deCoubertin Books
PRESS RELEASE
Liverpool, 24 February 2012: deCoubertin Books, the small publisher with big ideas, are delighted to announce that they will be publishing the autobiography of Everton and Wales legend Neville Southall.
Due for publication in August, it represents the first time that one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time and one of English football's defining figures over a career that spanned more than two decades has decided to tell his extraordinary life story.
For more than sixteen years Southall kept goal for Everton and Wales, becoming his club and country's greatest servant, as well as Everton's most decorated player. Uncompromising, unorthodox and often unkempt, Southall's career followed an incredible trajectory: from football-mad binman, to the greatest goalkeeper in the world in the space of a few years.
Now he lifts the lid on a career that saw him win virtually every major honour, offering a window not just on Everton's glory years and the rapidly changing landscape of British football, but also the latest chapter of his life - working with disengaged young people. It is also a story of a time before the game was all about money; when a young player's love of the game and ceaseless commitment to excellence could see him rise to the very summit of world football.
A reflective and thoughtful man with trenchant views on the direction of the modern game, Southall's amazing story represents the ultimate antidote to the dull stereotype of the modern footballer.
deCoubertin Books will shortly be announcing a special competition for fans of Neville to help choose the title of his book.
About the author:
Neville Southall was born in Llandudno in 1958. He left school at 16 and worked as a hod carrier, binman and waiter, while rising through the ranks of amateur and non-league football. His breakthrough in 1980 came with Bury, and a year later he joined Howard Kendall's Everton. Over a 16-year Goodison career Southall would go on to become the club's most decorated player, twice winning the League Championship and FA Cup, as well as the 1985 European Cup Winners Cup. He was named Footballer Writer's Player of the Year in 1985, was awarded the MBE in 1995 for services to football and is Wales's most capped player.
After playing spells in lower league and non-league football and managing in non-league, Southall retrained as a teacher and now works with disengaged young people.
About deCoubertin Books:
Founded in 2009, deCoubertin Books is a small, family run publishing house, focused on non-fiction, particularly sport.
A full publicity schedule will be available in Autumn 2012. For further information please contact Anna Corbett - anna@decoubertin.co.uk 0203 289 995
Email Bluekipper at enquiries@bluekipper.com
