An exhilarating and searing memoir about life as a professional female footballer - and a beautiful examination of the joy and pain of serious athletics

An exhilarating and searing memoir about life as a professional female footballer - and a beautiful examination of the joy and pain of serious athletics

‘Riveting ... A paean to the beautiful game’ Los Angeles Times

‘A compelling debut’ Times Literary Supplement

In The Striker and the Clock, Georgia Cloepfil tells the story of her life in football: the triumph, the exhilaration, the deep bonds between teammates, and also the years of self-denial, exile and dedication, in which players try in vain to outpace a clock that ticks down toward an indeterminate ending.

What emerges is a profound meditation on what it is to have a body, and what it is to have the compulsion to push it to do the near impossible; and a love letter to the motivations, joys, pains and desires of a beautiful game.

"Will appeal to readers ready and willing to embrace the deep affinities among the craft and discipline of sport … An allusive, self-aware, culturally aware and, above all, thoughtful book" - TLS

"A book of uncommonly honest insight, full of wisdom won not through adulation but persistence" - WASHINGTON POST

"Riveting ... A paean to the beautiful game, the book chronicles how Cloepfil overcame adversity to strike joy" - LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Former footballer Georgia Cloepfil offers a unique and fascinating insight into the mind of a professional athlete in this memoir. Written in 90 “minute long” passages, Cloepfil covers the joys of camaraderie, the agony of injury, and what it means to push yourself to your absolute limits in pursuit of what can inevitably only ever be time-limited excellence" - EVENING STANDARD

"As poetic as anything you’ll read on the early days of pro women’s soccer, on the joys and grim realities of an athlete’s life, on pain tolerance, on the art of sportswriting itself … Cloepfil’s writing helps readers understand why certain athletes, their brains and marriages falling apart, won't just retire" - DEFECTOR

"Georgia Cloepfil is that rare athlete who can write well about their sport and their passion … In ninety sharp entries mirroring the ninety minutes of play, Cloepfil captures what it’s like to fight so hard to play the game you love" - PARADE