English - CV

Tim Adams

Tim grew up in Birmingham and continues to be a fervent supporter of Aston Villa. He was Deputy Editor of Granta Magazine for six years before moving to the Observer where he worked as Literary Editor and Review Editor. He is currently a staff writer on the paper. He is the author of On Being John McEnroe, and is now working on a book about mentors, madmen and midlife crises, which Picador will publish in 2007. He lives in Bath with his wife and two daughters.

Mark Burke

Mark too was born in Birmingham, in 1969, He started his professional career at Aston Villa, representing England Junior and Youth sides, making his debut aged 18 against the title-winning Everton side in 1987. Uncommonly for an English footballer, he has played not just in leagues on the British Isles: after playing for Middlesbrough, Wolves and Port Vale, he spent four years with Fortuna Sittard in the Dutch Eredivisie, playing with such players as Van Bommel, Pauuwe, Ricksen in what was then a strong team. From there, he moved on to Japan to play for Omiya Ardija with Pim Verbeek, (now S.Korea head coach), spending two years in Tokyo before moving back to Europe to Rapid Bucharest in Romania. He works as a journalist for various newspapers and has written two books: Everything You Need to Know About How to Become a Pro Soccer Player But Didn?t Know Who to Ask and World without Mirrors, a self-improvement book.

David Goldie

David was brought up in Scotland but speaks English reasonably well. He worked in the theatre for three years, directing, writing, and adapting plays, before going to Oxford, where he played three seasons for the University blues team. He now works at Strathclyde University in Glasgow where he teaches criticism and writing in the English Studies department. He has written one book, A Critical Difference, and edited a couple of others and has contributed to many collections and to journals such as Critical Quarterly and the London Review of Books. He began his footballing life as a backward-looking forward, but with age and time has increasingly become a forward-looking back.

Graham Joyce

Graham is a multiple-award-winning author of twelve novels of speculative fiction. He has also published a collection of short stories and has written screenplay adaptations of his work. His work has been published in twenty languages and he regularly reviews for The Washington Post. After twelve years of retirement from the world of sport, Graham was called up for international duty only a week before last year?s Writers? League tournament in Florence. ?How desperate are you?? he asked. ?Very?, the team managers replied, and Graham has been a stable fixture in the squad ever since.

Paul Laity

Paul Laity is an editor at the Review section of the Guardian newspaper. Before that, he worked for several years at the London Review of Books. He has written one book, on the British Peace Movement 1870-1914, and edited an anthology of the essays from the legendary Left Book Club. Paul recently wrote an essay on the South African football team for the Thinking Fan?s Guide to the World Cup (2006). He plays in central defence for the English team.


Haydn Middleton

Haydn was born in Reading in 1955. With an English mother and Welsh father he was eligible to represent either country at the beautiful game but until this twilight of his career he has been consistently overlooked by the selectors. He has published seven novels for adults since 1987?s The People In The Picture, most of them featuring at least an element of fantasy, while eking out a living writing schoolbooks for children on subjects ranging from Alan Shearer to Jellyfish. His fantasy-football series for children, Come and Have a Go, is based on a parallel-universe Reading FC ? the club he has supported from Third Division mediocrity in 1964 to their current Premiership zenith. Between 1985 and 2006 he took a sabbatical from serious playing and although once quite good in the air, he now leaps rather like a middle-aged salmon and falls into the category of ?mouthy seasoned veteran?.

Patrick Neate

Patrick is the vocal holding-midfielder of the English writers? team and an award-winning novelist, critic, scriptwriter and poet. His work has been published in most major UK newspapers and magazines, widely anthologised and broadcast on radio and television. He is the author of four novels and one book of non-fiction. His novels are: Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko (2000), winner of a Betty Trask Award; Twelve Bar Blues (2001), winner of the 2001 Whitbread Novel Award; The London Pigeon Wars (2003); and City of Tiny Lights (2005). His non-fiction book, an analysis of hip-hop, is Where You?re At: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet (2003), winner of the 2004 National Book Critics? Circle Award (USA). He is also one of the brains behind Bookslam, London?s only literary nightclub. After losing two games with the English Writers? team last year, Patrick seriously considered giving up smoking.

Philip Oltermann

Philip founded the English Writers? team after writing an article about the 2005 tournament for the Times. He was born in Hamburg, Germany and has only lived in England for the last ten years but thinks that those who see a problem in that should get over themselves. After studying at Oxford, Philip worked as deputy editor at the international literary magazine Zembla. He writes about literature and arts for the Times, the Guardian and Prospect Magazine, and about English football for Spiegel Online. He recently edited a book on writers and their talismans (How I Write, Rizzoli NY, April 2007). His football idols are Jürgen Klinsmann, for what he did to Anglo-German relations, and Peter Crouch, for vindicating very tall people.

Nicholas Royle

Nicholas, born in Manchester in 1963, is the author of five novels, including Counterparts, The Director?s Cut and Antwerp, and a short story collection, Mortality (Serpent?s Tail). Widely published as a journalist, he has also edited twelve anthologies and is a lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Forthcoming is a novella, The Enigma of Departure (PS Publishing). A lifelong Manchester City fan, he plays five-a-side twice a week.

Jake Wallis Simons

Jake Wallis Simons was born in 1978, a good year for football. He grew up as a goalkeeper, but soon realised that it was more fun scoring goals than saving them. So now he plays up front. He spent two years living in Asia, studying Chinese and playing football. In 1999, he went to Oxford to study English, and played football for his college's first eleven. In 2005 his first novel, The Exiled Times Of A Tibetan Jew, was published to critical acclaim. He is now working on his second novel. And playing football.

Andrew Smith

'Andrew Smith  is author of the best-selling 'Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth', in which he tracks down the nine remaining men who walked on the moon between 1969 and '72. Prior to this, he worked as everything from van driver to guitar teacher, before settling into life as a feature writer for The Face, The Observer and The Sunday Times. He has just completed his first novel, but away from books, likes to think of himself as the non-thinking man's Teddy Sheringham.'

Craig Taylor

Craig was born on the Canadian prairies but has lived in London long enough to qualify as an England international. He has written for McSweeney?s, the New York Times magazine and Granta. One of his ?One Million Tiny Plays about Britain? appears every Saturday in the Guardians Weekend Magazine. His first book, Return to Akenfield, came out in paperback in March. He is currently writing a book about Londoners.

Sam Taylor

Sam was born in 1970 in Derbyshire, and grew up in Nottinghamshire, a short walk from Newstead Abbey, one-time home of Lord Byron; a short bus ride from Sherwood Forest, setting for the legend of Robin Hood; and a slightly longer bus ride from the City Ground, home of two-time European champions Nottingham Forest. After working for eight years as the music critic of The Observer, Taylor moved, with his wife and children, to southwest France, where he?s been since 2001. He?s written two novels: The Republic of Trees (2005) and The Amnesiac (2007). A forward in the Alan Shearer/Michael Owen mould (though without the cannonball shot of the former nor the lightning pace of the latter) he plays football for his local team, Trie FC.

Conrad Williams

Born in 1969 in Cheshire, Conrad worked as a TV critic and book reviewer for the London city guide Time Out before becoming a full-time novelist. He is the author of three novels, Head Injuries, London Revenant and The Unblemished; three novellas, Nearly People, Game and The Scalding Rooms; and a collection of short stories, ?Use Once then Destroy?. Conrad is a mazy, muscular midfielder possessing a left foot you could open a tin can with.

'Andrew Smith is author of the best-selling 'Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth', in which he tracks down the nine remaining men who walked on the moon between 1969 and '72. Prior to this, he worked as everything from van driver to guitar teacher, before settling into life as a feature writer for The Face, The Observer and The Sunday Times. He has just completed his first novel, but away from books, likes to think of himself as the non-thinking man's Teddy Sheringham.'