false 6060993 1 After jetting around the world, Stephen Rea left Belfast to settle in New Orleans in 2004. Life in the Deep South proved to be startlingly different from that in Northern Ireland, and Rea struggled to find an outlet for his love of soccer. Before long, the Ulsterman stumbled upon Finn McCool's pub and the wonderfully eccentric, international crowd that gathers there to watch European football games. <P>Frank "the Tank," the pot-growing Dutch national; Dave "the Rave" Ashton, a forty-six-year-old physiotherapist from Manchester dubbed "the world's oldest teenager"; and Benji Haswell, a former political activist from South Africa, are three of the rare and vibrant characters who populated the pub's stools. Soon Rea, along with this idiosyncratic mix of locals and ex-pat regulars, formed a pub soccer team, joined a league, and started dreaming of victory. <P>On August 28, 2005, with former pro footballer Scottish Steve "Macca" McAnespie as their coach, members of the team sat in the pub discussing their upcoming match. The next day, Hurricane Katrina enveloped the Gulf Coast, scattering Rea and his teammates around the world in seek of shelter and stability. <P>This luminous, gripping work follows the author and Finn regulars as they rebuild their lives and their team. With a masterful combination of dry humor and astute profundity, Rea reflects on his adopted city, providing powerful insight into the lives of the foreign-born and minority groups that stayed behind during Katrina due to the little they had to lose. Filled with equally hilarious and sobering anecdotes and no shortage of good soccer stories, Rea seamlessly weaves his experiences alongside his teammates' harrowing survival stories. A breathtaking and incredible debut celebrating camaraderie, sportsmanship, and survival, "Finn McCool's Football Club" stands out as a haunting and powerful memoir filled with laughter, loss, astonishment, and of course, soccer. 6237173 27 2 2009 Finn Mccool's Football Club: The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of a Pub Soccer Team in the City of the Dead total:9|5:4|4:2|3:2|2:1| 9 36 28 7 4 0 false false Wed Mar 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 07:53:11 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 11:04:01 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 06 19:54:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 18:34:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 19 18:16:36 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 19 18:18:09 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Aug 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 19:27:53 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 19:29:45 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Aug 20 19:51:11 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 19:51:39 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 10 11:27:17 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 16:29:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat Nov 14 19:41:27 -0800 2009 Sat Jul 11 05:56:12 -0700 2009 Sat Nov 14 19:41:27 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Oct 12 10:09:28 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 10:09:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Aug 11 20:16:31 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 20:16:31 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Aug 11 09:03:15 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 09:03:15 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 10:25:44 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 10:25:44 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 10:00:28 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 10:00:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Aug 07 09:07:44 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 07 09:07:44 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jul 31 18:24:36 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 31 18:24:36 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jul 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 17:11:48 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 06:09:32 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jul 13 15:31:04 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 15:31:04 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Thu Jun 18 18:49:21 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 07:18:39 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Jul 08 08:19:28 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 17 11:02:34 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 08:19:28 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon Jun 08 05:08:37 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 08 05:08:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat May 02 19:29:18 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 19:32:23 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6060993