Solid German book on cricket

With it came a note that stated: "We take pleasure in presenting you with this review copy and ask that you please send two copies of your views to our offices."

I seldom, in fact, I have never reviewed a book in my column. The Sunday Newsday paper, for which I write, has a section that takes care of that. But in this case, I am going to make an exception.

The book is called If at first ..... with a subtitle that says, "With the exclusive inside story on FIFA."

The authors are Don’t Know, Want to Know, Can’t read or write and Express yourself.

Actually, they didn’t write it — some professional ghostwriter did. But the words and the story originated from them. I will begin my review by saying that this is a very solid book.

The moment I opened the package and saw what it was about, I threw it against my office wall as hard as I could.

Then I slammed it to the floor and jumped up and down on it. I beat on it with a chair for several minutes until I slumped onto my couch, emotionally and physically drained. Although slightly scuffed, the book was still intact.

It is also a book that can cause excitement. I dropped it on the desk of a friend who has had a degree in English Language for the last 25 years and it stirred him to emotional heights and he shouted:

"Why are you giving me this (deleted) book, with the writings of (deleted) English, Scottish and Dutch inhabitants, who really cares about the (deleted) Europeans Football Union and (deleted) Europeans, the whole (deleted) members of the jokey FIFA that continue to allow this (deleted) rubbish to happen. And (deleted) you too."

Then he flung it against a wall and gave it a kick, and it still was intact. I told you it was a solid book.

It’s a book that can move a sensitive reader to tears, as I noticed when I passed the book onto an old lady who adores Trinidad and Tobago’s qualification success and has been travelling to matches since the 1960s, but who since 1989 has been seeing only darkness in Trinidad and Tobago’s football.

When she looked at the cover, she choked back a sob, a tear trickled down her cheek and she said: "Why those Europeans want everything? Why not us in the region? What was our sin? How can we atone for it? You know I asked the pundit about this, and he said he wished he knew the answer to, because he loss $100 betting against them."

And it is a powerful book as reviewers like to say, it can hit you right in the gut, as I experienced when I showed it to a former West Indies player who said: "Excuse me, while I throw up."

It is also a book, that can make you see red, as happened when a friend of mine saw Dwight Yorke’s name in the index, and stated: "Hey what the hell, why are they making fun of Dwight, putting him the section that looks like L——R."

At the same time, it was also useful as a paperweight, almost like the lightweight locally based players.

There is though one part of this "solid" book that I liked a little, it was the beginning, no it was the middle, and rather it was the end. In the beginning it was about football, in the middle it was about possession and in the end it was all connected to winning, and I thought if only the region could appreciate these three things — football, possession and winning — how better life would be as a West Indian.

But enough of generalities let us consider the contents of the book.

On page five of the book, John or Tim or Smith or a ghostwriter writes: "We had the Trinidadians covered early, those guys like a party, and they made it easy on us, from that victory onwards we have not looked back...boo hoo who to the drama protagonists."

From then on, things got confusing: Listen to page 45: "It as lear, that e wont the best of the Caribb... and even thou the ager was rong, the Swed and Tri da."

And on Page 105 we find: "Parag ave the team, that an will witne the end of Football, as it should be in ne ay play."

I know it sounds kind of garbled, incomprehensible. But that’s the way a story reads when you rip the pages off a book in half, one by one. As I have been doing.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not doing that out of spite, I am a good sport, a cheerful loser. Why in the last three months, I don’t think I have watched the Trinidad and Tobago national football team under Yorke beating up on Bahrain, more than 25 or thirty times.

The fact is I have found this to be a useful book.

I have been tearing out the pages and crumpling them into little wads.

When I have about 30 or 50 of these wads, I will invite some friends for a barbecue, and put them in the starter. They are excellent for getting a fire started.

Then later when everyone is gone, I pour myself a drink, lower the lights, stare at the still burning fire, as I add more wads of this "soli" book.

And I pretend that I am looking at Trinidad and Tobago winning a match in Germany and the West Indies winning something for the loving Caribbean public.

It is not easy knowing that, there seems to be only small changes in the pipeline for Trinidad and Tobago football, other than the debate over tickets.

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