A former contributor to the Chronicle's sport page has recently published a book that collects some of the best bits from the humorous and off-kilter match programmes he used to edit for R.T.B. Ebbw Vale.

"Park Life' which ran from 2003-09, completed a hat-trick of Gwent County Programme of the year wins and was also voted best in its category for three consecutive years in the Welsh Football Magazine's Programme of the year awards.

During a long and undistinguished football career in the 'beautiful game', author Jeff Jones played in every position on the pitch and has occupied every position off the field of play from club chairman to progamme editor.

Jones used his match programme to share numerous stories of his struggles with football teams at the lower end of the football pyramid, although he also used an array of fictional characters to air their views on professional football at a world level, so fans of the game are guaranteed to find something of interest in amongst the pages of 'Park Life' - The Best Bits.

Editor of Welsh Football Magazine, David Collins said,"I get to see plenty of match programmes every season from around the local Welsh leagues, and just about all of them fulfill their brief of providing some match information: line-ups, statistics and a few notes. But it's comparatively rare to find one that genuinely sets out to entertain in the way 'Park Life' did.

"It's no mean feat, and the amount of time required to pull it off consistently shouldn't be under-estimated."

Jones explained, "Becoming an author is the culmination of not only a dream for me, but a journey which has seen me rise from an amateur football club's match report writer, to football fanzine editor, match programme editor to author.

"That journey began back in the mid-eighties when I started writing match reports for the Abergavenny Chronicle for the then Gwent County league side Gilwern and District FC.

"I had two unique writing styles with match reports when I became a regular writer. The first was that everyone who had played for Gilwern in the match had at least one mention.

"I remember once when I had captained my school team to victory away at Redditch, to my acute disappointment I was the only player not mentioned in the subsequent match report.

"I vowed I would not put a player through the upset I went through.

"The second thing I introduced was putting some humour into the match report to make them entertaining and stand out a little.

"This seemed to work well and I remember once a team mate informed me that a guy on his post round who knew he played for Gilwern had stopped him to explain how much he looked forward to reading my match reports because they made him laugh so much."

Jones Stuck with the humour, though too much pride can lead to a fall as he later found out, when instead of writing a report for a battering Gilwern received at the hands of Fleur-Dy-Lys, he submitted a poem in the style of Max Boyce which went on to cause a number of complaints from irate readers.

The poem read,

"The side was badly beaten; there was no time to relax

The midfield blamed the forwards, the forwards blamed the backs

The keeper had a nightmare decided to do himself in.

He threw himself under a bus, but even that went under him!

6-1 down at half-time the manager went spare

He asked the opposition if they wanted to declare!

To their credit in the second half, Gilwern picked themselves up off their knees.

Though they won't be looking forward to visiting Fleur-Dy-Lys!"

Jones explained, "I was so pleased with myself and felt sure that as a club Gilwern could laugh it off. However, I had a visit on the day the newspaper came out from the irate goalkeeper who had already been to the offices of the Abergavenny Chronicle complaining about the report!

"I argued that it wasn't a report it was a poem in which no names were mentioned. The first team manager then telephoned me to complain about my sense of humour causing offence as the goalkeeper was threatening to leave the club.

"Eventually the storm blew over though not before I had formulated a plan to write a fanzine, the journey had began."

To order a copy of "Park Life" The Best Bits, please telephone Jeff on 07815838670 or e-mail him on [email protected]">[email protected].