Edgar Smith (2)

Being an account of Derby County's nightmare season in the Premier League, during which they won but one game and finished with a record low for points earned, a record which I believe still stands. Among the many season diaries I've read I've observed that in general the worse the team the better the book. This book doesn't conform. Most if not all of it appears to be made up of lightly edited blog posts, not an approach which pleases me. To me, the best parts of season diaries are those show more which deal with the trip to the match, the food and drink at the stadium, the weather, and what the yobbos are up to on the terraces. None of these themes factor in here at all. Worse, he doesn't spend all that much time on his purported subject; he just has to express his opinion on each and every thing which happens anywhere in English football; it's pretty difficult to get too interested in his musings on somebody you've barely heard of's transfer from Huddersfield to Partick Thistle, especially when it was five years ago. The book does move along, though, and when it's about the Rams, it's interesting enough; he also makes good use of brackets and footnotes to elucidate some of his more arcane local slang and inside jokes. It's not difficult at all to imagine a much better book on the season, though. show less