Yes, it’s about people. But it’s also about a ball. Jamie Fahey grew up in Liverpool, where a football obsession began when he beat off his older brother to secure first prize – a precious ten-bob flyaway ball – in a brutal musical chairs contest during a street party to mark the Queen's silver jubilee a few months shy of his sixth birthday in 1977.

He's been tussling over a ball ever since.

During an apprenticeship immersed in the vibrant 1970s and 80s culture of informal play on the streets, car parks, playgrounds, indoor halls, five-a-side courts and grass “ollers”, he also played proper “togger”, as this picture above shows: it’s the Anfield Junior League Easter Cup Finals Day in 1985 at the city’s famous Dockers’ Club pitches. Yes, colour photographs were a thing. Even back then. Finals day was a highlight of the sporting calendar held at a socio-cultural institution that’s sadly no longer with us.

And history matters.

Eventually graduating from Liverpool University with a degree in the subject, Jamie put his street smarts to use playing for various semi-professional teams in the north of England and Wales during his late teens and 20s. These days combining his love of a ball – and a special interest in futsal – with his day/evening job in journalism, Jamie writes regularly on sporting issues and a range of other subjects – from the joys and perils of subediting to the nuanced arts of headline-writing and coaching.

He is a Uefa B licensed coach, a coach mentor and still (arguably) a player. He retains an altogether much less healthy lifelong energetic pursuit, a devotion to Everton Football Club, despite living 200 miles away in Reading, Berkshire, with his wife, Emily, and teenage sons, Conor and Dominic. As the Guardian’s primary reporter on futsal, he is seen as a leading voice on the Fifa-sanctioned five-a-side sport. Futsal: The Story of an Indoor Football Revolution (published by Melville House) is his first book. The updated US edition Futsal: The Indoor Game Revolutionizing World Soccer was published in 2022.

Futsalstreetspot.com is an attempt – match commentators might call it “a speculative effort” – to capture the vibrant spirit of the book while adding fresh texture with articles, conversations and plain, old-fashioned news.

(Playground image © Cedric Lange)