisingly close to making it as a top-flight footballer (and went on to achieve so much else besides), but is simultaneously engaging, well-paced and, like the very best stories, well written.
Daily Mail
Paul Ferris's compelling memoir is different. For starters, he wrote it all himself, beautifully. Also, it extends well beyond football...It has been quite a journey from the garden shed he used to climb, back in Lisburn, that gives this engaging book its title - and one which thoroughly confounds the notion of the idiot footballer.
Sunday Mirror
The appeal of his astute story-telling is that this book works on levels that reach far beyond football. The Boy on the Shed reveals an impressive triumph of human resilience over adversity as well as a truly gifted wordsmith.
Brian McNally
Quite simply one of the best football memoirs I've ever read and I've worked my way through rather a lot. Paul Ferris writes beautifully and weaves a fascinating tale that lures you into not wanting to put this wonderful book down. A masterpiece of the genre.