The Damned United - David Peace

This had loads of hype a while back, and the phrase "best novel about football ever written" was bandied about. It didn't occur to me that the only other novel about football I've read was The Goalkeeper's Revenge when I was about 8.

As a result, Peace's stream-of-consciousness depiction of Brian Clough's career came as a crushing disappointment. It's way too long, saddled with an over-complicated dual narrative structure and the writing is just plain dull. Particularly irritating is the author's conviction that the repetition of banal phrases increases their potency. Statement like this abound;

"Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks."

Bollocks