The Hand of God and the 2008 Euros.

I’ve been feasting on the European Championships. If football was food I’d look like Maradona does now… but I’ll get back to him.

There’s nothing for it, Austria and Switzerland have played host to an awesome display of the beautiful game. Has to be one of the best international tournaments in my life time. I can’t remember watching better.

Not a single team had a solid defence. Poor for the players, excellent for spectators. Goals everywhere. Analogies with sieve’s and other things with holes in have been rife. People thought there was no way Russia would lose that many goals to the Spaniards a second time not after the way they done the Dutch. The ball is round right enough.

Thanks must go to the nations of Europe who, in leaving their defensive tactics at home, made a valuable contribution to a rare football extravaganza, one that really has lived up to the hype.

Only a couple of games have been a bit lumpy, most notably Italy vs Spain (wince!), but the plot, being completely unpredictable, thickened all the way to the finale where the Spanish Armada finally grabbed the gold. I'm pleased for them and for football too.

With so many twists, turns and goals the entire football show had all the makings of a good drama. It made me wonder if the novella I’m knocking together for my PhD, which is tied to the 2010 World Cup, will maintain the same level of excitement. I also wondered if there’s any other football fiction set at or during a specific international tournament.

I did think of three which come close…

The third, and arguably best written, of John King’s ‘hoolie-lit’ trilogy England Away sees his Chelsea head hunters make some violent appearances in Holland and Germany on their way to watch their national team clash in an international fixture. I don’t think it would count as a tournament based football fiction.

The same would be said for me old mate, Dougie Brimson’s (see the interview) The Crew. It's about a team of football fans, three crews actually, who plan and execute a hoolie-handed Italian Job while England play the Azzuri in Italy. The old bill try to stop them scoring, but their defence is a bit like the Germans.


The Hand of God Squad are a couple of opportunistic Scotland fans who’ve named themselves after that famous moment in Argentina’s defeat of England in the World Cup (22 June 1986). Gordon Legge penned a wee cracker for the The Hope That Kills Us about the lads and how girls and love get in the away of their international game attendance record. Again its not tournament based, but it has the most games in it.

I will take a closer look at the football fiction of Legge and King in future posts.

I can’t think of any other examples. Maybe you know some, maybe you’re writing one. I’d really appreciate it if someone could point me towards any good, bad or indifferent offerings. They'd be worth their weight in eh...burgers?

The Hope That Kills Us

Besides bringing attention to my own work I wanted to use this blog to highlight football fiction and the worthy (and unworthy) of their place in the sub genre. I’ve already made a glancing header at a couple of really very good examples.

The one for the day is the magnificently titled The Hope That Kills Us. It’s a feckin’ belter. Here’s the official line on what it is…

'Scottish football is the weirdest of organisms, simultaneously compelling and repulsive in equal measure. The Hope That Kills Us brings together specially commissioned stories from some of Scotland's best contemporary writers. Each story examines, from its own unique viewpoint, the participants, observers, experience and emotion that feed our nation's obsession with football.

Unlike so much stuff in our worlds today, it does exactly what it says on the label. The Hope… wonderfully reflects football’s integral part in our culture. The joy, the sorrow, the nightmare’s, the humour, the misery, the people. It’s magic. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The people who put it together commissioned 8 leading lights in Scottish fiction for contributions and looked to writers groups in local communities, Uni’s and even some operating from big hooses like Glenochil to add an additional 5 - the paperback edition includes a couple of further additions.

There are too many highlights to mention here. There’s not a dud among them. Des Dillon’s emotive farmer’s tale, Heatherstone’s Question, Gordon Legge’s Hand of God Squad, an exquisite tale of what it is to follow our national team and This is My Story, This is My Song, Laura Hird’s take on the football widow’s revenge are sublime. They are not the only ones though.

I’ve cited both Billy Cornwall’s Jesus Saves and Andrew C Ferguson’s Nae Cunt Said Anything in my theoretical piece for my MA, purely because of their depiction of the game from the pitch. Ferguson’s story is a personal favourite. It’s about hard faced giant sized faeries and wishfully gifted players wasted with drink, how could it not be?

I really like the novels, Boyracers and The Incredible Adam Spark, (http://www.alanbissett.com) so I was fair pleased when Alan Bissett’s picture of the mentality of the great green ’n blue divide, A Minute’s Silence lived up to expectation. It concisely captures the best/worst of the Central Scotland (my home) mindset while beautifically underlining what it is that brings football people together and makes us love it so…

“That connection in a pass, reaching somebody across empty green space…”(pg133)

“…fitbas a mystery eh. Its aw in the glances, the breathin, the beatin ae yer heart; that’s whaur it lives. Somethin tae dae wi bein alive. Mortal. Its no scarfs and fuckin badges thats for sure.”(pg134)

Obviously being about the Old Firm, it’s about what divides us as well – the simultaneously compelling and repulsive.

Editor Adrian Searle has done such a good job of stitching it all together, it looks like a Sunday morning size 5 Mitre ready for a kickabout in the park. Well rounded, well played and well, just about the best collection of football fiction I’ve managed to get my hands on so far.