A reader writes...

Sometimes, I get an email which makes up for the lack of money, fame and everything else I've got from writing books. A few days ago, I heard from a Swansea fan who had read The Bromley Boys and had recommended it to a friend of his. The friend, Dave, then went away on holiday and managed to read it while he was away. As my correspondent reported: "he loved it so much he found himself trawling through various bromley fc websites when he got home....exactly as i had done." They had become Bromley fans, which was beyond brilliant. But this is not always a rewarding experience, as the next part of the email clearly illustrates. "when i got home from swansea's tuesday's nil-nil draw there was one email in my "in tray". it was from dave & it simply said "bromley lost 6-1 tonight".
This was possibly the most poignant email I've ever seen.

Mentions in the press and Amazon rankings

The Bromley Boys got a nice mention in Monday's Independent and I was hopeful it would lead to a few sales. So I checked Amazon and was dismayed to see it falling. It continued throughout the day, ending up in the 70,000s.

The next morning, something changed. Suddenly, people were buying it and at one stage it was around 4000, which is probably the highest it has ever been. It started to taper off that evening and went back to normal.

This was the piece, from Sam Wallace's column:


I read The Bromley Boys this summer, Dave Roberts' book about his tragic adolescent obsession with Bromley FC and their disastrous 1969-1970 season. On one occasion the teenage Roberts paints "Ellis Must Go" on his T-shirt in protest against the club's inept manager Dave Ellis. As he prepares to reveal his T-shirt he realises that the person sitting next to him in a virtually empty stand is Ellis himself. It's the kind of story that reminds you of Danny Baker's 606 at its vintage best.

The kind of holiday photo I like to see.

Mrs Bron Hall and Mr James Hall of Auckland, New Zealand enjoying the sun and some quality reading material in Fiji (or somewhere like that).