John Doyle - The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer

If Doyle had confined himself to writing accounts of those soccer matcheswhich indeed are here, in terrific prosehe would have had a pretty good sports book in The World Is a Ball. But he saw far more than the pitch, and the result is a great book, one bigger than the game itself. Amazing stuff.

Winnipeg Free Press

[Doyle] has a fine sense of the absurd, constantly sending up the rulesdispassion, disinterest and objectivitythat govern what he calls the sports writing racket. A fine book about the beautiful game.

The Globe and Mail

Doyles dual nationality gives the book its heart. He remains privately fixated with the fortunes of the Irish team but is utterly loyal to Canada. [The World Is a Ball] is an honest declaration of what the game means to Doyle. [It] is an exploration of the emigrant experience, in which the whereabouts and fortunes of the international team acquires an inestimable importance.

The Irish Times

[It is Doyles] understanding of the underdog status soccer still occupies over herehis ability to see the worlds game through the eyes of a relative innocentthat sets The World Is a Ball apart from many soccer books.

The Gazette (Montreal)

[The World Is a Ball] is pure Doyle, which means energy to burn, loads of colour and tall yarns, and a dash of melancholy.

Toronto Star

To be uplifted, you have only to turn to [The World Is a Ball]. [Doyles] joy in the game is contagious.

The Globe and Mail

While Doyle looks back on some of the biggest soccer events of the last decades its clear that the best stories dont come from the lips of players. Its the pageantry that surrounds the game. Doyle does it by showing the atmosphere in the streets of the cities hosting the games, from rude concierges to cheery cab drivers to the drunk stragglers in the bars. Doyle is at his best when he describes the magic of fans singing in train stations or gathering in public squares.

Toronto Sun

Wonderful sportswriting. The World Is a Ball is about watching and living soccer, not scores and stats.

The Waterloo Region Record

The World Is a Ball is an intelligent grown mans invitation to us all to come along with him as he travels the globe and explores humanitys passion for kicking balls and watching othersbrilliantlydoing the same.

CBC.ca

[Doyle is] masterly on the topic of his favourite sport.

Vancouver Sun

[The World is a Ball is] a particularly good read because Doyle doesnt limit himself to the on-pitch action. [His] writing gives us a great sense of how the beautiful game is seen so differently by each culture.

SportingMadness.ca

A Great Feast of Light

Copyright 2010 John Doyle
Anchor Canada edition 2010

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisheror in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agencyis an infringement of the copyright law.

Anchor Canada is a registered trademark.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication has been applied for.

eISBN: 978-0-307-37445-5

Published in Canada by Anchor Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limiteds website: www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

For Sean and Mary Doyle, decent people

Introduction
Meaning: All the Rambling Boys of Pleasure

Added Time
World Cup 2010: The Triumph of Grace Over Coercion

I HAD NO PLANS to try my hand at being a sportswriter. Honestly, I didnt. I work as the television critic for The Globe and Mail in Toronto and Ive been blessed with the freedom to write about whatever I see on TV. As long as its been seen on a TV screen, I can write about it. This means that I write about everything, because everything that happens is shown on television, sooner or later.

On November 15, 2001, this was my TV column for the day:

As usual, its all about me watching TV. This morning, while many of you are reading this, around 8 to 9 A.M . in Toronto, Ill actually be in a bar, glued to the TV. Its unlikely there will be much beer drinking, but the place will be crowded, noisy and cheerful. Its where you have to go to see a certain soccer gameIreland playing Iran, in Tehran, for a place in next years World Cup.

Last Saturday afternoon I was in the same Irish bar, the bizarrely named McVeighs New Windsor Tavern, watching the first leg of the two playoff games being broadcast from Dublin. You cant see these games on your regular TV menu, no matter what fancy satellite system youve got. So the place was packed, with about half the crowd there to cheer the Irish team and the other half to loudly applaud Iran.

Thanks to previous experience in these matters, I was there early to get a seat. Many Iranian supporters were there already, consuming coffee at a fierce rate. Everybody was wound up, cheerful and looking forward to the game. By the time it started, the place was filled to capacity and the doors had to be closed. This left several dozen people outside hoping to get in, most of them supporters of Iran.

I had no idea about this until later, when I had to get to the back of the bar for a drink. There, at the door, were numerous faces pressed to the glass, watching one of the TV screens on the wall. There were more faces at all of the windows. At the table where I sat, a man kept talking into his cell phone while staring at the screen. Eventually I realized he was giving a running commentary on the game to some guy outside who, as far as I could tell, was duly relaying the commentary, shouting it out to the guys outside. You couldnt make this stuff upits real life in Toronto on a Saturday.