Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant read!, 13 Dec 2001
Dennis Viollet was a schoolboy hero. A Manchester lad, he was a fantastic player to watch but, as this book makes clear, perhaps underrated by press and public.
Dennis, in the words of Matt Busby, 'made the Busby Babes tick' - his ability to switch play a vital part of that great United team's effectiveness.
Nevertheless, this book does more than concentrate on Dennis. In many ways it tells the story not only of the Babes but fifties football in general. A period when Blackpool and Wolves were title challengers and players earned little more than the people who watched them. In this way Cavanagh and Hughes recall a golden era of boy's own heroes and dramatic football both before and after the abolition of the maximum wage. A superb read, this is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the attraction of football in the post-war period.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Devotees only?, 2 Feb 2008
The most famous of the Busby Babes were probably Duncan Edwards and Bobby Charlton, followed by Tommy Taylor and Roger Byrne. Dennis Viollet was a name I knew but assumed to be one of the `squad players', probably because of his lack of international appearances.
To someone of my age (born after Munich) this book is a useful corrective in filling in the career of a man who was one of United's top scorers and who, by all accounts, made many goals for others. You will learn all about his United career, virtually match by match. The book's other strong point is giving insights into the life of a footballer in the 1950s and (to a lesser extent) the 1960s, making clear George Best didn't invent the nightclub!
The book is clearly a personal tribute by the authors and in some ways it is so personal it seems unfair to comment further. In the interests of helping you to decide whether to buy this or not, I feel compelled to mention a few things, though:
(i) It is written by devotees for devotees - at 321 pages it is way too long for the general reader and I found myself start to skip the match by match accounts. These lack context, rarely covering the league position or significance of the match.
(ii) If, like me, you have never seen Dennis Viollet play the text can only take you so far. Being written by fans, they tend to eulogise to some extent and you are left desperately wishing you could see him play. If you are looking for DVD the obvious choices are the 1957 and 1958 cup finals - but Dennis was injured just before the former and played poorly in the latter (understandably, it was only three months after Munich). There is a suggestion a modern parallel would be with a Teddy Sheringham type role, but also that his performances were not always eye-catching: he is described as a player's player.
(iii) While Dennis Viollet co-operated with the book before his early death, and his wife contributed a postscript, the book is curiously devoid of insights into Dennis as a person. On one level this is about his character: he is portrayed as a pleasant, polite and decent man, but there are hints at an alter ego who enjoyed drinking and womanising. Old team-mates contributed comments but these are fairly glowing and you wonder if you are really getting to know the main. On another level it is about his thoughts and feelings, notably after Munich, which remain hidden.
(iv) The main focus is up to the time he left Manchester United: the later chapters are fairly brief by comparison.
So, I quite enjoyed this and got to the end of the book (which is starting to become a rarity for me!) but I felt a sense of dissatisfaction, that the book could have been shorter and a bit better focused. I felt I understood what the authors thought of Dennis but not necessarily what he was really like.
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