Following On: A Memoir of Teenage Obsession and Terrible Cricket

(Paperback)

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It's one thing to be 14 years old and a loser. It's one thing to be the class swot, and hopelessly infatuated with someone who doesn't know you exist. But what kind of teenager is besotted with an entire sports team when the players are even bigger losers than she is In 1993, while everyone else was learning Oasis lyrics and crushing on Kate Moss or Keanu, Emma John was obsessing over the England cricket team. She spent her free time making posters of the players she adored. She spent her pocket money on Panini stickers of them, and followed their progress with a single-mindedness that bordered on the psychopathic. The primary object of her affection: Michael Atherton, a boyishly handsome captain who promised to lead his young troops to glory. But what followed was one of the worst sporting streaks of all time a decade of frustration, dismay and comically bungling performances that made the English cricket team a byword for British failure. Nearly a quarter of a century on, Emma John wants to know why she spent her teenage years defending such a bunch of no-hopers. She seeks out her childhood heroes with two questions: why did they never win And why on earth did she love them so much

Reviews

Truly original, clever, funny, poignant and passionate. * Clare Balding *
Wittily and charmingly combines adolescent excess with grown-up irony and perspective. Sport hasnt seen anything quite like this. * Simon Barnes *
Emma's memoir somehow manages to be the story of my own youth. It is a touching and funny account of a cricketing era that though recent also feels very long gone. * Miles Jupp *
A winner funny, warm, perceptive, and wonderfully evocative. Highly recommended. * Michael Simkins *
Deftly comic, wonderfully true, for anyone who has ever thought that England, chasing 600 in the fourth innings, just might do it. * Gideon Haigh *
A beautifully constructed and painfully honest memoir of blind loyalty to an unworthy sporting team. * Lynne Truss *
Wonderful, funny, elegantly turned and strikingly perceptive. Above all it has a warmth you don't often find in cricket writing. * Marcus Berkmann *
I have read a fair few cricket books but none like this. Consistently witty and full of wonder. * Arthur Smith *
A fresh and lively read * The Observer *
A gloriously funny yet poignant memoir * The Guardian *
It is in equal measure funny, insightful, perceptive, illuminating and best of all a jolly good cricket read * www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk *
A witty and thoughtful recollection of growing up as a sports-mad girl in the Nineties * School Sport *
A funny and touching memoir * School Sport *
Following On is the wonderful story of Johns rather unhealthy teenage obsession with Englands finest set of losers ... It is a very funny depiction of why cricket touches you, however bad the team is that you follow * The Cricket Paper *
A real treat of a book, that will gladden the hearts of any cricket lover over 25, and broaden the horizons of anyone under. * All Out Cricket *
John met and interviewed 11 players of the Nineties for her book She recounts their stories with wit, warmth and perceptiveness * New Statesman *
A witty, wry memoir the comparisons to Nick Hornbys Fever Pitch are justified * Independent i *

Author Bio

Emma John is a writer and editor on The Guardian and The Observer. She is a former deputy editor of Observer Sport Monthly and The Wisden Cricketer and in 2008 she was the first woman to win a Sports Journalism Award. She lives in north London and has been on the MCC waiting list for 17 years, six months and 21 days. Not that she's counting. @em_john