BROWN DELIVERS A 5-STAR TRIBUTE

THIS is the Non-League Paper and you don’t get more NonLeague than 5-a-side, do you? It’s in those small-sided courts where anyone can become heroes in their own world.

The figures may resemble Puskas more than Pogba, but an expanded waistline is no barrier in this world.

It’s in this world where founder of Loaded magazine and presenter of talkSPORT’s ‘Late Tackle’, James Brown’s football career was played out.

It is the thread that has woven through relationships, addictions, an editorship at

GQ, the births of his two sons and the death of friends. It was the death of one of his friends, James Kyllo, that prompted him to write his book Above head height.

James Kyllo had become a fixture throughout James’ life through the fixtures arranged on weekday nights in North London, and when he had gone it made him appreciate what these floodlit kickabouts had given him. It’s a brilliant read, chronicling his life, and the lives of others, spent in odd socks, 20- year-old shorts and t-shirts that have become too tight. It’s made more enjoyable because James is a good mate of mine and I’ve seen him play. Imagine the lovechild of David Batty and Carlos Valderrama, then you get the picture. Batty from the neck down. Valderrama above. Anyone who has kept alive that link between playing in the street as kid and the responsibilities of adulthood will see themselves in this book, and love it.