When the Arab Football League chose the Acre native Fayez Ghandour as the first coach of the Palestinian football championship team, the entire city of Acre rejoiced. The Acre native became a national hero, overshadowing older clubs and coaches. The appointment expressed the establishment’s recognition of the great talent with which Captain Fayez built his championship team that he himself had gathered from the streets, school clubs, student associations, and factory teams. A glowing future lay before him and he became a leader and a source of national pride. But then it transpired that someone was digging up his past and finding dark secrets, and these threatened to bury his future.

An Acre-esque Tale is a unique historical novel about Palestinian society in the 1940s, a society still trying to recover from the trauma of the Great Arab Revolt. It portrays conspiracies and intrigues, loyalties and betrayals, and the national aspirations as reflected in the attempt to establish an independent football league alongside the teams of the Jewish population and the British rulers.

On the cover: The Orthodox Football Club – Jaffa, 1945.