Kick the Balls
A Bruising Season in the Life of a Suburban Soccer Coach
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A "hilarious and utterly irreverent tale" (Irvine Welsh) of a year in the life of an abrasive pee-wee soccer coach
Growing up in Scotland, Alan Black learned that soccer was no mere game; it was a matter of life or death. In this harshly hilarious tale, Black, a Glasglow transplant living in suburban California, coaches the Dragons, a peewee team that proves an embarrassment to his beloved sport. They're pampered. They're soft. They've been told by their overprotective parents that (gasp!) "winning isn't everything." Using drills and bombast, Black attempts to whip the team into shape.
Kick the Balls is a sidesplitting memoir of grass stains and free kicks, a no-holds-barred account of one man's bafflement by an alien culture, and a stinging satire of American parenthood. Alan Black's voice-howling from the sidelines-is that rare thing: a fresh, original, winning comic talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black's sardonic view of suburban America and his propensity for saying the wrong thing to the wrong people may remind some of a Scottish Larry David, but this San Francisco writer and pub manager possesses a distinct voice and an aggressive passion for soccer: "Earth wasn't pigskin shaped, all the skeptics had to do was look at the heavens and see what God's game was... the perfect immaculate conception of our fertile earth was the soccer ball, soft and hard at the same time, delightfully floated, spinning with atmosphere and promise." Black ties in memories of childhood fandom in Glasgow with tales of coaching the eight-year-old Dragons, his son among them, managing bar and watching late night TV with his ice cream, Ben and Jerry ("I grabbed Ben and Jerry and marched them to the sofa"). Merrily skewering every target in sight (especially soccer moms: "The field was a big womb and their babies were in there kicking"), Black includes lots of fantasy, funny nicknames and fake articles from an imaginary newsletter, "The Sporting Green." Any suburbanite with kids in organized sports will find Black a riot, provided they aren't easily offended; readers may actually learn some new swear words.
