I'm no football fan (though I have a soft spot for former Carshalton Athletic full-back Roy Hodgson) but Leicester City's Premiership triumph is in every way a great story, of a kind we could do with more of, especially in the bloated big-money world of professional football. The brouhaha on Radio 4 this morning included an interview with Julian Barnes, lifelong Leicester fan, who sounded mildly gratified. He, we were reminded, had foretold just such a turn of events in his account of the 'New Heaven' at the end of his History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters, with Leicester not only winning the championship but being chosen, en bloc, as the new England team. Barnes said a few words about fiction's habit of anticipating fact, and seized the chance to align himself yet again with his 'great master' Flaubert. Ah well, fair enough - it's a great day for any lifelong Leicester fan...
For myself, Leicester's triumph put me in mind of another great footballing underdog story - J.L. Carr's 1974 novel How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup. There's a review of it, written from a footballing angle, here.
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I watched Channel 4 News's report outside the Leicester stadium yesterday. It seems that the great victory had little to do with the efforts of the footballers and their manager. It's down to either the discovery of Richard III' s bones in a car park or, more likely, the admirabe ethnic mix in the city.
ReplyDeleteYes - York City FC must be furious they didn't get those bones...
ReplyDeleteLet the city of Leicester enjoy the glory whilst they may, chequebooks are already circling.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm....bones and ethnic mix, methinks Mr Ashley's ears will have pricked up although Newcastle has a good ethnic mix as many English people now live and work there, the bones are a different matter, there are, of course, the bones of my old French teacher M Radisson, he is buried there. He was a crack eraser thrower, perhaps if his ribs are displayed at half time.......
Ah Malty - I'd forgotten those happy days when eraser throwing was an essential part of the teacher's professional skillset. Chalk-chucking too - zing...
ReplyDeleteBoard rubbers in our school. Deadly accurate too.
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