A couple whose badly drawn DIY football stickers have earned them fame on social media have released a World Cup book. Alex, 39, and Sian Pratchett, 38, began drawing players for the 2014 World Cup album because they could not justify the cost of filling it with official stickers.
The pair - known as No Score Draws on Twitter - have since gained more than 50,000 followers by drawing more stickers celebrating different football tournaments and teams. Now they have released a book - The Unofficial World Cup Album: A Poorly Illustrated Incomplete History - with famous moments in the sport's history drawn in their own distinctive style.
Alex said: "Having a book is like the most colossal sense of imposter syndrome you could ever imagine. My friend sent me a photo of the book on the shelf in Waterstones and it’s surrounded by other football books by actual authors.
"I just think 'how on earth has this happened?' It’s lovely and I’m delighted that it’s a thing but I keep waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say, 'what do you think you’re playing at?'”
The £10 book features different historical moments, such as Geoff Hurst's hat trick at the World Cup in 1966 - the only time anyone has scored a hat trick in the final. But whatever the content, Alex, from Oxford, was not giving it the hard sell.
He joked: "I wouldn’t recommend that anyone buys our book and I wouldn’t wish it on someone necessarily but if you happen to be gifted a copy, then apologies in advance.”
The married couple, who have two children, reckon to have drawn between 13,000 and 14,000 footballers between them since they began in 2014. They have got quicker over time, with each now taking 10 to 20 minutes.
But Alex is not convinced the quality has improved substantially. He said: "They might have improved slightly but all I would say is that we’ve got better pens.
“We’ve invested in a couple of nice pens and a couple of nice pencils which makes a big difference. I don’t think the actual underlying talent is in any way better than it was in 2014 but it’s just using better pens and having a slightly nicer presentation.”
Many of the pair's followers have been there since the early days. And Alex said they are "in disbelief" about the book.
"They are asking how we’ve managed to fall upwards into having a book," he said. “People have been really nice but I’m never really sure to what extent our followers are humouring us.
“There’s been a lot of people who have been on the ride with us since we started and I think they’ve enjoyed us blossoming from amateurish beginnings to amateurish present day. But it’s been really nice, and there’s lots of nice people in our little corner of football Twitter who have supported us from the get go.
“But I can only apologise that they’ve spent eight years being assaulted by our drawings.”
