I Lost My Heart To The Belles

What kind of women play football? Factory workers, bank clerks, policewomen, students and shop assistants, they come together on a Sunday united by a passion for the game all too woefully absent from the money-drenched circus of professional sport. Fired by a Collective clan, an infectious joie de vivre, over the past dozen years the Doncaster Belles have been successful beyond the dreams of any other women's team. Pete Davies spends a season with the Belles - and finds a unique group of people with an abundance of talent, and a vividly earthy sense of humour. They play hard in the pit villages and nightclubs of South Yorkshire, they play hard on tatty pitches in run-down suburbs and industrial estates - but they play for love too, and to a standard that could convert the most blinkered chauvinist. At a time when more and more women are both watching and playing football, this club have been trailblazers; in this rich, diverting and passionate book, Davies make it plain why you too, once you've met them, will lose your heart to the Belles.

What kind of women play football? Factory workers, bank clerks, policewomen, students and shop assistants, they come together on a Sunday united by a passion for the game all too woefully absent from the money-drenched circus of professional sport. Fired by a Collective clan, an infectious joie de vivre, over the past dozen years the Doncaster Belles have been successful beyond the dreams of any other women's team. Pete Davies spends a season with the Belles - and finds a unique group of people with an abundance of talent, and a vividly earthy sense of humour. They play hard in the pit villages and nightclubs of South Yorkshire, they play hard on tatty pitches in run-down suburbs and industrial estates - but they play for love too, and to a standard that could convert the most blinkered chauvinist. At a time when more and more women are both watching and playing football, this club have been trailblazers; in this rich, diverting and passionate book, Davies make it plain why you too, once you've met them, will lose your heart to the Belles.