RALPH Goldstein switches on the television to hear Ruud Gullit coining the famous phrase 'Sexy Football' and realises how his own love of the game has developed along a parallel stream to his sexual education.

It causes him to reminisce about his life and, in particular, the extent to which it has been influenced by his two great passions, sex and football.

His mind drifts back and forth through a wayward childhood and troubled adolescence until we eventually find him as a 50-something adult coaching a junior side in Herefordshire.

In Sexy Football, by Ross-on-Wye's Peter Gilmour, we pause from time to time as Ralph's trenchant tale is interspersed with snippets of the unorthodox philosophy he gleans from a varied and chequered career.

He had long felt that football could be a beautiful, fulfilling, and artistic expression of love if we went about it in a positive manner and, by the way, if we could play football in that way, why not live like that too?

Sexy Football, at £7.99, is ostensibly a novel about football but careers off at various tangents to include many issues.

It weaves its way through some of the thorny dilemmas we all face in coping with the vagaries of existence and, in doing so, exposes some of the ridiculous attitudes and curious paradoxes that are ubiquitous in modern life.

For more details contact Peter Gilmour on 01989 566536.