''They Used to Play on Grass'' is a 1972 novel by former English footballer

Terry Venables Terence Frederick Venables (born 6 January 1943), often referred to as El Tel, is an English former football player and manager, and an author. During the 1960s and '70s, he played for various clubs including Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Queen ...

and Scottish author Gordon Williams. The novel predicted the end of grass as a playing surface, and that plastic pitches would become the norm in football. In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's

The Big Read The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel of all time. The year-long survey wa ...

poll of the UK's "best-loved novel"."BBC – The Big Read"
BBC. April 2003, Retrieved 31 October 2012

References

{{reflist 1972 British novels Novels about association football British sports novels Hodder & Stoughton books