Everton Books - The Complete Centre-Forward
Marko Poutiainen reviews this
new book on one of Everton's greatest No 9s: |
LANCASHIRE LAD MAKES GOOD |
So there is definitely enough material to fill one book about Tommy Lawton. This book definitely is thorough, a bit too much so in parts. Lawton's life is well covered from his birth and childhood in Bolton to his death in 1996. |
THE COMPLETE CENTRE-FORWARD |
The authorised biography of Tommy Lawton David McVay & Andy Smith, 2000. Sportsbooks Limited (232 pages) ISBN: 1899807098 |
Getting past this shock, the first chapters of the book covering Lawton's youth are interesting. As an Evertonian, reading about his time at Goodison Park was also interesting. The problems start when the book gets to war-time. At times it felt like I was reading a record book. Chapter after chapter about scores and how many Lawton scored in that particular match. At times this was a bit boring. The book improves again when it covers Lawton's later career and life after football. The majority of the book consists of chapters that describe one year each. Some chapters are more or less a list of brief summaries of matches with the odd story or "match of the day" describing a noteworthy match in which Lawton took part. These stories are the spice of the book and make interesting reading:
These stories were for me the best parts in the book. The authors did a remarkable job finding and interviewing a large number of people who knew Lawton. They could have even been given a larger part in the book than they were, even though even now there are quite a few comments from them. As a book about Tommy Lawton the Player, this book is good and thorough. As a book about Tommy Lawton the Person, the picture isn't lacking, but could have been better. As a book that characterises the times that it tells about, it could have done a better job. The sets of pictures are about as good as you would hope, a whopping 48 photos. The index and bibliography are well done and the statistics part is complete, although I would have liked to see Lawton's birthday in it, too. As a biography, this is definitely one of the better ones and in no way one of those books designed to get the quick bob out of an interesting subject. A few stories more here and there and maybe a few "match of the days" more would have spiced up the contents especially in the middle parts. This book is definitely worth the money if you are interested in the subject or about football back when England still had a decent team. As a biography, I give it 9 out of 10; as a book, 7 out of 10. For a perfect ten, a biography, in my opinion, needs not only to describe the person but also the times and society, remembering that any person is in part a byproduct of them. Price: �14.99 Published: September 2000 |
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