I've been meaning to write a review of this excellent novel for a few weeks now. Some of you may have seen the saddening images of Paul Gascoigne in the news recently and everybody knows the story of what drink did to George Best. Whilst writing FAN I was shocked to discover that a Nottingham Forest cult hero from the 80s, Brian Rice, was facing jail in Qatar for unpaid gambling debts. I have no idea how that story ended. The news has moved on. In Gareth Roberts' novel the main character, Billy Parks (written so seamlessly into real history that the reader starts to feel the pull of Google in a bid to establish if he really is a fictional invention) suffers at the hands of his own demons, namely drink, women and a tragic clinging to the past and what might have been. Life's not easy for Billy. In reality it never has been. Whilst he tries to come to terms with a career that didn't quite reach its potential long after that career ended, those who remember him as the player he was, those who never got the opportunities Billy squandered, the drinkers in the East end, the barman, the white van drivers, the blokes on the street, are all too eager to buy the next round and share a few extra moments listening to Billy's stories of his days at West Ham Utd and Spurs in the glorious 70s. And that's the thing Roberts captures so well in his troubled anti-hero, a flawed genius, a natural talent brought to his knees by drinking, womanising, selfishness and weak will. The reader senses the hope in each second, third and fourth chance Parks gets and suffers the same frustrations and helplessness as those chances go begging at the bottom of one more glass. The infamous night at Wembley versus Poland in 1973 and the offer Billy receives is clear from the outset so I won't bore you with that here. Needless to say Parks learns that not all second chances hinge on the outcome of a football match. And perhaps that's the point really. Perhaps Billy's second chance is just a figment of an alcohol riddled body and mind...
This is a book about more than football of course, but for this reader the most evocative and emotional moment comes when Roberts describes a game of park football in which Billy Parks first recognises his god given talent for leaving defenders floundering in his wake. I read that scene with a lump in my throat recalling timeless moments as a young lad on the local football pitches of my home town, the kickabouts with other lads, the jumpers for goalposts, the evenings we never wanted to end. Enough to make a grown man cry with melancholy and nostalgia. Perhaps we were lucky our dreams of playing professionally ended there. Perhaps stories of players like Gascoigne and Best, Brian Rice and Billy Parks are there to remind us that not every fairy story ends with a fairytale ending.
Scott Pack knows a good book when he sees it, as do the people at the Jerwood Prize who recently handed Gareth Roberts their 'Fiction Uncovered' Prize.
Well deserved.
This is a book about more than football of course, but for this reader the most evocative and emotional moment comes when Roberts describes a game of park football in which Billy Parks first recognises his god given talent for leaving defenders floundering in his wake. I read that scene with a lump in my throat recalling timeless moments as a young lad on the local football pitches of my home town, the kickabouts with other lads, the jumpers for goalposts, the evenings we never wanted to end. Enough to make a grown man cry with melancholy and nostalgia. Perhaps we were lucky our dreams of playing professionally ended there. Perhaps stories of players like Gascoigne and Best, Brian Rice and Billy Parks are there to remind us that not every fairy story ends with a fairytale ending.
Scott Pack knows a good book when he sees it, as do the people at the Jerwood Prize who recently handed Gareth Roberts their 'Fiction Uncovered' Prize.
Well deserved.
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