We are Sunday League: A Bittersweet, Real-Life Story from Football’s Grass Roots

By Ewan Flynn

Pitch Publishing, 2017

With Sunday League numbers dwindling year after year, it’s a good time for a reminder of the gruelling glory of amateur football. Sure, there are the injuries, the insults, the wet weekends, the panics of last-minute pull-outs, but it’s all worth it when you win that grudge match, that cup final, that league title. Right?

We Are Sunday League puts forward a strong case. North Londoner Ewan Flynn founded ‘The Wizards’ with school friends and roped in a rolling cast of extras over the years. In true Roy of the Rovers style, they battled all the way to the Edmonton Sunday League title. With a nice balance of charm, heart and humour, Flynn charts the team’s magnificent adventure, through hangovers, sloping pitches and angry opponents.

So far, so good, but pretty familiar. It’s the personal stories of Flynn’s teammates that make We Are Sunday League so engaging. The nearly-made-it midfielder now playing for fun, the winger desperate to make his sport-mad father proud, the goalkeeper who briefly lived his professional football dream and then returned. Amateur football is all about the characters. Who wouldn’t want to read about the captain of Gibraltar and the Tottenham fan who stole Tim Sherwood’s gilet?