Please find listed below my first bad review for the FC Nantes Experiment. In fact bad is not really the word, scathing hate mail would be better. One thing's for sure, this lad is not going to be purchasing my memoirs.
'I love football and love France and so this book seemed like a sure-fire winner. Shows how wrong you can be.
The book was a must-buy for me, because, despite being English, I have followed Sochaux (the villains at the end of the book) for five years. An account of the League Cup final and our first trophy win since the 1930s, written by someone who was there and supporting the opposition. It has to be great, right?
There are also factual errors. The Sochaux goal came from a free-kick, not a corner. The Da Rocha shot for Nantes at the end of extra time was saved and it was Fae who put the follow-up over the bar, Flachez put his penalty over the bar - it wasn't saved.
The whole thing is just lazy - and the laziness continues throughout the book. Marie-Jeanne becomes Marie-Jan and then Marie-Jane. The station at Lyon becomes Parreche instead of Perrache. I could go on...
It doesn't take much to get a proof-reader to cut out spelling mistakes and actual factual errors. But Simon Rance does neither. The result is frustrating.
My other major gripe is about his writing. The idea of supporting a French team is great and his account should be just as great. It isn't.
Instead he comes across as arrogant and tedious. No opportunity is lost to tell us just how drunk he got after the game and how brutal his hangover is the next day - these sort of stories were amusing when you were a teenager, but should really be avoided when you are a guy in your late twenties.
His prose style is almost infantile. If you can put up with phrases such as 'result', 'top geezer' and 'dude' on a regular basis, you're a more patient man than I. He then decides to spice things up by effing and blinding throughout his narrative. It's childish and not very funny.
This is such a shame. The premise of the book was fantastic, but is let down by sloppy (or non-existent) proof-reading and an author who decides to let his own drinking exploits take precedence over actual match reports. If you don't believe me, try chapter 15, where two matches get half a page.
Or even worse, Nantes' French cup semi-final that year against PSG... the result of which isn't even mentioned!!! It only appears in the results section of the appendices.
If you want a book about supporting a foreign team, read Tim Parks' excellent 'A Season With Verona', which is everything 'The FC Nantes Experiment' is not - funny, well-written and accurate.
Avoid this book!'
Cheers mate, but I still got your pennies didn't I, ya doss cunt.
Oh well you can't please everyone, the whole point of the book was to write a fan's view, not a journo's view of a season (A season with Verona), the reports were taken in the now from inside the stadium, not the day after from newspaper reports so there was always going to be mistakes of some kind. The reasopn the PSG result is only mentioned at the end in the results section is because I didn't make it to the match, what am I supposed to do lie? And I did get a proof reader so there!
Oh well fuck him in the neck.
Arrogant, lazy, moi?
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2 comments:
Right on sister....how am I supposed to know how to spell in French?
As I said before the cunt was from The Wirral, nuff said. Oh you had a typo in your blog, get a proof reader sahn. Send Geoff Bell round to sort him out, the bloke's an English De Niro.....
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