Finished Two Books In A Day Including The Worst Football Book I've Ever Read

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So two books have been finished. The first was Too Late To Turn Back by Barbara Greene. An account of her journey through West Africa in the nineteen thirties with her cousin Graham Greene.

It's an OK book. The author isn't racist towards the native people there although there are moments where she does come across as patronising. To be fair she does appear to acknowledge this in this edition published in the nineteen eighties.

To be honest acceptable though it was I very much doubt I'll remember it in the future. A sort of literary McDonalds.Apart that is as a comparison if I ever read her cousin's account of the same trip Journey Without Maps.

So the next Penguin/Pelican paperback to emerge from the great unread is:

A128 - W G Fearnsides and O M B Bulman  - Geology In The Service Of Man

Yes I know. But when you collect vintage Penguins/Pelicans then this is a consequence.

The blurb describes it as "eminently readable". I doubt that but no stone will be left unturned in finding out.

I've also finished Big Sam the autobiography of Sam Allardyce (with Shaun Custis). In terms of his time in the job the Usain Bolt of ex England managers.

I'd borrowed that book (written before he became Sunderland manager let alone England) to have a laugh in the light of what happened subsequently. Those moments are there but on completion my main question is how a book as badly written as this one got published.

For there are moments when it seems to suggest that Allardyce can barely string words together (which his TV interviews show is not the case). I've mentioned before of a sentence with four "I"s in it. Another example that caught my eye was in describing the Bolton player Hierro "There wasn't a better passer in the Premier League and I include Paul Scholes who was the master". A sentence which if you think about it makes no sense. I did wonder whether an uncredited writer of this book was Google translate.

Even the construction of this book is dire. Chapter five is entitled Stateside With The Rowdies with regard to Allardyce's time with Tampa Bay.and has roughly fourteen pages in it. Just three are actually about the Rowdies. The remaining pages are devoted to other tropical parts of his career in Coventry and Preston.When going through the clubs he's managed suddenly inserted between them is a chapter on his management style. Surely that would have been more suitable towards the end?

And speaking about the stories of the clubs he's managed I have said before that I've some sympathy with him for how the football boards/owners have treated him (although in his last season with West Ham if the second half of that season was as good as the first he could still be Hammers manager today). But these chapters seem less about setting the record straight as settling old scores. In terms of the trials and tribulations of being a manager a far better book is Neil Warnock's The Gaffer (who is,incidentally, now manager of Cardiff City).

So in all respects this is an awful book. However as I mentioned before when taking this out  of Porthcawl library there might be a chance of redemption. For as the lady librarian implied, there are further chapters to be written.

Until the next time.