posted
also a book about alcoholism i'd say. i was sad when i reached the last page and there was no more to read... why can't stan be more like cloughie.
some absolutely hilarious bits.
"you want to get me the fucking sack, do you, john?"
"no, boss," he says.
"well, you remember that open goal, that open bloody goal you should have stuck that fucking ball in?"
"yes, boss."
"well, that looked like a deliberate miss to me, to get your manager the sack."
"i'm sorry boss," he says. "it wasn't."
"fuck off," you tell him, and turn to archie gemmill...
posted
Brilliant book, the sense of creeping paranoia and bitterness is incredibly well rendered.
Posts: 16714 | From: Outskirts of Manchester | Registered: May 2002
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posted
giles hasn't read it yet, i actually asked him about it only yesterday. he knows we want to do something on it but says he hasn't had time to read anything lately as he has been doing a lot of travelling around. (i don't know what else there is to do while travelling except read, but i dunno, maybe giles plays dominoes or something. i didn't argue).
he said vaguely that he would read it and talk to us about it at some stage. hopefully we can get him to do it before xmas.
Posts: 13290 | From: murphyia | Registered: May 2002
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posted
I was just about to buy this, but my brother-in-law hinted that someone's already bought me a copy for Christmas. I hate other people buying me books...
Posts: 20721 | From: Far away, without a city wall | Registered: May 2002
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posted
I bought that book about a bloke visiting pubs btw GO, the one you said was good.
Posts: 16714 | From: Outskirts of Manchester | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Just finished it, excellent stuff. I wondered if the scene where Cloughie's accused of pinching the petty cash tin was a sly dig at another prominent 'socialist' manager involved in a similar incident while employed by a club near Glasgow airport...?
Posts: 2818 | From: Marching through Georgia | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
Bloody brilliant book. And excellent review by Dr. Strangely. I'm really looking forward to Stephen Frears/Peter Morgan's film version. Apparently, Michael Sheen's gonna be Cloughie. Should be great, eh?
Posts: 3266 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
michael sheen? that's tony blair/the evil diamond dealer from blood diamond! hard to imagine a less clough-like screen presence, but i suppose it's a chance to show his range...
Posts: 13290 | From: murphyia | Registered: May 2002
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posted
You bastards. Why did I listen to you? Bloody rubbish. You all want shooting.
I know the story already and the charcterisation doesn't seem to add anything to what I couldn't fill in. Where's DrSS's "creative imagination"? Tony Francis could have written it.
Alternating betweem Derby and Leeds doesn't make it profound. Especially when each section is about 10 lines long. Why do authors do this? Do they think "hey, epistolary novels were great! Can't understand why they dropped away?" They can't do this too much in a film, so that might be better.
posted
Authors seem to think jumping about in time makes them profound. I am rarely satisfied with books that do this, The Aeneid being a rare exception. They should have had Brian Clough at a dinner telling the story of his earlier time at Derby. "Although my mind shrinks from relating it, I will begin".
Tony Francis is a pretty mediocre biographer of Clough on whom much of this is based. Someone like Jake Arnott is much better at writing this sort of biography-based novel.
The prose is the most parodyable nonsense I've read for yonks. Characterisation not unconvincing but uninteresting. And I didn't get much of a sense of the period either.
As you say, might make a good film script.
Posts: 18279 | From: Georgica | Registered: Jun 2002
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