The Boy on the Shed

The moving, unputdownable football memoir with a foreword by Alan Shearer - perfect World Cup reading

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The Boy on the Shed

By: Paul Ferris

Narrated by: Ruairi Conaghan

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Honest, vulnerable and full of heart, this is a sports memoir like no other.

Winner of the Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year 2018

'Enough depth and humanity to make your average football autobiography look like a Ladybird book.' - TELEGRAPH

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.
__________

*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

Acclaim for The Boy on the Shed

'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

'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

Paul FerrisRuairi ConaghanHodder & Stoughton

Football (American)

Football (Soccer)

Sports

Celebrity

Inspiring

Heartfelt

Thought-Provoking

Football (American) Football (Soccer) Sports Celebrity Inspiring Heartfelt Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

This will be one of the most talked about football books of 2018.

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.

An excellent read.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Once opened, you will be unable to put it down.

Superb

What a life, what a book...it is excellent. Sports book of the year.

A stirring testament to the strength of the human condition and the power of ideas.

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.

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.

Most relevant

This book had been on my Wishlist for months. Even when I actually bought it, it took me a while to get round to listening to it. I do try to keep up with what Newcastle United are doing but I'm not a big football fan so I wondered if this book might be too "footbally" for me. But I can honestly say I was hooked after the five minutes. Amazing story, wonderfully written.