Tickets began to have qualms even in the instant that passed between the headbutt starting and the headbutt landing . . .Ex-footballer Ian 'Tickets' Thompson is the bad-boy darling of TV's top-rating sports show, 'Leather and Lace'. The more offensive he is, the more the fans love him. But how will a million viewers, not to mention the police, react to his unprovoked assault on a homeless man? More to the point, what about his trigger-happy employer, media tycoon Sir Barry Haynes? To Billy Nock, fading champion, icon of fair play and host of the dismally rating rival show, these are crucial questions. And when it starts to look like Tickets might get away with it, Billy is spurred to action . . . Tony Wilson's wickedly funny first novel does for the world of sports media what TV close-ups did for the squirrel grip. Players will grab you from the very first page and it won't let you go.