WIRRAL author Peter Lupson's much-acclaimed football book has scored another golden goal' . . .

The long forgotten grave of Blackburn Rovers' founder John Lewis has been restored to its former glory and the club's badge inscribed on the headstone.

Lewis, a coachbuilder and promoter of the Temperance Movement, launched the club in 1875.

His long-forgotten, totally overgrown grave was discovered by Peter Lupson in Blackburn Municipal Cemetery.

It is the latest success for the Wirral writer's book - Thank God For FOOTBALL! - which chronicles never-before-told stories of 12 Premier League football clubs that owe their origin entirely to the church.

Tottenham Hotspur were the first club to react to Peter's detective' work.

He uncovered the fact that club founder John Ripsher, a bible teacher, lay in a pauper's grave in Dover.

Last year, the club unveiled a suitably inscribed headstone to honour his resting place.

Other clubs - Blackburn, Bolton Wanderers, Manchester City and Swindon Town - also undertook to spruce up their founders' resting places, after they were tracked down by Peter, who is Head of English at Kingsmead School, Hoylake.

And in January, he brought together Merseyside's two big football clubs to honour the man to whom they both owe their existence - the Rev Ben Swift Chambers, a Methodist minister who set the ball rolling that led first to the creation of Everton FC and eventualy Liverpool FC.

His grave in the Yorkshire village of Shepley will be the scene of a formal ceremony later this Summer.

Earlier this year it was announced that the Pensby author's work - it took seven years of painstaking research to write - is to form the centrepiece of a Thank God For FOOTBALL! exhibition to be staged at the National Football Museum, next to Preston North End's Deepdale ground, next year.

Peter - he and his wife Evelyn live in Pensby and have two children - feels humbled by the fact that he has helped clubs to re-engage their roots.

"Clubs really do care about their past," he said.

"When I first went to Blackburn Rovers and spoke with chairman John Lewis I knew they would take care of it long-term - he was so enthusiastuc he began making calls immediately, which was a sign he genuinely cared."

'Thank God For FOOTBALL!', published by Azure (ISBN 1-902694-30-9), costs £9.99 and is available at all good bookshops.