Is time on your side?

I’ve just realised something. I’ve just watched the Scottish Premier League Press Box followed by the Inside the SPL and the Friday Football Show and even started watching the Blue Square review. That’s almost three straight hours of football speculation, discussion, pundit slaver and talking pish. Particularly from that feckin’ eedjit Gerry McNee.

Then I set the wee box under the telly (Foxtel IQ here in Oz, Sky Plus in the UK or I think TEVO in the US – I’m not sure) to record the two Scottish games. Then I looked at the fixtures to decide which English games I’ll most likely watch. The power of the technology in that wee box lets me record two channels at the same time. One English game, one Scottish game. And there’s the unbelievable option on Foxtel Sports that allows me to choose one of five possible games kicking off at 3pm (UK time - Midnight in Oz). The rest of the games are shown all day Sunday before and after the A-League games.

I’d already lined up a seat on the couch for the Men’s Olympic Gold play-off between Argentina and Nigeria, so by the time I’ve looked at the World Game, BBC sports and Pitch Invasion on t’internet, selected my team in the fantasy football league competition, read through all the speculation about potential transfers and made myself a cup of coffee I’m looking at the best part of 12 hours of watching or reading about current football. That’s just today.

Thinking about what I should’ve been doing instead of looking at football stuff, the impacts of consumability and immediacy on the tiny world of football fiction rolled right over me but I was struck by something even more pervasive.

There simply isn’t time to read a book about makey-uppy football.

In my search for reasons why there isn’t more, I’d failed to consider how much free time even the most discerning of football fans (I’m not necessarily including myself there) actually have to consider anything beyond their own teams.

Then there’s the bigger picture, the time between seasons beginning and ending. The time left between the dust settling on the pea in FA Cup Final whistle and the first kick of the ball of whatever summer tournament the marketeers have got us hyped for. In ’06 it was the World Cup; in ’07 it was the Women’s World Cup and the Asian Pacific Cup; in ’08 Euros and the Olympics - though what the likes of Messi and Ronaldhino are doing at the Olympics is beyond me. The 2010 World Cup looms large on the South African horizon. Which leaves about 4 weeks in 2009 to read something that’s not topically football.

I have just realised something else. Something you probably realised before me. Am I actually talking myself out of a career as a football fiction writer? Maybe. I’m not worried though, in order for me to carve out a wee niche it’s important to realise where the boundaries are. That’s what this whole blog is about. I’ll just have to do it by stealth. Shorter pieces and different markets, but that’s a story for another day. I haven’t the time to tell you now.

Charlie Nicholas gives me the boak

Big T is a very smart, insightful, friend of mine. He’s made a lot of sense to me on a whole range of subjects and I hold his views on the world in high regard. Following my invitation to look at my blog, he offered comment and I asked if I could put some of it up here, because, true to form, he has struck on the ideas at the very heart of my electronic purpose…

Big T said…
I found your comments on football books interesting…it is true that there is a surprising dearth of decent football authors, especially, as you said, football is such a popular sport. Perhaps, on reflection…referring to your point on Charlie Nicholas and the thousands of other incoherent, mumbling, stammering, uncommunicative, inarticulate and unintelligable players and ex-players, … the vast majority of football players, and therefore ex-players, coaches and managers are more adept at expressing themselves with a football at their feet than a pen in their hands…in my opinion at least, football is more than a sport; it is an art of expression,

Wise words. Galeano couldn’t have put it better. Despite having the demonstrative Harper/Slater (sensible,steady writer-observer/pish-talking exfootballer) team, my response to Big T was...

You're right big man. It is about expression. Football, writing, writing about football, the whole lot. You're right too, it's no for me to judge these people outside of their field of expertise. I wasnae being disrespectful, well I was a bit, more than a bit in some cases. I definitely was about Charlie Nicholas (and Robbie Slater)- watching him commentate gives me the boak (feel sick). He has a tremendous ability to make moments of balletic fluidity on the park sound like a bull in a china shop stramash. Don't get me wrong I wish I could play football like some of the people he talks about. I wish I could write like he played.

I've been struggling to get a handle on why there are so few works of fiction regarding such an immensely popular sport. It was the running theme of my Masters and one that’s set to plague my PhD.

The ‘players-writers’ theory is just one notion I would put forward. Another, there isn’t a market. No demand, no supply. It's something else I need to consider before I set about adding paper to shelves that might never get emptied.

Big T had been thinking about the supply and demand question too…
the digestors of football material are mostly visual predators. Seeking the pleasure and fun of a beautiful move, a pass, a goal, a tackle through voyeurism as a spectator. However, it's true that as much excitement can be derived by listening to a match on the radio, sometimes depending on who's commentating, often depending on the occasion, but always, I'm sure, the words in the air are converted to images in the brain for us to feast on…the ordinary punter would rather see something than read about it. …to read about football is a secondary interpretation or derivative of the original goal. (I'm sure you'll excuse the terrible pun).

Big T also believes there is a football fiction market for ‘discernable punters’. I hope he’s right. I know he’s right about the other stuff - how we view football and derive so much from it. Like I said at the start, I agree with him. I want to be able to think about football fiction differently and he helped me do that.

I'm looking for people to say, “Big man, you are talking pish.” I'm no looking for expert advice, though I'd gladly take it, I'm looking for arguments to reinforce my views or tear them down. It all helps me move forward.

Thanks again Big T. If any one out there has any thing to add, please do.