Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby

I had this book for years, read bits and pieces of it, and know the movie by heart, but I wanted to read it cover to cover at a time in which I was watching some hard-nosed yet inspirational football, and that’s exactly what’s happening with Italy at the Euros right now (that is, until Germany just totally destroys us on Saturday).

The book is undoubtedly well-written and humorous, and so many of the points that Hornby makes clearly echo with most football fans (even people who, like me, have been to the stadium only a few times). I loved reading of his mom leaving him post-it notes with the results of late games when he was a kid (my dad did the same with me, and I still remember his Juventus-Torino 5-0 with a Vialli hat-trick and goals by Ferrara and Ravanelli) and finding out that Attilio Lombardo was indeed also famous in England for his hairline (or lack thereof) more than for his – absolutely unquestionable – skills.

If only there was an actual plot (like there is in the movie) to join the anecdotes together, this would be an excellent novel (well, maybe that’s a stretch), but instead it just remains, erm, anecdotal – and I don’t really love this sort of books as more often than not they’re just way too easy to read and relate to (which is slightly counterintuitive, I do realize). And as a Juve supporter, I suffered every time Hornby described a hooligan charge in the 70’s and early 80’s, because I knew  that at some point it would end up with the Heysel disaster…