A “bang on the ear” is a phrase of Celtic origin that often means something like a kiss or peck on the cheek. More aggressively, it can mean a slap to the face. But in football parlance, it usually refers to a player being hit in the side of the head with a ball or knocking heads with another player during a jump for a ball.
The latter is the case for the title of this memoir about teenage athlete Phil Quinlan, aspiring Olympian and Premier League footballer, who rose to head a ball on a foggy pitch in 1989 and sustained a life threatening brain injury that put him in a coma and left him with handicaps and challenges he still lives with over 30 years later.
photo by Constantin Shimonenko