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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.334
EAN num: 9781594630477
ISBN number: 159463047X
Label: Hudson Street Press
Manufacturer: Hudson Street Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: June 12, 2008
Publishing house: Hudson Street Press
Sale Popularity Level: 260209
Studio: Hudson Street Press
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Fever Pitch meets Trainspotting in this laugh-outloud, caustic account of one man’s endeavor to coach a peewee soccer team
When Alan Black was a child growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, soccer—or what he called fitba’—was the be all and end all. His experience was not the little league, boys-of-summer stuff of modern America. For him, it was life and death. Now middleaged and living in California, Alan finds himself coaching a team of eight-year-olds in his beloved sport—and nothing is going right.
For a start, the kids are no good at soccer. Secondly, they’re pampered. Born and bred on the sport, Black’s hardscrabble Scottish upbringing consisted of playing tough and victory at all costs. Needless to say, his coaching methods are a far cry from the “winning isn’t everything” mentality his little leaguers have been reared with; and players and parents alike are shocked as Black attempts to transform the losing team through drills and bombast. Alone at night, watching evangelicals on TV, Black finds himself searching for some truth in the culture he finds so bizarre. And it’s with the Tigers that he feels most out of sync—faced with a mix of soft suburban children, a raft of overprotective parents, and an Iranian co-coach called Ali. Told with Black’s uproarious Scottish sensibility, Kick the Balls follows the abrasive, irreverent, and hilarious coach as he contends with a team that winds up with a zero-win record.
Both a celebration of his own tough childhood and an account of one man’s navigation of an alien culture, Kick the Balls will delight fans of well-told, laugh-out-loud memoirs.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
Alan Black is a force of nature. A Scottish force of nature to be exact. This is a hysterical, thought-provoking, funny, tragic memoir about the world's biggest and most popular religion. soccer. Or football as it's known in the civilized world. But it's also a story of a man coming to grips with his past, with his present and his future. It doesn't matter if you are one of the unwashed American masses who doesn't understand or appreciate the beautiful game. If you've ever been a kid, you should read this book. this is Black comedy at its best.
Rated by buyers -
I don't watch soccer. I don't care about soccer. But this book made me laugh so hard I got eyeballed on the bus as perhaps a bit 'special'.
No one's feelings should be hurt here when he makes fun of you - and yes, he'll make fun of you, and you, and you. He's equal opportunity in mocking athletes, non-athletes, Americans, Scotsmen, parents, coaches, everyone. No need to be offended. Its all in good fun. And its all true.
Really, you have to read this book.
Rated by buyers -
I wrote a review for this book on June 28 and now it's gone. In fact, there were a few reviews up here. Well, thanks to Google cache here's what I said:
When I was a kid in the 1970s, they said in the future soccer would become massively popular in America and we would all use the metric system. Didn't happen. The metric system is pretty much only used to refer to illicit drugs, but almost every American kid in the suburbs plays in a soccer league at least once.
Alan Black's "Kick The Balls" is about his adventures coaching a kids' soccer league, yes. But it is much more. It's about Alan trying to assimilate into the American suburbs. And this is the super funny stuff. No one is safe from Black's barbs: TV preachers, kids, Dockers pants, parents, multiculturalism, the cult of the suburban lawn. Oh and it's not just a snarky hit piece on the easy target of suburban life, Black reserves his sharpest wit to mock himself: a cynical, uncomfortable, Scottish transplant to California. Recommended to anyone in need of a hearty jaundiced laugh at the world and themselves. Extra bonus funny (and insightful) if you are in the position of trying to cope with maintaining your identity and making new friends in a suburban, middle class, vanilla wasteland (i.e., if you're like this reviewer).
Rated by buyers -
The view from Alan Black's head, as he surveys Northern California suburbia, is scary the way riding a Hunter S Thompson novel is scary and philosophical in the Vonnegut Breakfast of Champions sense, but since it's all foreign to him it's like reading an alien anthropologist's view of your culture: ironic, enlightening, ridiculous, and a bit absurd.
To get the full rush, you need to hear Alan in your head as you read. Here's your recipe: (1) read the book up until the very first time you laugh outloud (make him earn the $24 fercrissakes), (2) after that very first laugh, go to http://dublit.com/search?filter0=Alan%20Black (or just www.dublit.com then search on Alan Black audio shorts) (3) listen to one or two readings. You will then hear that mighty screaming brogue through the entire book. Nice.
The comparison on the dust jacket with Nick Hornby follows from the self-absorbed 1st person character. But Alan Black takes it joyously over the top. The humour is bitingly dry, sometimes deliciously obscure, frequently refers to something you'd almost forgotten, and nearly always offensive. Offensive in the way that makes you look around to see if anyone was listening inside your head. In other words, offensive to no actual person, just potentially offensive. The best kind!
The book isn't written with a mess of high-brow literati flair, thank God, it kicks you right in the, well, you know. Given the blue-collar style, it's amazing how this book, which has only one real character, delivers the goods. It's one of those tricks that a purple-prose-artist might shoot for and even pull off. I get the impression that Alan did it so naturally that he's not even aware of it. Organic talent, in other words.
Rated by buyers -
Via humorous vignettes that take you back and forth through 3 decades and 2 continents, Kick the Balls offers a very true and funny view of soccer/football, and life in general, on both sides of the Atlantic. Kick the Balls is a terrific read, even if you don't follow this sport.
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