- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Mammoth (13 Jan 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0749734310
- ISBN-13: 978-0749734312
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 11.2 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,515,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
What I want is to score a goal because I never scored a real goal with posts and a net and wear a proper shirt with colours the ball flies past the goaly's diving and it bulges out the net like a fish in a net and I'm going to stand there in the goal and I scored. I want to score a real goal like Chris he's captain he plays with me sometimes.
Danny loves football. The trouble is he is really bad at it--in fact, he is really bad at everything--and no amount of enthusiasm on his part makes up for his lack of skill. Encouraged by his teacher, Mrs Gilbey, and his new-found friend Chris (who just happens to be the football team's captain), Danny gradually learns to take pride in himself, and with a lot of patience and coaching he begins to get closer to his dream, against all the odds.
Dazzer Plays On is a gem, and author Steve May has perfectly captured the pain and humiliation that comes with being the fat kid by cleverly watching Danny through the eyes of Chris, Danny's hero and mentor. As Danny slowly develops, so too does Chris, whose reluctant friendship with the school idiot develops into a bond that gradually allows both of them to mature and grow.
This book is as stunning and as pacey as any top-flight Premier League game. At times it makes the reader cringe with embarrassment as Danny, all sausage legs and enthusiasm, takes on his own world and learns to play football, and at times it just makes you want to weep at the injustice of it all. But at the heart of it is the pure joy and glory of the underdog winning respect and winning the day.
Dazzer Plays On is not just a book about football--although there can be little doubt that anyone with a love of the sport will be instantly drawn into the passionate love affair that Chris and Danny have with the game. Neither is it a book that can only be enjoyed by boys or, indeed young readers. It has been described as "Fever Pitch for kids" which is certainly no small accolade. However young or old you are, Dazzer Plays On is a great book and will strike a chord with anyone who has ever had to suffer the agony of beingthe last person to be picked for the team, and has harboured fantasies of revenge through success. (Ages 10 and over)--Susan Harrison
Product Description
What I really want is to score a goal for a realy team with shirts, on a real pitch with lines and flags, in a real goal with posts so the ball goes bulging intothe net and everyone shouts "Yes!". But before you can score, you've got to make the team, and Danny is seriously useless.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't recall a Steve May at my school, but "Dazzer" so evokes the pain/pleasure of trying to break into the Abbs Cross second eleven while simultaneously battling long-sightedness and exploding puberty, that I suspect he may have been practising surveillance techniques on me throughout my early teens. Despite contemporary references, "Dazzer" seems to be set in an imprecise recent past, or could this just be my memory, inserting sections of my own experiences into the narrative? The triumph of the book, in my view, is to provide a read that, while intended primarily for the younger reader, also takes the adult back to the time when he or she sought companionship and inspiration from just such a novel. Obvious influences would be the film "Kes" and Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch", while the gripping denoument will jangle the nerves of anyone with the remotest sense of fair play and a yearning for that classic ending, the triumph of good over evil/goodie over baddie. If this book doesn't strike a chord with you, then you were that kid at school who could never have existed... The one that sailed through it all completely unscarred.
Format:Paperback
I bought this book for my nine year old lad, who is a keen but inelegant footballer. But I was so much worse when I was his age, and I got to this wonderful book first. Oh, God, the pain of being last in the class to be chosen for a team - each captain saying "Go on, you have him" - it's all captured here in Steve May's superbly observed novel. I laughed out loud - something I don't often do in bed - and the image of Dazzer playing "Keepsy - Upsy" (and getting as far as one) wil stay with me for a long time. My lad has now got to it, and enjoys it on a different level - without the distance of years. To all the Captain Ba***ards out there in history and the present - thank you Steve for lightening a weekend.
Format:Paperback
So we all want to be a hero and score the winning goal, but how rare it is to even get the chance. Steve May charts the unlikely rise to the school first team of the boy we all hated for being useless - his total dedication in the face of innumerable upsets until he gets that chance and takes it! Acutely observed by the author, the bittersweet memories of grazed knees, 20-a-side in the park, and the energy that only footy-mad youngsters have come rushing back. Yes, I was that boy - I was Dazzer! Go get it!
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