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Is the Baw Burst? Rangers Special: A Long Suffering Supporter Continues his Search for the Soul of Scottish Football
In the 2010/11 football season, Iain Hyslop embarked on journey which would take him to 44 football matches, from Peterhead to Berwick and Dingwall to Dumfries, across a single season. His travels led to the production of the first edition of this book — the unofficial review of Scottish Football. This new edition brings his commentary bang up-to-date as he follows Rangers in their first games as part of the third division and explores the effect the recent shake up will have on Scottish football. He covers everything from the weather to the pies, giving comments, criticism and suggestions for improvement as the voice from the terraces. The focus here is on the fans' experience of a football match. Hyslop takes a step back from the political and financial issues which engulf Scottish Football to present his vision of the beautiful game as it should be.
203 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
December 17, 2013
I have been trying to figure out where my recent interest in Scottish football (soccer) came from. I think it's mainly down to two facts. First, the top division has only been won by two different teams (nicknamed "The Old Firm") since 1986. Second, one of those teams (Rangers) was sent down to the fourth-tier division.
So you have a strange (to an American) landscape, and an interesting upheaval thrust upon it, so it should be pretty entertaining. It is!
One of the things I've been trying to figure out is, why have Rangers and Celtic been so dominant? Glasgow (where they're both based) is the largest city, but Edinburgh is pretty big, too, so financially the two teams based there should be able to compete. A quote from this book sparked an "a ha" moment. "The dominance of the Old Firm means that every Saturday there are thousands of people driving past their local football stadiums to support either Rangers or Celtic."
So I liked this book because it gave a real feel for what it is like to be a Scottish football fan more than anything else I've read. Hyslop follows Rangers through the first half of their bottom-division season (covering much of the same ground as Rangers FC - We Don't Do Walking Away, but in a more interesting way). Between match reports, he intersperses questionnaires filled out by other fans with their opinions of where Scottish football is headed.
While I enjoyed the book, the fact that it only covered half of a season made it feel slight, and the questionnaires (interesting though they were) gave it a padded-out feel.
This is the second volume in the "Is the Baw Burst?" series. The first Is the Baw Burst covered the author's visits to all 44 Scottish stadia in the previous season. Unfortunately, it's not available in the US yet (though the publisher, via e-mail, tells me it should be, so maybe that will get sorted out). The third, covering the second half of the 2012/3 season, will, I think, be published later this year.
So you have a strange (to an American) landscape, and an interesting upheaval thrust upon it, so it should be pretty entertaining. It is!
One of the things I've been trying to figure out is, why have Rangers and Celtic been so dominant? Glasgow (where they're both based) is the largest city, but Edinburgh is pretty big, too, so financially the two teams based there should be able to compete. A quote from this book sparked an "a ha" moment. "The dominance of the Old Firm means that every Saturday there are thousands of people driving past their local football stadiums to support either Rangers or Celtic."
So I liked this book because it gave a real feel for what it is like to be a Scottish football fan more than anything else I've read. Hyslop follows Rangers through the first half of their bottom-division season (covering much of the same ground as Rangers FC - We Don't Do Walking Away, but in a more interesting way). Between match reports, he intersperses questionnaires filled out by other fans with their opinions of where Scottish football is headed.
While I enjoyed the book, the fact that it only covered half of a season made it feel slight, and the questionnaires (interesting though they were) gave it a padded-out feel.
This is the second volume in the "Is the Baw Burst?" series. The first Is the Baw Burst covered the author's visits to all 44 Scottish stadia in the previous season. Unfortunately, it's not available in the US yet (though the publisher, via e-mail, tells me it should be, so maybe that will get sorted out). The third, covering the second half of the 2012/3 season, will, I think, be published later this year.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review