Football stars to promote reading

"Gianfranco Zola was always reading," said John Terry

English Premiership footballers have named their favourite books in a drive to encourage families to read together.

Stars such as John Terry, Ryan Giggs and David James have teamed up with the National Literacy Trust in a scheme involving all 20 top flight clubs.

Each club is adopting at least one library and will offer incentives to encourage people to take part, such as match tickets and ground tours.

Among the favourite books named were The Hobbit, 1984 and The Da Vinci Code.

Under the scheme, called Premier League Reading Stars, some players will visit libraries to read stories.

Children taking part will receive free books.

Manchester United's Ryan Giggs chose Nelson Mandela's life story, A Long Walk To Freedom, while Chelsea captain John Terry chose the children's book Cool!, by Michael Morpurgo, the author who has worked his own love for Chelsea into the storylines of a number of his novels.

List of players' favourites

Terry said: "Premier League Reading Stars is a really good idea because all footballers read, whether it is match day programmes, magazines or books.

"It's important to act as a positive role model and I'm really pleased that people want to know about my favourite books."

He said he thought Gianfranco Zola, who used to play with him at Chelsea, was the coolest footballer in the world, and he was always reading .

"He was an inspiration to me and a model professional. Franco always had a good book to read whether he was travelling to a game, waiting at an airport terminal, or relaxing in a hotel," he said.

The players could choose a book for adults or children. Some, such as Stephen Clemence, picked a title they had loved as a child.

The Birmingham City player chose the Roald Dahl story The Twits.

"Having just become a dad for the first time one of the things I am looking forward to is reading with him and I used to love The Twits when I was a kid and I am sure he will too," said Clemence.

"I used to laugh out loud at the description of the cornflakes in Mr Twit's beard."

I used to laugh out loud at the description of the cornflakes in Mr Twit's beard Stephen Clemence Birmingham City

Professor John Beer, of Cambridge University, said the list appeared to be an interesting and good one.

"The good thing about the list is its diversity and the fact that there's no immediate or obvious agenda: on it the books that I know all have a straightforward attractiveness that's likely to keep the pages being turned while engaging the mind in some way, which must be one of the prime aims," he said.

"It will be fascinating to see the results."

Trevor Millum, director of the National Association of English Teachers said the project was a great way of encouraging reading.

"It is especially good because it might encourage more dads to read with their children," he said.

Premiership players' favourite books
Club	Player	Book	Author
Arsenal	Freddie Ljungberg	Cars, Trucks and Things that Go	Richard Scarry
Aston Villa	Mark Delaney	The Iron Man	Ted Hughes
Birmingham City	Stephen Clemence	The Twits	Roald Dahl
Blackburn Rovers	Craig Short	Birdsong	Sebastian Faulks
Bolton Wanderers	Kevin Nolan	It	Stephen King
Charlton Athletic	Dean Kiely	It's Not About the Bike	Lance Armstrong
Chelsea	John Terry	Cool!	Michael Morpurgo
Crystal Palace	Tommy Black	Postmortem	Patricia Cornwell
Everton	Lee Carsley	The Alchemist	Paulo Coelho
Fulham	Moritz Volz	The Little Prince	Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Liverpool	Chris Kirkland	There's a Viking in My Bed	Jeremy Strong
Manchester City	David James	The Hobbit	JRR Tolkien
Manchester United	Ryan Giggs	A Long Walk to Freedom	Nelson Mandela
Middlesbrough	Colin Cooper	1984	George Orwell
Newcastle United	Steven Taylor	Keeper	Mal Peet
Norwich City	Paul McVeigh	The Da Vinci Code	Dan Brown
Portsmouth	Lomana LuaLua	Tintin and the Lake of Sharks	Herge
Southampton	David Prutton	The Folk of the Faraway Tree	Enid Blyton
Tottenham Hotspur	Erik Edman	Ramses	Christian Jacq
West Bromwich Albion	Riccardo Scimeca	Keane: The Autobiography	Roy Keane, Eamon Dunphy
Source: Premier League Reading Stars

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