A satirical novel about fantasy, solitude, and replaying the beautiful game alone.
In Confessions of an Ageing Football Player, an ageing man plays out the 2014 World Cup match by match on his old Subbuteo table, narrating himself into glory long after the crowd, the pitch, and the body have disappeared.
This is not a sports memoir. It’s a comic, affectionate, and quietly unsettling exploration of football fandom, masculinity, and the rituals we invent to keep the game alive.
A satirical novel about fantasy, solitude, and replaying the beautiful game alone.
In Confessions of an Ageing Football Player, an ageing man plays out the 2014 World Cup match by match on his old Subbuteo table, narrating himself into glory long after the crowd, the pitch, and the body have disappeared.
This is not a sports memoir. It’s a comic, affectionate, and quietly unsettling exploration of football fandom, masculinity, and the rituals we invent to keep the game alive.
“I think it will be one of the books that will change my life.“
When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Diaries from Tehran at War offers an intimate, humane and urgent record of ordinary life under bombardment and is now available to readers across the world in all formats.
Written by Ali Asghar Seidabadi, an acclaimed Iranian researcher, author, and a well-known cultural figure, this extraordinary diary-style work offers readers a rare, immediate and deeply human account of life in Tehran during war, bombardment and internet disruption.
Thank you to long standing NOP collaborator, Liz Fincham, for her treasured review below.
“Profound, passionate, poetic, this important book takes us deep into the realities of daily life, in Tehran, now, in 2026. From the vivid title, When the Sparrows grow Anxious, we know we are in the hands of a thoughtful writer who walks us on a journey far beyond our often superficial knowledge of Tehran at War.
Behind the promises of posturing politicians, news reports and sound bites, here is the reality. We are invited to hear voices of people of peace caught up in this war. Despite the tragedies of deaths, injury, destruction, in this beautiful, diverse and complex country, the essential message is one of hope for peace.
As families and friends gather together in homes or outdoors, to share talk and meals, the sense of their courage is strong. The beauty of this place is celebrated alongside the documenting of almost daily attacks.
The over-arching message is of hope and prayers that peace will return. Birdsong and breaking of bread are metaphors of resilience. I think it will be one of the books that will change my life. Essential reading for these times.”
If you prefer to buy their copy through Amazon, you can buy hard cover, paperback or e-book by clicking here:
If you would rather order a physical book through your preferred bookshops, you can quote both the name of the book or the relevant ISBN numbers:
Hardcover: ISBN 9798197042132
Paperback: ISBN 9798180483287
A diary of war, culture and human endurance
The title’s image of anxious sparrows captures the emotional force of the book: small lives continuing amid forces far larger than themselves. Through that recurring motif, Seidabadi turns the daily experience of conflict into something both specific and universal.
The diary is rooted in Tehran, but its reach is international. As a writer and editor with deep connections across global children’s and young adult literature, Seidabadi writes from within a network of friendships, correspondence and cultural solidarity. His messages to writers, illustrators and book people beyond Iran become part of the book’s emotional architecture.What emerges is a record of war seen not through military strategy or state rhetoric, but through culture, family, memory and daily survival.
Readers encounter a city under pressure, but also a mind refusing to surrender its clarity. The result is a book that speaks powerfully to anyone interested in contemporary history, human rights, international literature, peace, cultural memory and the moral role of writing in times of crisis.
About the author
Ali Asghar Seidabadi is an Iranian researcher, author, and a well-known cultural figure. His newspaper columns and books for both adults and children are widely read and he is regularly invited to speak at various events and institutions and he frequently give interviews to non-governmental media outlets. During the 1990s, widely regarded as the golden age of Iranian journalism, Seidabadi became a well-known figure in Iran’s cultural and journalistic spheres. He was responsible for the culture, arts, and thought sections of several widely read reformist newspapers and later became a member of their editorial boards. Alongside his journalistic work, he wrote books for children and young adults and conducted research in children’s literature, reading promotion, and cultural studies.
In When The Sparrows Grow Anxious, Seidabadi brings that literary sensibility to bear on lived experience. The book is observant, humane and disciplined. It is marked by attention to small details, an instinct for connection and an unwavering commitment to nonviolence.
This is a diary by someone who understands the importance of stories — not as escape, but as a way of preserving human dignity when the surrounding world becomes frighteningly unstable.
Publisher Nick Owen MBE, founder of Nick Owen Publishing, said:
“At a time when the President of the USA can assert “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again…” Ali Asghar Seidabadi has written a book of huge courage. These diary notes attend to the human texture of war: to windows, birds, phone calls, friendships, children’s books, and the stubborn persistence of ordinary life. That is precisely why the book matters and why we are honoured to bring his work to a wider, global public.”
When the Sparrows Grow Anxious is an important and timely publication because it offers something urgently needed: a human-scale account of war from inside the experience itself. It explores the cultural infrastructure of Iran through these diary notes, sometimes prompted by remarks made by President Trump. It shows that some forms of Iranian behaviour and social response, which may appear strange or incomprehensible to President Trump and to many people around the world, have deep mythological roots.
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When the Sparrows Grow Anxious: Diaries from Tehran at War Author: Ali Asghar Seidabadi Publisher: Nick Owen Publishing Ltd Publication: 15 June 2026 ISBN: 9798197042132 Format: [Hardback / Paperback / Kindle / eBook) Available from: Nick Owen Publishing / Amazon
In which our hero i.e me has reluctantly to forego a life of aimless wandering and buckle down to his / my first big challenge: his / my first run out onto the hallowed pitch of a World Cup stadium.
Prefer to read the book than listen to the podcasts? You can buy your very own signed copy of Confessions of an Ageing Football Player here.
A satirical novel about fantasy, solitude, and replaying the beautiful game alone.
In Confessions of an Ageing Football Player, an ageing man plays out the 2014 World Cup match by match on his old Subbuteo table, narrating himself into glory long after the crowd, the pitch, and the body have disappeared.
This is not a sports memoir. It’s a comic, affectionate, and quietly unsettling exploration of football fandom, masculinity, and the rituals we invent to keep the game alive.
We’re profiling some of the photographers whose work appears in When the Sparrows Grow Anxious and reflecting on how their images contribute to its power, texture and witness.
We would particularly like to thank the IRNA news agency, which generously donated almost two thirds of the photographs used in the publication. We are also deeply grateful to the many individual photographers whose work has helped make the book such an exceptional production:
Ahmad Moeini Jam, Akbar Tavakkoli, Ali Sharifi, Bahram Bayat, Eshaq Aghaei, Mahmoud Farjami, Maryam Al Momen Dehkordi, Marzieh Mousavi, Marzieh Pourarab, Marzieh Soleimani, Mohammad Mahdi Pourarab, Mohammadrasoul Moradi, Mohsen Rezaei, Sadegh Miri and Sadra Nouri.
We continue with the work of Maryam Al-Momen Dehkordi
Searching for the American Pilot
Remember this photograph. A few years from now, when Hollywood inevitably turns this war into a movie, come back to this image and compare what you see on the screen with what is here: this blue sky, these green hills, this solitary tree, and these few men quietly making their way up a dirt road. You may discover how different reality looks from its cinematic retelling.
The photograph shows four people: a middle-aged man, a teenage boy, and two younger men. They carry old rifles over their shoulders as they walk across a hillside in the Zagros Mountains. There is none of the urgency or spectacle usually associated with war films. Everything appears calm. If you did not know the story behind the image, you might assume they were simply heading into the mountains for a day of hunting or a routine excursion.
But another story is unfolding. Earlier that day, an American fighter jet had crashed in this region, and its pilot had survived by ejecting and parachuting into the rugged landscape below. Since then, different groups have been searching for him, and these four men are part of that search.
What makes the photograph memorable is the contrast between its subject and its atmosphere. On one hand, it is connected to a military incident filled with tension and uncertainty. On the other, the landscape seems indifferent to human conflict. Clouds drift across the sky, spring grass covers the slopes, and the shadow of a lone tree stretches across the ground.
Photographer Maryam Al-Momen Dehkordi captured this moment on April 4, 2026. It is not a photograph of combat. It is a photograph of anticipation – of people moving through the Zagros Mountains, scanning the distance, aware that somewhere among the valleys and rocky ridges, the American pilot may still be waiting to be found.
When the Sparrows Grow Anxious is now available in all formats.
