Customer Reviews

My Favourite Year: A Collection of New Football Writing

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You've probably tuned into this page because of your Nick Hornby-admiration. If so, ther is a few things that has to be mentioned. This book is a collection of football (soccer) writing, it's not a Nick Hornby-extravaganza. The different stories are contributed by a number of british autors, who also have a great interest in football. Therefor, if you've read Hi Fidelity and loved it, but are hesitating about Fever Pitch, because of its sporty content, then you'll probably hate this one. On the other hand, if you. like me, love the true game (football (soccer)), then this is a compilation better than the most. There are a mixture of humour, tears, anger and joy, when the authors are describing their favourite teams during a given season. Especially one story, by Harry Pearson, about Middlesbrough should be pointed out. The irony of the team's recess is extraordinary british and makes you a very proud owner of the book. Nick Hornby himself has also contributed with one of the better stories, but surprisingly not about Arsenal.

Books about sports tend to be "subliterature". "My favourite year" would definitely be an exception to this rule - if it was a book about sports, or, more specifically, about football. But this collection of short stories is much more than that, utilizing events and facts related to football to describe human passion in its rawest and most exacerbated form. No matter the country, team or period, the stories reflect the kind of love (passionate, unilateral, unjustifiable, absurd, unconditional, etc.) that football fans all around the world know very well. Even with two or three less inspired stories, it is a highly enjoyable read throughout.Among many smiles and memories, it can even at moments bring tears to the eyes of the more emotional fans like myself.

Unfortunately this is a mixed bag.

As usual, most anthologies or collection of essays from a range of authors tend to have the `good', the `bad' and the `ugly'. It is no different with this collection.

Ultimately, determining the good and the bad is dependent on personal choice. I found the majority of the essays to be rather dull, and uninspiring. Hornby's piece was probably typical.

However there were three essays that made the experience pleasurable, as they described the highs and lows of the season, the love and hate of following a club and being a ardent club supporter, and the drama that overlays it all.

The central premise of putting together a collection of authors to write about a season in the history of their club, and from the fans perspective, is to be applauded. But somehow, the expectation and the output never quite meet.

The greatest strength of this collection of essays/reminiscences is its diversity. In wonderfully varied pieces, "My Favourite Year" captures a broad band of moods and shows just how multi-faceted our reactions to soccer--and, at a deeper level, our approaches to remembering--are.

For someone not acquainted with the world of (mostly) English football (there are inclusions here as well of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish teams), some of these essays may be a tough go. I'd be tempted to say that the best pieces here are the most widely accessible ones--that is, the ones that cater to a more general public--but that wouldn't be true. The elation of Roddy Doyle's opening salvo could capture anyone's attention, since it seems less about soccer than about infectiously good memories. But some of the most interesting and powerful glimpses here will be impenetrable to those with little knowledge of the inner workings of club politics in England; Ed Horton's amazing probing of the woeful and criminal mismanagement of Oxford United is both engaging and important, but I confess that some of its finer points were lost on this American reader, despite the fact that I know a fair amount about the background.

So, unlike Hornby's "Fever Pitch," which manages to make itself about life-in-general masquerading as life-in-soccer, this collection might be a little harder to penetrate for the casual observer of the beautiful game. If you're a bigger fan of the sport, I highly recommend it, especially during the upcoming World Cup year 2002. "My Favourite Year" is a great hors-d'oeuvre for a month-long World Cup meal of soccer at its best.

Being a football supporter myself I understand the stories put into this book. If you are a football fan read it because it is about us. There is alot of emotional, joyfull and sad scenes in this book and somehow they all revolve around football. Cracking book alex ross

A great selection of football writing for the thoughtful soccer fan (if that's not an oxymoron), filled with the same humor and passion that made Fever Pitch so much fun to read.

The subtitle (A Collection of New Football Writing) might lead some to thing this is a book of short stories like" A Book of Two Halves", but it isn't. What Hornby has assembled is a collection of 13 essays by writers (including himself) about their favorite season following a soccer team. Unfortunately, many of the essays are boring as hell to this American reader, with names of unknown players streaming by meaninglessly by and all manner of pop culture-specific references drifting past. Roddy Doyle's (The Woman Who Walked Into Doors) essay on Ireland's 1990 World Cup run is nice, as are Don Watson's piece on Leeds United '74/'75 and Giles Smith's piece on Chelsea '73/'74, both of which feature the authors as children. And of course Horbny's own piece on the futility of following Cambridge United in '83/'84 is entertaining as one might expect.