Heartland - Anthony Cartwright

It is Spring 2002, with local elections looming. A mosque is being built on the site where Cinderheath's iconic steelworks once dominated the town. 'The Tipton Three', from just down the road, are imprisoned in Guantanamo; the BNP expect to win new seats on the council. St. George's flags fly from cars and windows: the World Cup is beginning, England to play Argentina. But first, a controversial Sunday-league football game must take place, billed by the press as 'a match to spark a race war'.

Anthony Cartwright was born in Dudley in 1973. His first novel The Afterglow won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for several other literary prizes; his second novel Heartland was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was adapted for BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime; his third novel How I Killed Margaret Thatcher was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and was a Fiction Uncovered 2013 selection. His collaborative novel with Gian Luca Favetto, Il giorno perduto (The Lost Day) was published in Italy in 2015. He worked as an English teacher in schools in London and the Midlands for over ten years and is currently a First Story writer-in-residence at two schools. He lives in London with his wife and son.

Very possibly the best novel about the World Cup
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