Insomnia, Dimitar Cantona & the Roy Race biography

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The strangely selective amnesia of Joe Kinnear...

LetâÂÂs be honest, weâÂÂve all forgot stuff.

Bobby Robson, still revered on Tyneside, once famously referred to Lauren Robert as Lauren Bacall, often puzzled Shola Ameobi by saying: âÂÂHello Carlâ (mistaking him for Carl Cort) and, as England manager, often addressed Bryan Robson as âÂÂBobby.âÂÂ

Jack Charlton, when he managed Ireland, gave up trying to remember Tony CascarinoâÂÂs name and settled for calling him âÂÂice cream man.â In both cases, such slips didnâÂÂt seem to matter because Robson and Charlton ensured their teams did the business on the pitch.

Joe Kinnear has no such defence. And his memory loss is perplexing.

Apparently unable to remember Charles NâÂÂZogbiaâÂÂs surname, he did manage to recall the cruel nickname "insomniaâ with which Sunderland fans derided NâÂÂZogbia.


"Ere Tony, I'll have a 99... with a flake"

Dimitar Berbatov is, as a Manchester United fan said to me the other night, âÂÂa proper player.âÂÂ

The media - so keen to berate him for getting lost in games and not showing enough appetite for the fray - should cut him some slack.

I am baffled by the criticism of his sulky demeanour on the pitch. Football may be a branch of the entertainment industry but that doesnâÂÂt mean every player should be contractually obliged to play to the cameras.

The game will be much more monotonous if every midfielder or attacker is compelled to run around like Action Man and cover, as the cliché goes, every blade of grass on the pitch. Berbatov has the technique, vision and instincts to be as important to United today as Cantona was in the 1990s.

The class vs effort controversy is almost as old as football. (And having watched Brian Talbot at Arsenal in the early 1980s I know which side of the argument I come down on.)


Berbatov: United's 21st century Cantona?

Roy Race brings me to the question of the great football novel. Joseph OaâÂÂNeill, author of Netherland (a Gatsby-esque novel in which the morose hero alleviates his mid-life crisis by playing cricket in New York) has pointed out that such a novel doesnâÂÂt yet exist.

David PeaceâÂÂs Damned Utd is a superb fictionalisation of the worst 44 days of Brian CloughâÂÂs life. And the trailer for the film looks magnificent.

But there is, as far as IâÂÂm aware, no classic novel that does for football what, say, Walter TevisâÂÂs The Hustler did for pool or Don DeLilloâÂÂs End Zone for NFL.

OâÂÂNeill recommends Barry HinesâÂÂs debut novel The Blinder about a gifted working class footballer called Lennie Hawke who struggles to juggle sport and school.

IâÂÂve just ordered it. If itâÂÂs as good as the PE teacher/Bobby Charlton/Denis Law sketch in HinesâÂÂs more famous A Kestrel For A Knave, IâÂÂm in for a treat.

If youâÂÂve read any great football novels please let me know. And, I must admit, I havenâÂÂt yet read the Roy Race âÂÂbiography'.

FourFourTwo.com: More to read...

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