AN AWARD-WINNING World Cup blog written by a self-confessed “football anorak” from York has been published as an internet book.

Mike Towers, 43, began the news blog 12 months before the recent World Cup tournament started, with the intention of keeping England fans up-to-date with how the national team was progressing.

The Huntington resident soon found himself with a growing number of readers thanks to his humorous coverage of the tournament.

He said: “I finished a job in business development and decided to set up as an editor and writer.

“I thought hang on, the World Cup is coming up in 12 months time and I thought it was time I set up a blog and I thought I would do it from an England perspective. It dawned on me there was a lot more out there that was interesting and funny and sarcastic so I started finding out all kinds of weird stories and giving them my own angle.”

Now those 12 months of blogging have been turned into a book called How I Wasted A Year Writing A World Cup Blog.

Mike said: “Of course the provisional title was a little more upbeat and then Germany battered England, so it had to be changed. Apart from the shock of such a poor performance against Germany, most of my audience just melted away once England went out.

“I went from 500 visitors a day to below 100. And I had to rethink the provisional title of England 2010: We Stuck It To The Germans because, as we now know, they battered us.”

Undaunted, Mike ploughed on until the bitter end to see Spain scoop the big prize, picking up a bronze medal from an American sports website along the way for his satirical sideswipes at Paul The Octopus.

Mike’s book is now available in a PDF file format which can be downloaded from the internet and read on a computer.

How I Wasted A Year Writing A World Cup Blog is available for £4.95 at http://www.authorsonline.co.uk/book/937/How_I_Wasted_A_Year_Writing_A_World_Cup_Blog/