The Boy on the Shed:A remarkable sporting memoir with a foreword by Alan Shearer: Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year

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I loved "The Boy In The Shed" which was poignant and beautifully written and this is a worthy successor although a totally different type of book. Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris's The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.' Guardian Then we have glimpses of his political ideas, and long treatises on ill health, death and mourning. It tells of many other failed ventures. Which all serve to confuse the issue rather than clarify it. What is this book about exactly? He is also very candid about his early family life — how his dad loved a pint and how he feared elder brother Patsy’s mood swings when he was drunk, which on occasion led to domestic violence. His electrifying pace, a drop of the shoulder that bamboozled many a defender and the coolness of a killer in front of goal, Ferris was one of - if not the- first to be landed with the ‘new George Best’ tag.

A simply fabulous autobiography from my fellow countryman, which is a WHOLE LOT MORE than your typical ex-professional footballer's "me and the lads" tales... Football memoirs rarely produce great literature but Ferris’s The Boy on the Shed is a glistening exception.’ Guardian Paul Ferris has written a book that transcends genres...Ferris writes with the sort of fluency that, on the pitch, once impressed peers such as Paul Gascoigne.Ferris has gone beyond standard sports autobiographies. The Boy On The Shed is of a time and place, of Ireland, of Northern Ireland, of growing up a Catholic on a Protestant estate in Lisburn in the 1970s. It is a story of everyday sectarianism and its effects...These books offer a window on another world. Paul Ferris spent much of his childhood in Lisburn looking through one. What he saw, how he understood it and didn't understand it, is gripping. * Irish Times *Paul Ferris (born 10 July 1965) is a Northern Irish former footballer, physiotherapist for Newcastle United, barrister and author. He doesn't like Ireland, his home country, and how it has been throughout most of his life. He has not come to terms with the death of his mother over 25 years ago, and he has huge self doubt about himself, his abilities and his health. A fascinating life story, bearing much heart and soul as well as being 'warts and all'. It is well worth reading for its honesty and its insights by any reader and will be a particularly absorbing read for anyone with an interest or love for 'the beautiful game' as well as Ulster readers and those who remember the would-be local football star from these shores. * Irish Tatler * My granddaughter [Isla] was born last February; I watch her and think, in 10 or 15 years you’ll open it and see your name in the front of the book and it’ll be a precious thing. It’s hard to describe that feeling when those doors close at the airport and you’re on the other side of it.”

Former Newcastle United winger Paul Ferris was 51. He had successfully forged a post-football career as a physio, barrister and then a CEO, and his award-winning memoir, The Boy on the Shed, was just about to be published. But then he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. This honest, sometimes brutal and frequently funny book tells the story of what happened next. Despite the heavy loading, and a natural reticence to “push myself forward”, this is a moment he has looked forward to. Newcastle United wanted him to come over and, although he was keen to stay and finish his O-levels, maybe try and become the first member of his family to get into university, everybody told him it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Yet while such landmark events would inspire worry of one kind, it was nothing compared with the fear he felt every single day that his mother’s worsening heart condition would take her from him.Even then, Paul’s sense of humour could not be contained. Asked to sign a form authorising a medical procedure, he noted a line that read, “This procedure can lead to dizziness, headaches, stroke and death”, and could not resist quipping, “Could I have one that stops at dizziness and headaches?”. The paramedics were not impressed.