Seth originally covered his time out in Sri Lanka in a series of blog posts, shared on this website and in a weekly column in the Non-League Paper.
He arrived in Sri Lanka after answering a tweet calling for overseas players to join a professional Sri Lankan football team in a new tournament. He had no idea what awaited him. The team was Trinco Titans, owned by Sri Lankan cricketing legends Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, and were taking part in the North Eastern Premier League. Unfortunately, Seth was in the dark about the quality of football, the standard of pitches, the delicate local political tensions, even the dates of the fixtures… Before long, he was fully immersed in the Titans family, experiencing everything the country had to offer him: new friendships, picture-postcard beaches, a relaxed approach to organisation and time-keeping, thousands of new Facebook followers, and a crash course in the Teardrop Isle’s recent troubled history. There were results to forget but it was a summer to remember.
Seth said “I’m delighted to be publishing this book through Floodlit Dreams. Ian gave me my first chance as a writer by publishing The Boy in Brazil back in 2014 and the whole experience was fantastic. It was amazing to see the response to The Boy in Brazil and I hope people will similarly enjoy Titans of the Teardrop Isle.”
“I set up Floodlit Dreams in the first instance to publish a book I ghost-wrote for Mark Halsey, the Premier League referee,” said Floodlit Dreams founder Ian Ridley. “Then when Seth’s manuscript for The Boy In Brazil came in, I knew I wanted to publish that. Titans of the Teardrop Isle is in the same mould, a charming story of a season in an exotic location but also with an edge, taking in adversity as well as cultural and geo-political tensions. It’s a book that places football in its social context and those for me are the best kind of sports books.”
Titans of the Teardrop Isle was edited by hugely respected publishing figure Charlotte Atyeo, while the eye-catching cover was designed by Steve Leard. Pre-order the book here.
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