Kick the Balls: An Offensive Suburban Odyssey (Hardcover)

by Alan Black (Author) "San Francisco apartments had been home for a decade but now my urban living was over..." (more)
Key Phrases: kid with the blond curls, fer fuck sake, postmatch press conference, Kick the Balls, Alan Black, Coach Black (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Black's sardonic view of suburban America and his propensity for saying the wrong thing to the wrong people may remind some of a Scottish Larry David, but this San Francisco writer and pub manager possesses a distinct voice and an aggressive passion for soccer: "Earth wasn't pigskin shaped, all the skeptics had to do was look at the heavens and see what God's game was... the perfect immaculate conception of our fertile earth was the soccer ball, soft and hard at the same time, delightfully floated, spinning with atmosphere and promise." Black ties in memories of childhood fandom in Glasgow with tales of coaching the eight-year-old Dragons, his son among them, managing bar and watching late night TV with his ice cream, Ben and Jerry ("I grabbed Ben and Jerry and marched them to the sofa"). Merrily skewering every target in sight (especially soccer moms: "The field was a big womb and their babies were in there kicking"), Black includes lots of fantasy, funny nicknames and fake articles from an imaginary newsletter, "The Sporting Green." Any suburbanite with kids in organized sports will find Black a riot, provided they aren't easily offended; readers may actually learn some new swear words.
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Product Description
Fever Pitch meets Trainspotting in this laugh-outloud, caustic account of one man’s attempt to coach a peewee soccer team

When Alan Black was a child growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, soccer—or what he called fitba’—was the be all and end all. His experience was not the little league, boys-of-summer stuff of modern America. For him, it was life and death. Now middleaged and living in California, Alan finds himself coaching a team of eight-year-olds in his beloved sport—and nothing is going right.

For a start, the kids are no good at soccer. Secondly, they’re pampered. Born and bred on the sport, Black’s hardscrabble Scottish upbringing consisted of playing tough and victory at all costs. Needless to say, his coaching methods are a far cry from the “winning isn’t everything” mentality his little leaguers have been reared with; and players and parents alike are shocked as Black attempts to transform the losing team through drills and bombast. Alone at night, watching evangelicals on TV, Black finds himself searching for some truth in the culture he finds so bizarre. And it’s with the Tigers that he feels most out of sync—faced with a mix of soft suburban children, a raft of overprotective parents, and an Iranian co-coach called Ali. Told with Black’s uproarious Scottish sensibility, Kick the Balls follows the abrasive, irreverent, and hilarious coach as he contends with a team that winds up with a zero-win record.

Both a celebration of his own tough childhood and an account of one man’s navigation of an alien culture, Kick the Balls will delight fans of well-told, laugh-out-loud memoirs.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Hudson Street Press (June 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159463047X
• ISBN-13: 978-1594630477
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #771,424 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sounds of the Suburbs, June 28, 2008

By	Kurt Biddle (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I was a kid in the 1970s, they said in the future soccer would become massively popular in America and we would all use the metric system. Didn't happen. The metric system is pretty much only used to refer to illicit drugs, but almost every American kid in the suburbs plays in a soccer league at least once.

Alan Black's "Kick The Balls" is about his adventures coaching a kids' soccer league, yes. But it is much more. It's about Alan trying to assimilate into the American suburbs. And this is the super funny stuff. No one is safe from Black's barbs: TV preachers, kids, Dockers pants, parents, multiculturalism, the cult of the suburban lawn. Oh and it's not just a snarky hit piece on the easy target of suburban life, Black reserves his sharpest wit to mock himself: a cynical, uncomfortable, Scottish transplant to California. Recommended to anyone in need of a hearty jaundiced laugh at the world and themselves. Extra bonus funny (and insightful) if you are in the position of trying to cope with maintaining your identity and making new friends in a suburban, middle class, vanilla wasteland (i.e., if you're like this reviewer).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, June 18, 2008

By	Stephen Cannavaro (Norman, Ok) - See all my reviews

I saw this book at my local bookstore earlier today, and read the dustjacket description. I was delighted to see one of Bill Shankly's famous quotes, and started flipping through it. I read the first three chapters standing in the sports aisle, then bought it, took it home, and read it straight through. I enjoyed it immensely; the author's misanthropic tale of youth soccer is as hilarious (and, as the cover states, offensive) as it is heartwarming, as he tries to bring some level of discipline and success to a motley group of youngsters. As a huge fan of the game, it was very interesting to see an outsider's perspective on the little league culture in the United States, and a little bit validating to see the level of ridiculousness of it all exposed.

I highly recommend this book to fans of the beautiful game, as well as fans of a good laugh at the author's (and America's) expense.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fookin' Hilarious!, June 24, 2008

By	SFGooner.com (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This is a "laugh out loud on the bus making everybody think you're a nutter" book. Absolutely brilliant.