Nowhere to Run cover art

Nowhere to Run

The Ridiculous Life of a Semi-Professional Football Club Chairman

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Nowhere to Run

By: Jonathan Sayer
Narrated by: Jonathan Sayer
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

On the second oldest football pitch in the world, Jonathan Sayer stands atop a beer crate to address the assembled fans of Ashton United FC. As his initial optimism and disillusionment begin to slip through his fingers, the new co-chairman and co-owner (alongside his dad) starts to realise the scale of the challenge ahead.

Battling to keep the club afloat, a record number of games without a win sees hope turn to despair as Jonathan contends with a mutiny from a group of octogenarian supporters, constant battles with the local council and a star striker who arrives on crutches despite somehow passing his medical.

As the on-pitch form continues to deteriorate and rifts appear between him and his father, Jonathan begins to make some increasingly desperate decisions: dressing as a seven-foot robin in the local market in an effort to drum up larger crowds, sinking his savings into an ever spiralling wage bill and even contemplating bringing in a local priest to lift the 'Boxing Day Curse' by performing a late-night exorcism on the pitch.

Chronicling the euphoric highs and bitter disappointments of the less glamourous side of the beautiful game, Nowhere to Run is the hilarious, heart-warming tale of life in the hot seat of a non-league football club.

©2023 Jonathan Sayer (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Football (Soccer) Sports Funny Feel-Good Witty Heartfelt Comedy Game

Listeners also enjoyed...

The World's Biggest Cash Machine cover art
Deadline Day cover art
Football and How to Survive It cover art
Unfit and Improper Persons cover art
Hammer Time cover art
Born to be a Footballer: My Autobiography cover art
On Days Like These cover art
How to Be a Football Manager cover art
You May Never See Us Again cover art
Your Show cover art
Tod Is God cover art
Concussed cover art
The Wood Life cover art
A Father's Son cover art
Tinseltown cover art
Player Manager: A Sports Progression Fantasy cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Very good. Great insight into the not-so-glamorous and stressful side to the beautiful game. A fantastic listen all round.

Great listen. I’m going to find myself keeping an eye on Aston United’s results now

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

you really want them to do well. worth a listen if you're interested in lower league football

nice story and onsite.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Great to hear Jonathan reading the book and his passion for Ashton clearly comes out.

When most football stories are about the big Premiership clubs it good to see the other side of lower league football portrayed.

Dads battle with opening an outside bar would never happen at big clubs and this dedication and overcoming other challenges that gets you involved in the book.

A must for any football fan.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I really enjoyed listening to this book. author comes across as a really good guy and Ashton United are really lucky to have him as a co-owner. Good luck for the future!

Fantastic Listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Liked it a lot. Great story and v well written and spoken. Love non-league footy even more now

Quality Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Good account of the trials and occasional triumphs of being a non league co chair. Engaging and funny but also an accurate reflection of life in the lower parts of the pyramid.

Honesty and humour. Best wishes Ashton!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Well written and thoroughly enjoyable, the narrative stayed compelling throughout and maintained the sense of jeopardy to the end. Certainly a pity that the latter years came in a rush, suggesting understandably that it may have lay dormant during the pandemic.
Love the grass roots detail albeit a little undermined by the fiction/non fiction aspect. Thanks to Jonathan for the remarkable honesty (although Bashley… really?!) and I’d get a sequel as soon as it came out. Now I’m off to check out their season!

A compelling listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The narration in this book is superb, witty, passionate and emotional. Writing way beyond Jonathan’s years, would highly recommend. Even though I live in Droylsden and Ashton United had a nack of beating them

Excellent book about a local team

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I listened to the audio book which was unfortunately ruined in the preamble authors note with the above headline statement.
I was really looking forward to this but spent the entire listen thinking that the events described didn't actually happen like that. Names had been changed etc. etc. It wasn't clear to me whether this was everyone or just some of the oddball characters. Were the players/management even real?
I couldn't decide whether the book was fact or fiction. A decent read/listen but spoilt for by this tevalation.

"Details altered or exaggerated for comic effect"

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Very funny and well written. My only disappointment was that the financial situation outlined at the start was never addressed again. Was the deficit dealt with? How? Or is it still there, or even increased? It felt like that part of the story was introduced but then never finished or even progressed. Other than that though very enjoyable, would buy a sequel.

Very funny but would have liked....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews