Sitting down to read ‘Tackle’ was like relaxing into a favourite armchair it was so comfy and familiar. Jilly has taken to football as naturally as to horses, TV or opera and the pace was as ever, rollicking and jam packed with ascerbic one-liners and inventive puns.

Having said that, Tackle often felt like a patchwork quilt, sewing together many of the books Jilly’s written over the years. you can recognise characters, and even quotes, from stories gone by. However, the book was so jam packed with different personalities lurching from crisis to crisis, it lacked some of the warmth and depth of her previous work and made it hard to invest in the big storylines and relationships.

As an owner, while grateful she included the breed in her book, I am trying to forgive her for referring to a German Shepherd as an Alsatian but finding it difficult.