Book description
It's 1985 - Thatcher is in power, Sade is on the radio and the print
workers have gone on strike. A motley rabble of seven firm friends:
Thimble, Gudger, O'Sh, Fred the Shoe, Dave, Alfie and Bax meet every
Sunday in their favourite South London boozer for banter of the highest
order and a lot of taking the mick. Then, out of the blue, one of their
number receives some news which knocks him and his merry band for six.
Reeling from this shock and confused about how to deal with it, the boys
meet and rally in standard fashion, in the Dutchman with a few light
ales and an aim to set the world to rights. One day an unknown character
approaches the crew and asks them a most intriguing question...'Does
anyone here want to buy a racehorse?!' From that simple but surreal
question unfolds the story of seven likely lads who embark on a unique
journey in the name of their mate, and what happens when they just
decide to go the whole bifta. Mark Baxter is a latecomer to the world
of publishing. He has also written The Fashion of Football (Mainstream,
2004), which he co-wrote with Paolo Hewitt, and which was voted as one
of just fifty top football books of all time by the magazine 442. Paolo
Hewitt is best known as a music journalist and he worked for Melody
Maker and NME during the 1980s. His acclaimed memoir The Looked After
Kid (Mainstream), is currently in pre-production for a feature film. He
has also written novels, biographies of The Jam, Oasis, and Steve
Marriott and has collaborated with Spurs player Martin Chivers on his
autobiography, Big Chiv! which was published in October 2009. His most
recent book was the bestselling Paul Weller - the Changing Man (Bantam
Press).
