James Corbett (author)

Corbett was brought up in Great Crosby, a suburb of north Liverpool where he was the eldest of five children. He was educated at Great Crosby Catholic Primary School and Holy Family High School. Both of his parents are teachers and live in the town.

His first move into journalism came in 1994, when he founded the Everton fanzine "Gwladys Sings the Blues" from his bedroom with two schoolfriends. The fanzine ran for three years and was sold outside Everton's ground Goodison Park on matchdays.

In 1997 he disbanded Gwladys Sings the Blues and a year later he took up a place at the London School of Economics after leaving school. At university he continued writing for the LSE newspaper, The Beaver, where he was political editor. He later studied for a Master's Degree, also at the University of London.[1]

James Corbett was European Correspondent of the leading sports business website, World Football Insider. He was formerly London Correspondent of Al Ahram Weekly and Contributing Editor of the Observer Sport Monthly. His sportswriting has appeared in publications throughout the world. He is a regular contributor to FourFourTwo magazine and the BBC World Service.[2]

His first book, Everton: The School of Science, was published by Macmillan in 2003. An updated version was published by deCoubertin Books in 2010.

In May 2006 Corbett's second book, England Expects, was published by Aurum Press. An updated paperback with details of the 2006 Fifa World Cup was published in 2010. He also contributed to Aurum's The World Cup: The Complete History, following the death of its author, Terry Crouch.

In 2009, Corbett founded publisher deCoubertin Books, specialising in sports literature and biography.

In 2012, Corbett collaborated with Welsh goalkeeper Neville Southall on Southall's acclaimed autobiography, Neville Southall: The Binman Chronicles. Later that year, his Everton Encyclopedia. This is Not Football said of the book: 'Believe us when we say, that this is the best book ever written about Everton.'

• Everton: The School of Science (Macmillan 2003)
• England Expects (Aurum Press 2006)
• The World Cup: The Complete History ("Aurum Press 2010")
• England Expects (2nd edition) ("deCoubertin Books 2010")
• Everton: The School of Science (2nd edition) ("deCoubertin Books 2010")
• Neville Southall: The Binman Chronicles (deCoubertin Books 2012)
• Everton Encyclopedia (deCoubertin Books 2012)

• World Football Insider