Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #916028 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Synopsis
From the best-selling author of Laptop Dancing and the Nanny Goat Mambo, and one of Irelands greatest sportwriters, comes this hilarious collection of articles from The Irish Times.

Customer Reviews

Classic Humphreys
When people refer to Tom Humphries as the best writer of his generation it's not an exaggeration, his passion for sport, the honesty with which he writes, his scepticism of modern professionalism and his refusal to hero worship are hallmarks of his style. This book is a wonderful read for any sports fan, Humphries lets us into the unglamourous world of sports-writing where the scribe must graft hard to earn his keep

A must for anyone who wants a good read.

Ups and downs
Humphries is not a sports journalist as such - he doesn't write accounts of matches or competitions and he can be infuriatingly glib about certain topics.

If you're interested in this book then I'd advise you to read the foreword by Malachy Logan as it gives a very good flavour of what to expect. It doesn't contain all his best columns and some topics that are revisited on several occasions could be left out entirely.

However, his writing is fantastic, one of the greatest columnists around at the moment. His writing on Michelle de Bruin will make people take a really good look at their attitude towards sports in ireland and heroes, especially following the Cian O'Connor saga at the Olympics.

In summary, if you're Irish and you want a book that you can dip in and out of about sports, then this is the one for you.

"Book"ed?
Humphries has been described as “the Bill Bryson of sports writing”. Well, sports writing, and especially football writing doesn’t particularly need “a Bill Bryson”. People do, I accept, enjoy reading about the minute details of the life of the sports writer, or what colour the upholstry is on the Irish team bus as it rattles across the highways and byways of Poland. The thing is though, Humphries manages to say precious little for all his hyperbole. I have never read him presenting a lucid argument, addressing a serious issue in sport, without recourse to trivia and trivialisation. Perhaps he does not possess that ability, or perhaps that simply isn’t what the punters expect of him when they reads his pieces. But if he does have the potential to become an “Irish Henry Winter” or an “Irish Kevin McCarra”, something Irish sports writing needs more than “a Bill Bryson”, he’ll have to do better than his current offerings. And if there were in Ireland writers as gifted as we are led to believe Humphries is, then surely the Irish Times and the Independent wouldn’t have to fill their sports pages with the British illuminaries of the Telegraph and the Guardian.