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Laptop Dancing and the Nanny Goat Mambo: A Sports Writers Year
TownHouse/Pocket Books (
07 July, 2003 )
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You dont have to be Irish to read this, but it helps...  |
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I picked this up in Shannon airport, where the image of a kareoke goat on the front cover got my attention. Only when I began reading the book did I realise that this was going to be an Irish book. Thankfully the beginning devotes itself to self depracation and Winter Olympics, so it became obvious that only small passages of the book would mean nothing to me. But this didnt matter, as the style is so endearing "Rang home tonight, turns out its my birthday today".
It seems that Humphries, having spent so long always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, found himself in the right place to be writing a journal. One suspects that this book wouldnt be as successful without the Keane saga but, not being Irish, I havent felt that the book led up to it at all.
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The heart beat of sport |
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Tom Humphries is a renowned sports writer with the Irish Times newspaper in Dublin. This book takes the reader into his life as a sports writer as he reports on the sports year 2002 encompassing such events as the Salt lake city winter Olympics, the soccer World Cup in Japan/Korea, and a number of events on the local Gaa front in Ireland.
I found Humphries an engaging character as he explained with forthright honesty and hilarity how on many occasions he had to report on events he had little or no interest in and even little or no knowledge of i.e. the Winter Olympics. It is though with events that he is profoundly concerned about that he really makes an impact on the reader particularly with relation to the Roy Keane/ Mick McCarthy affair in Saipan prior to the World Cup. In this case he doesnt attempt to prejudge either of the main participants but allows the reader to establish the facts for themselves and come to their own conclusions. The reader is also allowed to gain an appreciation of how the media can manipulate certain situations to suit themselves with a fair amount of distortion of the truth. The GAA in Ireland is also an area Humphries is happy to discuss and he makes no attempt to disguise his admiration for many of its players who remain strictly amateur, with Dublin Gaa, DJ Carey, Kieran McGeeney and Paidi OSe coming in for particular analysis.
Humphries is an excellent sports writer with a style of prose that makes this book both easy and fun to read. It should be of interest not just to the serious sports reader but also to the avid reader
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Brilliant read |
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First of all, Im not a HUGE sports fan, with only a passing interest in Premiership football, golf etc. The fact that this is so absorbing is down to the quality of Tom Humphries deft talent.
Although golf, the Winter Olympics and more are covered, the meat of the book is the authors various adventures at the World Cup 2002 in Japan & Korea, and the fall-out from his interview with Roy Keane that started a chain of events that culminated in Keanes sensational departure from the Irish team & worldwide headlines.
Humphries descriptions of his own tumultuous relationship with the formidable Keane are so laugh-out-loud-funny that I ended up embarrassing myself with suppressed laughter on my daily train journey.
But this book is about much more than the Roy Keane fiasco. Humphries is referred to in the blurb as the Bill Bryson of sports journalism. Well hes that, and much more besides...
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