There's Only One Danny Garvey by David F. Ross
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Former teenage football prodigy Danny Garvey returns to Barshaw Bridge FC as manager, after an injury ends his playing career. In spite of unreliable players and rutted turf, to its dedicated supporters BBFC is a field of dreams, where the spirit of Roy of the Rovers, incarnate as local boy Billy Gilmour, may score a magical goal to save the day.
‘A promising young football player returns home to his tiny village, his dreams in tatters and a dark secret haunting his conscience, in a beautiful, unforgettable novel about hope and redemption, when everything seems lost…’
I admire the premise of There’s Only One Danny Garvey. When I was of an age for contact sports, in the dim and distant past, girls didn’t play football, so opportunities to participate in the beautiful game never came my way. Watching Linfield, the team my father had played for at the dawn of time, from a rain-sodden Ulster terrace had no appeal for the teenage me. As a result, my understanding of what happens on the pitch is sketchy. I don’t understand offside, but then, I doubt anyone does. Off the field, it’s a different matter. As far as I can see, the rules of football were created to provide an outlet for pent-up fury, facilitate passionate discussion and allow eventual reconciliation. The sport offers family therapy on an industrial scale.
Like Nancy, mother of Danny’s nephew, over the years my attitude to football has been shaped by the vicissitudes of my love life. At University, I went out with a Liverpool supporter. He used to go to matches with a mate and the mate’s Dad, who lived across the road from the stadium in Anfield. It was taken for granted I would keep the mate’s Mum company. We sat together in her front room, but hardly spoke, because her whole being was focussed on listening for every roar of delight or growl of protest from the terraces. She said, ‘I like to know what kind of mood they’ll be in when they get home. It means I can be ready for them.’
Since then, at various stages in my life I’ve followed Leyton Orient, Norwich and West Ham. My current squeeze is a third generation West Ham supporter, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of football and a tendency to answer questions such as ‘Do you like Osso Buco?’ with ‘Didn’t he play for Burnley?’ To be fair, he’s the only man in my life who’s taken me to live football games. I know this is not every book blogger’s idea of a date, but heigh-ho! I’m Loarn and I like football.
The language David F. Ross uses to describe the emotional significance of their club to Barshaw fans is economical, true to life and evocative. I witnessed widespread heartbreak when Upton Park, the stadium inhabited by West Ham since 1904, was sold to developers. Many of the older fans didn’t renew season tickets they’d held for decades. They knew their grandfathers’ ghosts couldn’t move to the London Stadium. Their boyhood selves, carried to Upton Park at the age of five or six on their Dads’ shoulders, were razed to the ground along with terraces bearing the names of heroes.
‘A story of irrational hopes and fevered dreams – of unstoppable passion and unflinching commitment in the face of defeat – There’s Only One Danny Garvey is, above all, an unforgettable tale about finding hope and redemption in the most unexpected of places.’
Ten years ago, when a family member moved to Norfolk, I started supporting Norwich City FC. In the Nineties, when There’s Only One Danny Garvey is set, it never occurred to me to choose a team of my own. It would have felt like encroaching on a private passion. Back then, I thought of football as something men joked about together. I wasn’t entirely wrong. Danny has to face multiple challenges, but there’s a rich vein of humour in the book. Even the fiercest rivalries offer opportunities for banter. To quote Bill Shankly, ‘Football isn’t a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that.’
As an avenue for communication between men, football is something to be treasured. For example, it’s only through football that Danny’s uncle Higgy is able to coax him to the bedside of his dying mother, where he’s forced to come to terms with the devastating realities of his childhood. If there were no such thing as football, some fathers and sons might never speak to each other at all.
I highly recommend There’s Only One Danny Garvey, to lovers of football, community sport, family sagas and crime dramas in particular, but pretty much everyone will find something to enjoy in this wonderful book.
If the Scottish dialect is unfamiliar to you, don’t let that put you off. Its use is completely appropriate, and is only dense in the first few pages.
