Читать книгу Mr Cleansheets - Adrian Deans - Страница 5

For Kazzie

For the legendary Dartford Town Sewer Pigs

And for the mighty Avoca FC Gummysharks

Foreword

Sometimes dreams can come true.

When I was a wee lad of five years of age, I used to tell my mother I’d play for Rangers when I grew up and earn a PS100 a week. I never did get to play for Rangers, but when I signed for Kilmarnock (my home town club) in 1982, it was still the greatest day of my life. The football adventure that most lads can only dream about had begun. I was twenty years old.

These days, the football adventure starts much earlier. We have systems to identify and nurture talented kids, and as we go forward, it will be extremely unlikely that a twenty-year-old could join a professional club without having been on their radar for a very long time.

What chance then would a forty-year-old have?

Eric Judd (Mr Cleansheets) is thirty-nine at the start of the story and turns forty shortly after landing in England. Is it realistically possible for him to become a major football star at forty? Common sense would tell you ‘No’, but that is one of the many wonderful features of Mr Cleansheets - the story is believable within the world that Adrian Deans has created. Whether it’s the fact that goalkeepers typically mature late, or that Eric’s played state league his whole career, or that he had an invitation to trial with Man United when he was sixteen, or even just the depth of his passion for the game, Eric’s story is just plausible and that’s what makes it such a satisfying read. You couldn’t take it seriously otherwise.

Mind you, it’s not to be taken too seriously. The book’s a lot of fun: hapless hooligans, Irish villains, beautiful pop stars, terrorist conspiracies. It’s the ultimate holiday read - a non-stop rollicking yarn that keeps the pages turning, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be starting to panic as the pages disappear in your right hand.

We desperately need a sequel and if I had my way, Mr Cleansheets would be pulling on the Mariners strip the next time we play in the Asian Champions League.

We’ll all keep our fingers crossed for that . . . with the possible exception of Danny Vukovic.

Lawrie McKinna

Gosford, January 2010