THREE BOOKS · ONE BLUE THREAD

THE BLUE SEAT CHRONICLES

SOME SEATS ARE NEVER JUST SEATS.

They're where we sit. Who we sit beside.
And who we remember when
the seat beside us becomes empty.

Football gives us the fixtures.

The people give us the stories.

The Blue Seat Chronicles follows the lives, relationships and memories built around the game — from the people we've lost, to the people who shaped us, to those whose fight for a place in football changed it forever.

Different stories.

Different generations.

The same blue thread running through them.

Different stories / Different generations:

The same blue thread running through them.

Because sometimes the most important thing about a seat isn't the view.

IT'S WHO FILLED IT.

DISCOVER THE CHRONICLES ↓

THE BLUE SEAT CHRONICLES

THREE STORIES.

THREE DIFFERENT SEATS.

Football connects them. The people are what make them matter.

Book cover for 'The Seat Left Empty' by Adam Hardaker, featuring an empty stadium seat with a blue Everton scarf draped over it and a dark background with white text.
Illustration of a building with a pointed tower at the top, featuring a spiral ramp wrapping around it.

BOOK I

LOSS · LOVE · MEMORY


A story about grief, football and the people who remain part of our lives long after their seat becomes empty.


Some absences are always felt.

FILL THE SEAT →

THREE STORIES. THREE GENERATIONS.

ONE BLUE THREAD.

Book cover titled 'The Seats We Once Filled' by Adam Hardaker depicting a silhouette of a couple holding hands walking down a dimly lit, rainy street at night.
An illustration of a tall, pointed tower with a cone-shaped roof, featuring windows and a wrapped staircase around the building, depicted in blue and white outlines.

BOOK II

FRIENDSHIP · MEMORY · BELONGING

Some loves start on a street that leads to home. A story about the people, places and shared memories that become part of who we are.

Some seats stay with us long after we've left them.

TAKE THE WALK →
Book cover for 'The Seat That Changed the Game' by Adam Hardaker. The cover features a photo of a women's soccer match at Goodison Park stadium, with players on the field and spectators in the stands, under a dark cloudy sky.

BOOK III · COMING SOON

WOMEN · FOOTBALL · CHANGE

A voice can begin in the quietest seat. A story about women, football and the generations who helped change who gets to belong in the game.

Some seats had to be fought for.

CHANGE THE GAME →
Family at a soccer stadium, wearing blue and Christmas-themed clothing, celebrating a festive event.

BEYOND THE FOOTBALL

IT WAS NEVER REALLY
ABOUT THE 90 MINUTES.

Football is where these stories happen. It isn't why they matter.

The score matters on Saturday.

Of course it does.

For ninety minutes we argue about players, managers, referees, missed chances and whether somebody should have just put their bloody foot through it.

Then the whistle goes.

And what stays with us usually isn't the score.

It's who we went with.

The walk to the ground.

The same pub. The same chippy. The same turnstile.

The person sitting beside us.

The stories we've heard a hundred times and somehow still listen to again.

And eventually, the people who aren't there anymore.

That's what The Blue Seat Chronicles is really about.

Not Everton winning or losing.

Not league tables.

Not whether the referee was a dickhead.

People.

The relationships we build around football.

The memories that attach themselves to places.

The generations who inherit them.

And the way something as ordinary as a plastic blue seat can eventually hold far more than one person sitting in it.

THE MATCH LASTS 90 MINUTES.

THE SEAT HOLDS A LIFETIME.

Two men taking a selfie at a stadium during nighttime, with empty blue and white seats in the background. The man in the foreground has a beard, wears a cap and sunglasses hanging from his shirt, and is smiling slightly. The second person, partly visible, wears glasses and a jacket. The stadium lights are bright, and the words "The Sir Philip Carter Park Stand" are visible on the upper part of the stands.
A group of five people, including three children and two adults, gathered around a table at a festive event, with Christmas decorations and other people in the background. They are all wearing holiday-themed clothing, with some wearing sweaters and shirts displaying a sports team's logo.
A close-up of a sign with multiple stickers, including a 'Scout Author' sticker, text in Russian, and a no-smoking symbol featuring a person smoking with a prohibition sign over it. The sign appears to be attached to a metallic or plastic surface.

THE BLUE THREAD

WHAT CONNECTS THE CHRONICLES

Three different stories. Connected by more than football.

LOSS

The people who leave an empty space.

A stylized illustration of a lighthouse with a spiral staircase, featuring blue outlines and a white fill, set against a black background.

MEMORY

The moments that refuse to disappear.

Line drawing of a castle turret with a conical roof and brick pattern, outlined in blue and white.

BELONGING

The places and people that become ours.

Illustration of a lighthouse with a stone base, a cylindrical middle section with a small window, and a conical top with horizontal stripes and a small X-shaped ornament at the peak.

GENERATIONS

What gets passed from one to the next.

Football changes.

Grounds change. Teams change. The people sitting in the seats change.

But something keeps passing between generations.

A story. A memory. A ritual. A place that means more to us because of who we shared it with.

That's the thread running through The Blue Seat Chronicles.

Then give the final two lines plenty of space:

THE SEATS ARE DIFFERENT.

THE THREAD IS BLUE.

Illustration of a white building with a pointed tower and a grid-patterned base, outlined in blue.

CHANGE

The people who make room for those who follow.

Crowd of people seated in a stadium, some wearing England football team jerseys, in a large indoor arena with blue seats and a high ceiling.
People gathered around a memorial with a bronze statue of a football player at Everton Football Club, with banners, flowers, and inscriptions on the memorial wall behind.

WHY I WROTE THEM

BLUE WAS NEVER
JUST A COLOUR.

I didn't choose football because I needed somewhere to set a story. It was already where so many of my stories lived.

I'm a fourth-generation Evertonian.

My lads are the fifth.

And like plenty of families in this city, football has been threaded through ours for longer than any of us can properly remember.

But when I think about Everton, I don't immediately think about league tables or trophies.

I think about people.

Who took you to your first game. Who you walked to the ground with. Who sat beside you. The same conversations, arguments, jokes and routines repeated season after season.

And now, taking my own lads, I get to watch some of those things start all over again.

That's where The Blue Seat Chronicles came from.

Not from wanting to write books about Everton.

From wanting to write about people through Everton.

About grief and love.

Friendship and belonging.

Families and generations.

And the people who had to fight to make football their place too.

GOODISON

Goodison became the natural home for those stories because it has never just been a stadium to me.

It's somewhere I've gone with people I love.

Some are still beside me.

Some aren't.

And some are only just beginning their own relationship with the game.

Group of fans standing outside Everton Stadium, some wearing England soccer merchandise, with others in casual clothing, and the stadium's modern exterior with large glass windows and brick accents in the background.

THEY PASSED IT TO ME

NOW I GET TO PASS IT ON.

That's probably why I keep writing about them.

A family of five posing together in front of the memorial at Hill Dickinson Stadium, with the stadium in the background.
A man with a beard wearing a black cap with a green and black logo, taking a selfie at a soccer stadium with blue seating and a green field in the background.
Two women and two children at a sports event in a stadium. The woman on the right is smiling and wearing a blue sports jacket, the woman in the middle in pink, the boy on the left is wearing glasses and a sports jersey, and the girl in the middle has a bun and is using a phone. The stadium seating and spectators are in the background.
A black and white photo of a man and woman dressed in formal attire, standing close together, smiling at the camera.

PICK ONE UP ON MATCHDAY.

Blue brick structures on a city rooftop with signs indicating seating locations and a building with a sign reading 'YARD' and a grill. The image is taken under a cloudy sky.

FROM THE PAGE TO THE MATCH

The Blue Seat Chronicles aren't only available online.

Copies of my books are also available from the Everton Heritage Centre on matchdays - putting the stories about our club, our city and the people around it right where they belong.

Going the game? Call in, have a look and support the people keeping Everton's history alive.

Banner for Everton FC Heritage Society with club logo and stadium seats.
Map showing locations related to Everton FC Heritage Society, including Hill Dickinson Stadium, Everton Store, The Terrace bar, Blackstone Street Warehouse, and Aalco, with street names Fulton Street and Great Howard Street.
A cluttered table with pamphlets, documents, a book titled 'The Seattle Left Empty,' a newspaper headline 'Reflections Reported.' There are small pins, a pen, and various papers. A person's hand is partially visible reaching towards the items.
Book cover titled 'The Seat Left Empty' by Adam Hardaker, narrated by Charlotte Northover, featuring empty stadium seats with an Everton scarf.

THE STORY, HEARD DIFFERENTLY

THE SEAT LEFT EMPTY

THE AUDIOBOOK

NARRATED BY CHARLOTTE NORTHOVER

Some stories feel different when somebody gives them a voice.

The Seat Left Empty was the first of the Blue Seat Chronicles to make the move from page to audio.

And that meant trusting somebody else with the characters, the emotion, the humour and all those little moments I'd spent so long hearing one way in my own head.

Charlotte Northover gave them her voice.

She didn't just read the words.

She brought something of her own to them - giving the story another way to be experienced, whether you're listening at home, in the car, on a walk or, appropriately enough, on the way to the match.

SAME SEAT.
SAME STORY.
A DIFFERENT VOICE.

TAKE YOUR SEAT & LISTEN →
A young woman with blonde hair styled in loose waves, blue eyes, and fair skin, wearing a dark green top and small earrings, looking at the camera against a brown background.

DON'T JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT

Different readers. Different reasons for taking these stories with them.

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING

★★★★★

“The Camaraderie of the football supporter”

“Whilst an homage to Everton - this book will resonate with any season ticket holder where you enjoy the characters seated around you and you have your rituals shared with family and friends en route to the match and back home again.”

— Nicola Grimshaw

★★★★★

“Feel good read!”

“All the characters were well written and relatable. I don’t follow football but really enjoyed this book and would recommend.”

— Katherine Roe

★★★★★

“Thoroughly enjoyed this read!”

“I’m not a huge football fan... The relationships, the traditions, the support through personal hardships… it was a lovely read.”

— Helen Collis

★★★★★

“Football is much more than just kicking the ball”

“Beautiful story. Also shows you that football is much more than just two teams kicking the ball on the pitch.”

— Michael Akano

FOOTBALL IS WHERE THE STORIES BEGIN.
PEOPLE ARE WHY THEY STAY WITH US.

THE BLUE SEAT CHRONICLES

SOME STORIES START

WITH A SEAT.

Some are about the people who once sat beside us.

Some are about the people and places that shaped who we became.

And some are about those who changed who gets to take a seat at all.

Different people.
Different generations.
Different stories.

ONE BLUE THREAD.

THE MATCH ENDS.

THE STORIES DON'T.

A metallic blue bird with wings spread, holding an olive branch in its beak, is centered above a blue sign that reads 'Blue Seat Chronicles.' The number 111 is displayed on a metallic plate below the sign, surrounded by metallic laurel branches against a dark background.