Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Whatever Happened to Billy Parks
    Unavailable
    Whatever Happened to Billy Parks
    Unavailable
    Whatever Happened to Billy Parks
    Ebook295 pages4 hours

    Whatever Happened to Billy Parks

    By Gareth Roberts

    5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    2014 JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZE WINNER

    LONGLISTED FOR THE 2014 GORDON BURN PRIZE

    October 17th 1973: the greatest disaster in the history of English football.

    All England had to do was beat Poland to qualify for the World Cup.

    They didn’t.

    They could only draw.

    Left on the bench that night was a now forgotten genius, West Ham’s Billy Parks: beautiful, gifted and totally flawed.

    Fast-forward forty years, Billy’s life is a testament to wasted talent. His liver is failing and he earns his money selling football memories on the after-dinner circuit to anyone who’ll listen and buy him a drink. His family has deserted him and his friends are tired of his lies and excuses.

    But what if he could be given a second chance? What if he could go back in time and win the game for England? What if he was able to undo the pain he’d caused his loved ones?
    The Council of Football Immortals can give him that chance, just as long as he can justify himself, and his life, to them.
    This is the story of Billy Parks: a man who bore his genius like a dead weight and who now craves that most precious of things – the chance to put things right.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 15, 2013
    ISBN9780007531523
    Unavailable
    Whatever Happened to Billy Parks

    Related to Whatever Happened to Billy Parks

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Remembering Andy Pollitt

      Oct 2, 2023

      Remembering Andy Pollitt
      10 min read

    • Article

      LeTtErBoCkS

      Jan 4, 2024

      IN THE interests of road safety, I think it would be a good idea for the government to introduce a law that requires all drivers to have their hazard lights on at all times. Except when there are no immediate hazards. Jack Spratt, Stourbridge RADIO 4

      14 min read

    • Article

      Barry's Last Words

      May 31, 2023

      Barry's Last Words
      4 min read

    • Article

      Last Orders

      Jul 28, 2021

      Last Orders
      5 min read

    • Article

      Unreality Television

      May 27, 2020

      Unreality Television
      4 min read

    • Article

      Nicknames

      Jul 31, 2020

      You car people are a bit odd.” “Odd? Why?” “Because you all seem to have nicknames.” “So, that makes us odd? Really? OK then. I always thought that was completely normal” That was, in essence, a conversation I had a while ago with a non-car person I

      5 min read

    • Article

      Life On The Road

      Dec 16, 2021

      Life On The Road
      4 min read

    • Article

      Royal Ascent

      Jul 28, 2022

      Royal Ascent
      5 min read

    • Article

      Family Telly At Xmas

      Dec 13, 2023

      'Death and Christmas, inevitable and ghastly,’ my father, the actor Robert Hardy (1925-2017), used to say. Around it came, a traditional part of every Christmas Past, as we all jollied about him, pounding the brandy butter and winding tinsel round th

      4 min read

    • Article

      Radio

      May 3, 2023

      This AI thing. Artificial intelligence. Scary! Already China has an AI news presenter, dead-eyed. Radio 4 gave us A Documentary: By ChatGPT, proving that an AI artist – named Aida after Ada Lovelace, Byron's mathematician daughter – could talk the ta

      2 min read

    • Article

      Black Stump Hotel, Merriwagga

      Nov 14, 2018

      Black Stump Hotel, Merriwagga
      6 min read

    • Article

      THE DUKE OF Edinbrough Hotel

      Nov 13, 2019

      THE DUKE OF Edinbrough Hotel
      6 min read

    • Article

      Noël Coward's MeToo moment

      Aug 23, 2023

      Sadly, I didn't know Jane Birkin, the Anglo-French actress, singer and beauty, who died in Paris in mid-July at the age of 76. I had admired her since I was a teenager and saw her, naked, in Antonioni's seminal Sixties movie, Blow-Up. Later, I got to

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Pint At Our Spiritual Home

      Sep 21, 2022

      A Pint At Our Spiritual Home
      4 min read

    • Article

      I Ran Away To Sea

      Jul 26, 2023

      I Ran Away To Sea
      3 min read

    • Article

      LeTtErBoCkS

      Nov 16, 2023

      Viz Comic, P.O. Box 841 Whitley Bay, NE26 9EQ letters@viz.co.uk WHILST admiring this Monet e painting Woman with a Parasol, I was suddenly struck by the depressing thought that if it was painted today, the subject would probably be wearing a baseball

      13 min read

    • Article

      Free Your Mind!

      Jun 16, 2022

      Free Your Mind!
      12 min read

    • Article

      Woman About Town

      Jul 28, 2022

      Woman About Town
      5 min read

    • Article

      Toolbox TALES

      Nov 21, 2018

      Toolbox TALES
      3 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Sep 20, 2023

      SIR: My mother, for one, was delighted that Gareth Neame chose Highclere Castle as the location for Downton Abbey (September issue). She was a teacher during the war, and her entire school was evacuated to Highclere. The awestruck reaction of a bunch

      6 min read

    • Article

      Gringo Honeymoon

      May 17, 2021

      Gringo Honeymoon
      5 min read

    • Article

      What's The Point?

      Mar 6, 2024

      As Sir Les Patterson might have phrased it, my boredom threshold is so low, it could parachute out of a snake's bottom and still freefall. I have given up on more books than I have finished – and I can't stand literary novels or most poetry. I stoppe

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letter Bocks

      Nov 18, 2021

      letters@viz.co.uk ON A RECENT visit to Denmark I saw this remarkable poster inside a bus. Needless to say, I put my foot through the bus window and was hospitalised for a considerable amount of time. However, I was perfectly fine and I didn’t even ha

      13 min read

    • Article

      The Hapless Stooge

      Dec 8, 2022

      The Hapless Stooge
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Whatever Happened to Billy Parks

    5/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This is the fictional account of the life of a first division footballer from the 1970s. His rise to fame, adoration, adulation and subsequent demise via alcohol, extra-marital affairs and gambling could probably serve as a base template for any number of real-life footballers.Funny yet deeply sad in places, you may not like Billy Parks very much but you still find yourself rooting for him all the same.