Kenneth Roy Barlow

Being the diary of a sixteen-year-old in 1970 Wigan who supports the local non-league football club, Wigan Athletic, supplemented with interviews with players from the side and a running commentary by the diarist as a middle-aged man which is more interesting than the diary. Despite the subtitle and blurbs, this diary actually contains very little football content, and what there is consists mostly of the 'gee whiz' variety or taciturn one-sentence match summaries which tell you little that you couldn't learn from a website. Since this lack makes this basically a schoolboy's diary, the remarkable thing is that this is as interesting as it is, but his adolescent musings on such matters as which girl to ask out, which classes to cut, his constant drunkenness, whether his new Jethro Tull record was worth eleven shillings, and whether his dad will beat him when he gets home do arouse a mild interest. Few, however, are the readers who need to exert themselves very much to track this title down.… (altro)