Chris Bowlby on No Complacency: Life, Death, Football and the Cathedral on the Hill
The Church Times PodcastShow Notes
The writer and broadcaster Chris Bowlby is intereviewed this week about his book No Complacency: Life, death, football, and the cathedral on the hill.
The book is published by Herne Books and is available from the Church Times Bookshop for £18.
From the publisher’s description: “When Chris Bowlby’s son Ewan was diagnosed with a brain tumour aged 17, you might have thought football would be the last thing on their minds. But in the following decade in which Ewan faced growing threats to his health, the love of football they shared seemed to grow in importance. It was a kind of thread, defiantly holding some kind of normal life together, and a passion that prompted fascinating discussion about why a sport could matter so much.
“After Ewan’s death from cancer in 2022 [Gazette, 3 March 2023], Chris faced a choice. He wondered whether his lifelong love of football might fade. But gradually he found a way of including grief in a return to life, all of life. He understood as never before how much football had meant to him, how it had shaped the world he had lived through, and how it could now help him cope. Yet there was tension too. Was he now more aware of how the modern game might be leaving its humanity behind?
“This book explores that experience, ranging from top-level football to community clubs, the intensely local to the global, the women’s game as well as the men’s. It has football at its heart but is about much more than sport.”
Ewan Bowlby’s book, Borrowed Stories: Facing cancer with culture — from Breaking Bad to The Divine Comedy, was published last year (Features, 12 September 2025). https://chbookshop.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781917362115/borrowed-stories https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/12-september/features/features/facing-cancer-with-culture-end-of-life-solace-in-storytelling
Chris Bowlby has written the Viewpoint column in the 19 June edition of the Church Times. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2026/19-june/comment/columnists/viewpoint-with-chris-bowlby-football-and-religion-can-benefit-each-other
Chris Bowlby was for many years on the staff of the BBC, where he made documentaries on a wide range of subjects including payday lending and football, profiles of leading football club owners, and the history of the Berlin venue for the 2006 World Cup final. He has also been a regular columnist for the BBC History magazine, a foreign correspondent for the Independent, and writes obituaries for The Times.
Music for the podcast is by Twisterium.
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