Football Writing Festival 2017 at various venues

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor

Book now

Football Writing Festival 2017

30 August-7 September 2017

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Sports journalist Caroline Barker
Sports journalist Caroline Barker.
Book now

The Football Writing Festival is back for its fourth year in Manchester, kicking off on Wednesday 30 August and running for just over a week. A partnership between the National Football Museum, Waterstones Deansgate and Hotel Football based at Old Trafford, the festival showcases a cross-venue programme of soccer-related events, covering subjects from non-league to Champions League, with panellists including some of the UK and Europe’s best-known sports writers.

The line-up features festival favourites The Blizzard magazine winning the toss and getting things underway; outspoken player Joey Barton and former City captain Paul Lake chatting about football’s “talent factory” with journalist Michael Calvin and BBC Sport’s Lead for Diversity and Women’s Sport Shelley Alexander; sports writer Patrick Barclay talking about his biography of Manchester United’s legendary manager Sir Matt Busby, published this September, and The Guardian‘s David Conn discussing his latest book, The Fall Of The House Of FIFA.

Caroline Barker (pictured) of Radio 5 Live will be at the National Football Museum on Saturday 2 September, 6.30pm, hosting The Non-League Show Live. The special sees her introducing guests such as Nige Tassell, whose Bottom Corner: A Season With The Dreamers of Non-League Football is, we’re told, a must-read for hopeless football romantics everywhere and proves it’s not all Lamborghinis and luxury skyscrapers in the footballing world.

You can choose to buy tickets for individual festival events, or bagsy a Season Pass – getting you a seat at all eight and saving you a stonking £25. You’ll also have the chance to buy discounted tickets for one more, yet-to-be-announced, big event during the festival.

 

Where to go near Football Writing Festival 2017 at various venues

Cathedral Gardens
Cathedral Quarter
Park
Cathedral Gardens

Cathedral Gardens is a partially lawned public space in Manchester city centre, located between Manchester Cathedral and the National Football Museum.

Manchester
Event venue
Festa Italiana

The 2022 Festa Italiana was a roaring success, with great food options and captivating live music performances throughout the weekend.

Cathedral Quarter
Restaurant
Mamucium

High-class restaurant next to Victoria Station in Manchester, and attached to Hotel Indigo. Famed for steaks.

Cathedral Quarter
Restaurant
Salvi’s Mozzarella Bar

Head to this tiny Italian eatery for an authentic slice of Naples. It majors in mozzarella and the stuff here is a revelation: light, flavoursome, with oily, oozing pesto.

Chetham’s Library in Long Millgate in Manchester
Manchester
Library
Chetham’s Library

Chetham’s Library is one of the must-sees of any visit to Manchester. The library was founded in 1653, and is the oldest public library in the world – but the building dates back even further, to 1421.

What's on: Literature

LiteratureWest Yorkshire
Poetry at the Dusty Miller

Poetry at the Dusty Miller is a now regular night with invited readers, organised by poets Carola Luther and Ian Humphreys in the Coiners’ Room in the Mytholmroyd pub.

Free entry
Lorna Goodison
LiteratureManchester
Poets & Players at Burgess Foundation

Poets & Players is a must-go for lovers of words and music, presenting poets established and emerging, with the autumn season kicking off with headline poet Lorna Goodison.

Free entry
LiteratureManchester
Nikita Gill at Feel Good Club

Enter the Underworld with internationally bestselling poet Nikita Gill as she discusses her “propulsive, electrifying and enraging” new book Hekate.

From £18.99
Dan Coxon.
LiteratureLiverpool
Writing The Magic launch at Dead Ink Bookshop

Writing the Magic (Essays on Crafting Fantasy Fiction) is the fourth in Liverpool-based publisher Dead Ink Books’ award-winning series of guides, and this launch event hears from editor Dan Coxon.

From £5.00

Culture Guides

Detail of an abstract sculpture, with burned materials and rusty chicken wire at the centre, with rusted metal bars bent around it.
Exhibitions in the North

Chocolate fountains, beautiful batiks and medieval marginalia - this month's supersized Exhibitions Guide has it all.

Literature Events in the North

The autumn leaves might be falling already, but the harvest is plentiful as the live literature scene gets back into the swing of things after a summer break...

Theatre in Manchester and the North
Theatre in the North

This season’s theatre is gloriously eclectic: from radical cabaret and reinvented classics to new musicals and boundary-pushing performance.

Cinema in the North

This month we recommend a season of Film noir, cult Australian movies and a huge celebration of DIY community cinema.