The Last Amateur

Scotland’s greatest ever player refuses to go pro and leave his burgeoning village team. A multi-billionaire returns home to raze a housing state and reconstruct the ground where he scored freely as a teenager. An ex-BBC commentator signed by commercial radio keeps “forgetting” to mention the programme’s fast food sponsors. An ex-amateur with dementia calls on his former team-mate every day to relive the game that mirrored their fractious bond.

In his second volume of 11 short stories inspired by the amorality, the greed, and the somehow still irresistible allure of the modern game, WSC contributor Ian Plenderleith tackles the themes that dog and drive 21st century football, where misplaced idealists engage with the struggle to stem corruption, cheating and avarice.

These fast-moving tales are scored with dark humour and probing questions. What if we were offered a fat envelope full of cash just to fix the semi-final draw of the Cup? Would you work for a company set to shaft the team you’ve followed all your life? How much impurity and compromise can we tolerate before we have to declare – we’ve lost the game.

“Plenderleith’s is a bittersweet world in which football can bring joy, misery and bewilderment in the same story, and his tales are invariably underlined by a basic moral. His love of football is evident.” Sunday Times

Subscribers save £1

256 pages, paperback, published September 16