The Boyhood of Burglar Bill

‘It is Coronation year, 1953, and the town of Oldbury, in the West Midlands, where Ahlberg grew up, has organized a football tournament to mark the royal event. Excluded from their school’s official entries, Ahlberg and his friends enter their own scratch team in the competition. This is the story of their progress, on the field and off. It is comic and serious and curiously heroic, and all children who like football (including girls, who are indeed not totally excluded from the team) will love it.’

– Peter Hollindale, Books for Keeps