Reviews
Punchily written, earthy and pulsing with the rhythms
of Halifax vernacular … a truly funny read.
Halifax Evening Courier
Humbugs
When you can’t play football for toffee, you
have to
play it for something else.
When life gets a bit empty, you need something to fill the hole. For Spooner, Frankie, Elvis, Pincher and Big O, the lads of Humbuggers FC, football does the filling. Humbugs is a story about a toffee factory football team not giving a toffee about making toffee.
Humbugs is a book about football. Humbugs is also about the bitter and the sweet in all of us, as well as the sticky grey bit in the middle that sticks to your teeth.
Humbugs, because not everything in life is
black and white.
Extracts from HUMBUGS
Elvis were our best player, him and Robbo from the sales office. These were the only two who could kick with both feet. Still, that’s more two-footed players than most international teams these days. But that’s where any resemblance to the professional game ends. For a bunch of lads who support Halifax Town and play for their work’s side, football isn’t the be all and end all. We don’t live it and breathe it. I don’t care what Shankly said, football isn’t a matter of life and death. To us it’s just a game. Full stop.
* * * * *
The ball happens to come my way. I tap it towards Big
O for the big hoof. Paddy nips in between us and nicks it off Big O;’s
toe-end. He gets forward into midfield, slips the ball to Giggsy and keeps
running. Giggsy hasn’t got his gigs on. Pochahontas took them off
him at half-time and told him to play with his heart and his guts. She told
him to imagine where the ball is, to see it in his mind’s eye. She
sounded like she knows what she’s doing. I like it when she’s
masterful. He traps the ball textbook style and is immediately closed down
by the Ackworth midfielders. It doesn’t phase our gig-less wonderboy
though. He uses his mind’s eye and dinks the ball between them into
Paddy’s path. The Padster’s in a lot of space now, the ball
bucking and bobbling at his feed. Elvis is pulling some fancy moves up front.
He looks like a pole dancer without the pole. But the Ackworth defenders
aren’t donkeys. They’re organised, disciplined, Germanic. One
sticks to Elvis, knowing his fullback is racing in to cover the space behind
him. The other, hunched like a hunter, moves up to stop Paddy’s run.
Gazza hunches up and runs in too. There’s a lot of shouting, from
both sides, and from the touchline. Paddy just keeps steaming along. He’s
going balls out. Gazza keeps with him. I don’t know what’s up
with us – we are playing football. Real football.