Author and Imps fan Ian Plenderleith is set to be at the game this weekend, selling copies of his brand new book ‘The Quiet Fan’ in the fan zone.
Ian is a lifelong Imps fan, an early contributor to Deranged Ferret and author of the excellent Rock n Roll Soccer and For Whom the Ball Rolls. he also helped judge the recent away days book, On the Road With Lincoln City.
His latest project is the story of a football fan and in an interview last year, he told me a bit about the book:
“A large part of the book is about supporting Lincoln in the 1970s and 1980s, when I was growing up in Market Rasen. The 12 chapters are devoted to specific games at key points in my life, and several of the early chapters focus around particular games at Sincil Bank. Even when I moved away from Lincoln to study and work, my experience of being a football fan almost always related back to my formative years in Lincolnshire.”
It may sound much like a lower league version of Fever Pitch, the Nick Hornby book that was turned into a rather tepid film, but Ian insists this is a different prospect.
“The Quiet Fan aims for something quite different, despite in places hankering for a time when Percy Freeman was guaranteed to score and City never seemed to lose at home. Fever Pitch to me was a slightly dishonest portrayal of fans as obsessives, which was admittedly a nice change from all fans being portrayed as mindless hooligans. But I still don’t think that book captured what it really means to be a fan, and why football is important.”
As a big fan of both Ian’s books, I sincerely hope you take the time to pop over and say hello to him, also to buy one of his books. My copy hasn’t arrived yet but I’m incredibly excited to get my hands on it!