Celebration of football that is pitched perfectly for fans.

(From Leicester Mercury)

Byline: DAVID OWEN

"Football used to be better in the past - and that's a fact!" This controversial view of the beautiful game is the rallying cry of a new book written by two Leicester City fans which looks set to storm the Christmas bestseller lists.

Got, Not Got - The A-Z of Lost Football Culture, Treasures & Pleasures is a nostalgic love letter to a more innocent age of British football - and critics have lapped it up.

The book, whose title refers to the school playground mantra of children swapping football cards, harks back to a time when you could find stars of the pitch living in your street, when potentially career-ending injuries could be cured in an instant by the Magic Sponge and when a "gaggle of small children would run harmlessly on to the pitch to pat the goalscorer's back".

GRUMPY OLD MEN …