THE DOTS WILL NOT BE JOINED is both a rich, sentimental memoir and a racy 'Compendium of Ideas'. It's about sport (mainly football and cricket) but it carries wise, sometimes cheeky diversions - snapshots into what makes us and what liberates us. The *stories* and the challenges range. Rick Walton is a coach and a writer with a fearless, impossibly positive streak coursing through him. He recounts scary or electrifying visits to football and those wonderfully daft adventures so many of us have had in village teams. Combs forgotten in boots; lacerating North Sea gales; chunks of orange and blissfully sweet tea; 'team talks'. But we also have Proper Coaching - notions around how to approach and nourish and support players. There is the contention, too, that sport really can be 'good'; that how we play can matter. All this in a matrix of arty or philosophical hunches which unashamedly (but also humbly) celebrate the raw, The Human, the ridiculous, the unknowable, the 'unweighted'. Walton's book is a one-off, daring to chase a zillion narratives so as to capture something actually rather profound about how activity works, in a world where the 'Social' and Corporate kaleidoscopes are blurring, bending and maybe even crushing our will.

About the Author
Rick Walton, having been half-decent at football, cricket and most of those ball-juggling adventures, has now been coaching cricket for a living for ten years. Sport is absolutely in the blood. He is also an ECB Accredited writer who attends elite-level cricket - often women's - to report back in his own, genuinely inimitable style. Rick prefers the moniker 'bloggist' to blogger, largely because it feels left-fieldier... and he is that way inclined.

Reviews
"Nobody else is currently writing about cricket, and much besides, like Rick Walton. He may even be Pembrokeshire's Hunter S Thompson..." Brian Carpenter, Wisden writer and award winner.; "Rick is a man who cares deeply and writes energetically - a fine combination. A wonderfully positive presence, be it in the press box or online". Adam Collins, broadcaster and writer.; "This is sports writing of a different kind. If Neville Cardus had somehow collaborated with Jack Kerouac, they might have produced what Rick Walton does here". Paul Mason, writer and broadcaster; "Rick Walton cuts through the pomposity and ego in sport and gets to the issues that really matter. His writing is authoritative, engaging - and provocative when it needs to be. As a writer who works at the grass roots, he also speaks from experience". Ian Herbert, sportswriter, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday



Book Information
ISBN 9781839757921
Author Rick Walton
Format Paperback
Page Count 216
Imprint Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd
Publisher Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd
Weight(grams) 241g
Dimensions(mm) 203mm * 127mm * 13mm