Firstly apologies. This review is somewhat outdated, having been printed for the Phoenix match programme of 8th December, the first of three successive home games to fall victim to the weather. It is also outdated inasmuch as I originally aimed it at those people looking for a Christmas stocking filler. And finally, it's also outdated as I've since gone on to finish the book...something which wasn't true when this review was written. Anyway, despite all that, here's hoping it will still tempt some of you to go out and buy it...
For a club of its
size, Easington United has featured quite heavily in Yorkshire-based football
publications.
Steven
Penny, once of the Yorkshire Post and
author of the excellent Tykes Travels
yearbooks, devoted a chapter to the club in his ‘Soap Stars & Burst Bubbles – A Season of Yorkshire Football’. Easington also featured heavily in Hull
writer Craig Ellyard’s 2002 book ‘Now
Then – A Journey Across The Football Fields of East Yorkshire’, while numerous Ground-hoppers have
written very complimentary posts about the Low Farm match day experience on
various blogs and websites. All of
which has brought ‘The Eastenders’ welcome publicity.
The
latest addition to the set comes courtesy of ‘Route 66 – A Journey Around the Football Grounds of Yorkshire’ by
Michael J Mowbray.
Midlands-born
Michael is an adopted Yorkshireman and also, for his sins, a Leeds United
fan. He describes his quest to spend a
season visiting all 66 Yorkshire football grounds at Step 7 level and above as
a sign of his impending mid-life crisis.
(For the record my equivalent would currently appear to involve visiting
every CML ground Easington United play at – preferably with an accompanying
pint of real ale at a nearby hostelry!).
I
must confess that my review of the book suffers one slight flaw in that I’ve
not yet actually finished it. But with
Christmas rapidly approaching I feel the need to point you in the direction of
it as a rather fabulous stocking-filler.
Actually,
by the time you read this, I may well have reached the final whistle. In addition to having read the first 33
chapters in sequence, for the purposes of this review I’ve also covered those
‘second half’ offerings that feature the remaining East Riding clubs -
Bridlington Town (Chapter 42), Hull City (49), Hall Road Rangers (53) and of
course Easington United (55) – as well as our fellow CML teams (Bentley
Colliery, Yorkshire Main, Harworth Colliery, Thorne Colliery, Kiveton Park (v
Easington, Chapter 62), Phoenix and Westella & Willerby). So, I think I’ve digested enough to be able
to judge it.
If
there are failings with Route 66 they
are few and far between and most can be overlooked, although I might have to
ask him to double check my quote against Dronfield – did I really predict a
win? If so it must have been down to the
sloe-gin.
As
you’d expect from what is essentially the work of a keen amateur, there’s the
odd spelling mistake, the occasional gaffe (Queensway instead of Queensgate for
Bridlington Town’s ground) and one of my personal pet hates when it comes to
grammar - the regular use of the word “of” when it should be “have” (as in
“would of predicted”). But, unlike Mr
Ellyard’s error-ridden offering, such slips don’t spoil the read.
The
reason for this is because the content is excellent. Not only in the rich diversity of football
grounds visited but also in the little sub-plots involved in each chapter.
I
particularly liked the author’s story of his walk from Scarborough to
Bridlington for the Seadogs’ ‘home’ game against Staveley on a Tuesday in
November; a feat which is almost matched in its foolhardiness by his decision
to drive from his snow-bound Ilkley home to Bishop Burton and back, simply in
order to tick Westella & Willerby off his list!
Michael’s
attention to detail is excellent – though thankfully not overly so where the
graffiti-adorned grandstand at Bentley Colliery is concerned! He also
introduces some fantastic characters along the way, with Goole appearing to
have more than its fair share. That said
I’m still trying to work out the identities of the ‘League of Gentleman’ extras
he met on his visit to the “Humber Riviera”. (Note to Michael – “Humber” not
“Hull”!)
Although
some of the football watched would appear to have been fairly poor, the author
still manages to find something that will keep the reader’s attention, whether
it’s the quality of food on offer, a particular incident involving sons George
and Lucas (of which there are too many for his liking) or just the general
scene around him. He also has a very
amusing knack of managing to miss goals due to various reasons.
Certainly
those of you who’ve travelled away with Easington will relate to many of his
observations – the clubhouse atmosphere at Harworth, the “big lads” in the
Kinsley team and the smell of cannabis at Yorkshire Main! On the debit side, I can’t believe he passed
up the pies at Bentley Colliery or the range of ales available in the clubhouse
at Phoenix. Perhaps he’s saving these
for a Route 66 Revisited?
There
are also some items Michael now perhaps regrets including. For example he won’t be the only person who
thought Jimmy Savile deserving of a gushing tribute in the immediate wake of
his death. Thankfully, this is more than
offset by similar pieces on the much worthier Gary Speed and Arthur Wharton.
On
a personal note, I smiled at a description (admittedly not Michael’s) of the
CML as “park football with no stands or beer”.
I also took as a real compliment his comment that “it must take years to
get to this level of an anorak” in relation to a piece I’d written about Hutton
Cranswick, even though I’m not sure it was intended thus!
In
addition to a foreword by Michael Vaughan, what really sets this book apart
from being just another Ground-hopper’s Travelogue are the author’s
child-related scrapes. Tales of the
hazards encountered when taking young sons to games, while trying to record
events for posterity, gives Route 66
a human feel that is perhaps lacking from similar publications.
I
found (or should I say, am still finding) the book both informative and
entertaining. I’d like to think many of
you will back yourselves to do the same.
You can also check out Michael's excellent new website of the same name.
No comments:
Post a Comment