Nog een boek dat ik in het Engels las én in het Engels moest recenseren. Ook nu geen vertaling. Ik neem aan dat de echt geïnteresseerden goed genoeg Engels lezen om het te begrijpen, zo diepgaand is het niet.
Football is important for me. Apart from that, I love reading, hence I read a lot of books about Football, the beautiful game. When I saw this book, I registered to become an early reader. A story about coming out in a game that is quite homophobic, there is more to the game than just 22 players and a ball.
So optimistically and curious I started reading this novel. Surprisingly I noticed it was quite a big novel, not a couple of hours. On the first page we get to know Richard, a future star, most experts agree. He gets selected by a professional team, starts in their youth team and rises through the ranks. He meets Layne, a bit younger than himself, mostly plays in the same category. They fall in love, first secretly, but soon their teammates find out. And obviously, as their fame rises, the public finds out as well. Predictably opponents and even worse their fans turn out to be not as tolerant as the other players on their own team.
This could be the whole summary, but the book goes on for years. And after the first hundred pages I asked myself who the book is written for. Its language, its descriptions make me think it is aiming at youngsters. The love scenes are extremely moderate, no parent could take offence if their child read this book.
Descriptions of football matches take full pages, the team finds a third gay player, giving it a far higher percentage than society, whereas the percentage in football is estimated below average. Anyway, a good reason to throw in some drama.
The thing is, I want to like this book, I think it might be necessary to change the world of football, where bigots and racists still man the stands, with their 19th century world views. But it just kept going, it never made me curious what would happen next. And the endless lists of summaries. Every starting lineup, as if I can remember all the teammates Richard and Layne played with for four years running. Every single day off ends with a dinner with friends and we get a detailed description of the menu. No team has a name apart their own, so they play a team from northwest London, a team from south London, a team from Teesside, a blue team from Manchester, a red team from Merseyside and so on. Every single foreign trip goes to cities where Richard visits the top ten by trip advisor in one afternoon. You get the idea.
Even some opponents get named, always by their first name, because one of them played with (or against) the particular player with an England youth side. Impossible to remember. Halfway through I decided to read the complete book regardless. I lost my curiosity, still didn’t know if it was written for me and had my mind made up: nice try, but nothing more than that. Which is a shame, because I also feel that this book could help to eliminate a lot of misery on the stands. It could help raise more tolerant football supporters. But please hire an editor, skip half of the pages and go with less characters.
Quote: “Richard and Tom formed their usual wall in the middle, with Richard amazingly winning all his six defensive duels and making five interceptions. His intensive strengths training during suspension was paying great dividends as he sustained the strong challenges by his German counterparts.” (p.179/180)
Nummer: 23-010
Titel: The one percent
Auteur: Jake Lewin
Taal: Engels UK
Jaar: 2023
# Pagina’s: 673 (3344)
Categorie: Voetbal
ISBN: 979-8370953118
Themaweek 150: E-boeken