- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Headline Book Publishing (6 Jan 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747271739
- ISBN-13: 978-0747271734
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,132,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Return Of The Busby Babes
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Product Description
Product Description
An ailing football team are taken over by the ghosts of the legendary Busby Babes with surprising results. From the author of ITCHYCOOBLUE.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Dillon's follow-up to the acclaimed Itchycooblue is the light, humorous tale of the hapless 2004 Albion Rovers football team, suddenly possessed by the spirits of eight of the Busby Babes, killed in the Munich air disaster in 1958. Imagine Field of Dreams, but with bad football in place of baseball, set in Coatbridge.
Bailey Bloggs, survivor of the same air disaster, is wracked with guilt by the fact. In his anguish, he becomes obsessed with the useless and nearly bankrupt Rovers following media publicity after the team's miraculous escape from a skiing accident. Certain that the survivors have become possessed by the spirits of the eight dead Manchester United players, he attempts to convince them likewise.
Matt, the manager, has his own theories when the previously inept team begin storming their way up the Scottish league, and into Europe. Convinced his statue of Padre Pio, a stigmata-suffering priest, is responsible for their change of fortune, the statue becomes a shrine to the team and supporters.
Vengeful greyhounds, exorcism, corrupt businessmen, the slimiest, nastiest man of the cloth you'll meet in a long time, hard-to-convince players whose idea of preparing for a game is a couple of tins of superlager in the changing room beforehand, all intermingle in this refreshing take on the football novel.
Parts of it reads like a heroic story from a boys' comic, but this adds to the gentle innocence of the book.
Descriptions of the actual matches are particularly evocative. Dillon mills among the players, crowd, corrupt management and itinerant greyhounds to create a real feeling of being there. You can smell the pies and hear the chants, particularly in the scene where Jimbo is about to take a penalty against Celtic and his girlfriend, Ingrid, runs on to give him a good luck kiss, to chants of "Who's the slutbag, who's the slutbag, who's the slutbag on the pitch?"
The characters are likeable and well drawn, by way of flashbacks that give insight into early motivations, fears and disappointments. Such intense use of flashback could be confusing, but Dillon flits from different times and characters, using repetition as an anchor. There are no chapters as such, but each section starts with a repeated paragraph from a previous section, a technique that is very effective in prolonging the reader's expectations.
The book is full of urban myths Dillon subsequently takes as his own giving it a realistic grounding despite its other-worldly theme. It is also crammed full of colourful metaphors, and laugh-out-loud observations: "Jimbo's bird's got a face on her like a bulldog licking the pish off a jaggy thistle", "It's an old-fashioned pub. It doesn't sell drugs".
He can also be touchingly accurate on the human condition, such as his description of Bailey's addiction to sorrow: "It's a bit like when you probe a rotten tooth with a toothpick. While you're doing it the pain's bearable. It's only when you try to ignore it, it's insufferable."
Return of the Busby Babes is not as challenging as Dillon's earlier books, but none-the-less, refreshingly innocent and unpretentious.
Laura Hird
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This has all the elements I loved in comics as a boy - and some great writing too. It gives me the same feelings the comics used to give me years ago. Your reader is right - would make a fantastic movie.
Format:Paperback
Is the movie industry in Britain crazy? This could be the biggest blockbuster movie ever to come out of the UK if it's given the Hollywood treatment.
That aside - a great book full of humour and humanity- and hey! Great writing - totally unpretentious.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
"A classic tale of fortune and misfortune"
A tale of magic and a truly funny novel i rate this a 5 star because of its humourous characters.
Published on 16 Sep 2001 by iain1888@hotmail.com
A good, humorous, fantasy. Not necessarily for football fans
A story of "what if"? In darkest Lanarkshire a worse than non-descript football team start turning in some sensational results. Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2000 by john@daly56.freeserve.co.uk
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