Every now and then I like to review a book on the Roar and The Gaffer by P.J Laverty is a recently read text deserving of a wide audience. Laughing out loud has become something of an annoying acronym in the modern world, rather than the result of a quality piece of writing that paints vivid and comical images in the minds of readers.
Yet Laverty’s latest work does exactly that, with the hilarious and absurd working hand in hand throughout a football novel that rings extremely true for hardened fans of the game.
The Gaffer by PJ Laverty
Have you ever wondered why the manager of the football club you support is such an incompetent fool? Why the club struggles to attract players, plays consistently awful football and continues to slide down the table year after year?
Thomas Bamford has wondered it for years, particularly as his club Guff Rovers drifted rudderless toward the sea of oblivion in English football. The glory days gone, Bamford took on the role of recalcitrant, lunatic and foul-mouthed supporter, present for Guff matches week after week, yet growing ever tired of seeing the club he loved crawling towards extinction.
Like most football fans, Bamford believes he has all the answers, the right ideas and a vision for the club that simply needed the funds and will to execute the plan that would see it restored to greatness in short time. In his mind it is simple.
However, without the finances to become directly involved in the day to day running of the club, Bamford seems set to remain merely an irritating buffoon and something of a pimple on what had become a bum of a club.
That was until, after falling into a considerable sum, the overweight, unfit and repulsive Bamford places his money right alongside his mouth and forces a deal with the club boss for a 51 per cent share in Guff and an immediate role as team manager.
As local media, the playing group and fans shake their heads in utter disbelief at his appointment, Bamford sets about acquiring the players he believes, could take Guff to the heights of European football.
Without tact, knowledge or know how in either management or ownership, Bamford becomes the loosest of cannons, severing ties with the previous manager and a host of first team players. At the same time, he brings in an eclectic hodge-podge that he introduces as past stars and players of the future, despite them being washed up has-beens or members of the local community merely happy to engage in his fantasy.
With possible relegation from the fourth division and an embarrassing move to non-league English football looming, Bamford has little time to claw Guff from the relegation zone, all the while, battling dwindling funds and personal loss.
PJ Laverty sends readers on a rollicking journey of the unbelievable, the absurd, the crass and the all too familiar, with Bamford as the fulcrum around which this well constructed and clever narrative revolves. Along with lovely touches of sincerity and irony, Laverty’s ability to capture the raw offense of the scorned football fan presents clear and memorable images, with those mental pictures informed by readers’ personal football experiences.
As something of a cross between a tragic clown and a boorish, uneducated bigot, Bamford deserves little, yet does experience the climax for which he craved, as Laverty drags him over the footballing coals in what literally appears to be his final act.
Football is rarely a laughing matter, yet Laverty succeeds in making it so, set against the backdrop of a collection of characters and situations that at times defy logic and belief. As football books go, this is a certain winner, with no evidence of a forced narrative, indecision or doubt from the author; merely the crafty telling of a hilarious tale that must simply be read to be believed.
The Gaffer is available at https://www.fairplaypublishing.com.au/products/the-gaffer.
Liverpool have reached a verbal agreement with Feyenoord for their head coach Arne Slot to succeed Jurgen Klopp at the end of the season.…
The past 18-24 months have been an enjoyable ride for Arsenal and their fan-base after almost a decade of turbulence. Mikel Arteta has been…
Manchester City have chalked up another big win in their hunt for an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League title, with Phil Foden continuing his…
Here is the way the Roar expert panel sees all the action unfolding across the final weekend of play prior to the semi-finals.
Despite the short nature of his tenure as a professional manager, Arne Slot has established himself as arguably the most impressive manager outside of…
Everton won the Merseyside derby 2-0, with Toffees supporters taunting Liverpool after the game at their home ground Goodison Park.
