Phil Ball (writer)

Phil Ball (born 1957 in Vancouver, Canada) is a British writer based in Spain. He has lived in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, for over twenty years. Born in Canada to English parents, Phil Ball grew up in Grimsby on the north east coast of England, having moved there as a child in 1957. As a youngster Phil Ball supported Grimsby Town, saying "I was brought up on lower league football". After finishing University, Ball took up an English teaching post in a state comprehensive school in Hull. He subsequently taught in Peru and later Oman, eventually moving to San Sebastián after the first Gulf War.

Phil Ball is a lifelong football enthusiast, and his first published book was the acclaimed Morbo: the story of Spanish football (2001). The book linked the traditional antagonisms in Spanish football (the "Morbo" of the title) to the regional, linguistic and political divisions of Spain as a country. Morbo was listed for the William Hill award and won the GQ Sports Book of the Year. A Spanish translation of the book was published in 2010 and a new updated edition in English came out in 2011. It was voted into the top 50 of the best football books of all time by the British-based magazine '442', in 2017.

White Storm: 100 years of Real Madrid (2002) was the first English-language history of the famous Spanish football club, written to celebrate its centenary, using a similar socio-political approach to that taken in Morbo. The book is on its third edition, has been translated into various languages, and was finally published in Spanish in September 2009 under the title 'Tormenta Blanca'.

An Englishman Abroad : Beckham's Spanish adventure (2004) chronicled the first year of English footballer David Beckham's spell at the Real Madrid club.

Phil Ball's 2006 publication The Hapless Teacher's Handbook marked a departure from sports writing, being a humorous autobiographical account of his own early years as a schoolteacher in England.

Phil Ball has contributed football articles to a number of sports publications, including When Saturday Comes, ESPNsoccernet, The New York Times and Financial Times. Phil Ball has also worked as an announcer for Sky Sports' La Liga broadcast. He has also written a regular weekly column on Spanish football for ESPN Soccernet since 2002, and currently writes for Sport 360.

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