Full-Time review in Pacific Rim Review of Books

Review by John Moore

“Sports don't build character, they reveal it;” American writer and film producer Nunnally Johnson observed. It would have made a good quotation for the flyleaf of Alan Twigg's memoir of his lifelong involvement with soccer from his boyhood on rep teams in West Vancouver to his current spot in the roster of a Vancouver over-50 squad called the Legends.

Football, a.k.a. soccer, is often called the World Game because it seems that in every culture, at every time in history, some variant has been played using a ball, a bundle of tied rags, or even a human head to dispute a territorial pitch. While visiting the magnificent ball-court of an ancient Mayan city in Belize, a sense of the deep universal roots of his chosen game overcame Twigg and, as a writer he began to explore it. Much of the resulting book is a witty and informative history of football, studded with quotes from famous players, coaches and sports writers. Had Twigg left it at that, he might have easily produced a steady seller that would stay on the shelves longer than the usual three months. Instead, he took a chance, went for the breakaway, and produced a unique mix of history, culture criticism, personal memoir and creative non-fiction that will become a classic in the genre of writing about sport.

These days, soccer is frequently called the Beautiful Game, a slightly imprecise translation of Joga Bonito, as it was dubbed by former Manchester United striker Eric Cantona. As Twigg points out, Joga Bonito actually means "play beautifully" and the greatest thing about the game is that it makes no difference whether you're watching a World Cup match or bunch of street kids playing a pick-up game in a Third World vacant lot (or even a polyglot crew of over-fifty amateurs); you can still witness moments in which quickened intelligence and athletic grace combine to turn the simple act of kicking a ball into something that brings a lump to your throat.

It is those moments the ageing amateur players of the Legends seek, drawn to football perhaps because it does not reward brute power or strategic pre-game planning. Of all games, it is the simplest, yet the most complex, demanding patience, improvised tactical thinking on the run, a sense of timing rather than mere quick reflexes and valuing endurance above mere strength.

Twigg's account of the preparations of the Legends for a trip to Spain to play several similarly aged and skilled teams provides the narrative frame of the book, which he stuffs liberally with asides, historical detours and diversions without losing the basic story of a bunch of middle-aged guys who probably take soccer too seriously, but whose wives know that there are worse things they could be obsessed with in middle age.

No longer boys, the Legends all have adult lives and career responsibilities, yet they support each other through all the ills flesh is heir to with a camaraderie that, because of their age and experience, runs much deeper than notions of 'team spirit' fostered by coaches of juvenile squads.

Parallel to the struggle of the Legends to put their best foot forward for their own private international debut, runs Twigg's record of his obsession with the 2006 World Cup, getting up at all hours of the night to watch matches televised live from Europe, reading all the sports pages, becoming the Total Fan until the shocking moment when French superstar Zindine Zidane lost his temper and head-butted an Italian defender in the final while the whole world watched and gasped. The revelation that the Italian had been deliberately baiting him by saying foul things about his sister mitigated Zidane's behavior, but only made the black eye on the face of international soccer that much bigger, confirming the view of those who hold that “Rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen, while soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs:”

In Spain, the Legends get a taste of the 'international style' of soccer when they find themselves facing not a team of equals in age and skill, as supposedly arranged, but a squad stacked with ringers of lesser years and greater ability. Despite a second fairer and more collegial match in another town, it is a sobering moment for the amateur Vancouver Legends as they discover just how seriously the rest of the world takes their beloved game.

Alan Twigg has enjoyed a long career as a respected journalist, literary critic and publisher of B.C. Bookworld magazine, as well as authoring historical travel guides to Cuba and Belize, yet Full Time represents a quantum leap in his development as a writer. With the exception of Intensive Care, (Anvil Press), a collection of his first writings after being operated on for a brain tumor a few years ago, Full Time is his most intimate book to date, the most daring and the most complete; a self-portrait of 'the man in full' that reveals the boy inside the man-alone, kicking a soccer ball repeatedly against a playground wall or dribbling it along an empty field, polishing his skills against imaginary opponents, endlessly preparing for the perfect moment of the Beautiful Game.

John Moore is author of The Flea Market and The Blue Parrot. He writes from Garibaldi Highlands, B.C.