FOOTBALL READING # 5

This is the fifth in a series of ten blogs about using the new football season to inspire children to read more for pleasure.

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

This week is one of the best weeks in the year for reading about football in the newspapers.

These are some of the things you can expect to read about in the next six days:

* outrageous transfer speculation about major players going to major clubs

* players making ridiculous claims about how well they are going to do this season

* players doing 'exclusive' interviews to try and get a move from one club to another

* a manager of a high-profile club resigning 48 hours before the season starts

* so-called experts making predictions about who is going to win what and who is going to get relegated (worth keeping these to see how they do)

* and, unless I am very much mistaken, on Thursday there will be a loud howl for Fabio Capello to be sacked.

This is just the start. There will also be pull outs and previews in most of the papers, including lists and statistics and all sorts of other nonsense.

EXPENSIVE

Newspapers are not free, though. You might not be able to afford to buy a newspaper every day. So here are some tips on reading newspapers for free.

1. go to the public library, where they are free

2. get the Metro newspaper or other free papers (if you have them in your area)

3. read newspapers online - most are free (if you have internet access... and if not, they have that at the library too)

4. find one on a train or a bus that someone has left behind

5. stand in a supermaket for an hour, reading all the papers

I hope you have a good time reading the papers.