Paul Cooper lived for football like most other 1960s kids and this is his account of the things that went with the game in those more innocent times – the clothes and shoes kids wore, the balls they played with from the very rare leather case ball with its occasionally crippling lace to the stone that was used in the playground if nothing else was available.
He remembers trying to get a team together from where he lived in north Devon to play in Europe. And he wonders why his father put him and brother Trevor, the well-known actor – Doctor Who, Midsomer Murders etc. – into matching jumpers whenever they went to visit people richer than them.

Author
Paul Cooper has coached football at grass roots level for fifteen years and in 2006 founded the children’s football initiative ‘Give Us Back Our Game’.
In 2008 he had his first book published, ‘Learn through Play (small sided games for football)’ and he writes a regular column for the magazine Soccer Coaching International.