The Agony and the Ecstasy. New
Writing for the World Cup, edited by Nicholas Royle
(Sceptre)
Follow-up volume to A Book of Two Halves and a better
all-round collection. Divided into sections emphasizing the
negative and positive aspects of the game, probably because
the subject demands more focus and World Cup stories are
likely to have more resonance with the reader. Many
favourites, including Ben Richards examination of Chilean
football to Graham Joyce's 'As Seen on Radio', which tells
the 1966 World Cup through the eyes of a trio of teenagers
on a boring holiday in Rhyl.
One joke stories like 'England's Shame by Geoff Nicholson
(if drugs were legal, what would various countries choose?)
wear thin pretty quickly. A few of these writers shouldn't
have made the squad perghaps, but a unique collection, and I
look forward to another one in time for South Korea and
Japan 2002 or whatever they are going to call it.
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