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ABOUT THE BOOK"He had to kill someone he didn't know for something he didn't want. Only one thing stood in his way. The Tartan Army. Three countries, three games, one result." Kenny Bradley just wants to watch Scotland wherever they play football, along with his wee pal Gus McSween. Unfortunately for Kenny a nasty little posh Scot by the name of Atholl McClackit wants to stop Kenny going to Scotland games. Permanently. On a journey through the 1998 world cup qualifiers held in Austria, Latvia and Estonia, Atholl tries to kill Kenny to ensure that he, Atholl, is the sole heir to the McClackit clan title. Kenny has no idea his real father is Dair McClackit, the perverted monarch of the glen or that his half brother is out to kill him. What Atholl doesn't know is Kenny's father in law, Michael "Harold" MacMillan, is one of the hardest men in Glasgow. More importantly, Harold needs Kenny alive and well to help with the small matter of a jewel heist on the day of the Estonia v Scotland match, which is another thing Kenny knows nothing about. Kenny doesn't know the time of day never mind that all this mayhem is going on around him as Atholl attempts to ensure he is the next clan chief of the McClackits. As his pal Gus goes on a bender of epic proportions in the Baltics, Kenny stumbles on, picking his way round various corpses which appear as Atholl's attempts to kill him off are inadvertently thwarted by members of the Tartan Army. Football, drink, sex and travel all come together in One Team in Tallinn, a trip to the Baltics with the Tartan Army you'll never forget. tics with the Tartan Army you'll never forget! BOOK REVIEW by C Tevendale'One Team In Tallinn' breaks new ground in the brief history of tartan army literature – the first (as far as I know) piece of tartan army fiction. The story spans three away games at the start of our last successful qualifying campaign. Yes – that long ago, back in the day when Duncan Ferguson was firing blanks but we had big two Colins at centre half, Hendry and Calderwood providing the heart of a defence that conceded in just two of the ten qualifiers en route to France 98. The writing generally keeps away from the fitba itself, but gives enough flavour of the time to bring back some happy memories of the campaign. The first chapter introduces us to a posh Scot who is asked by his old man to bump off his distant half-brother Kenny who, unbeknown to him, has a claim to be the next monarch of the glen. The half-brother happens to be a Glasgow taxi driver who is gearing up to start the France 98 campaign away in Vienna. What happens next is a trail of (in the words of the t-shirt) wind-up merchants, patter-merchants, shaggers, blaggers, chancers, dancers, romancers, and…well…killers, I suppose, as the tartan army, accompanied by the posh Scot incognito, bring a trail of mainly good-natured destruction (apart from the murders, which are still comical), to Vienna, Tallinn and Riga. If that sounds a bit unlikely … well … it is. But that's the point. This is not supposed to be heavy stuff. The plot moves forward at rapid pace, and the humour is provided by crisp observational prose from the narrator and sharp exchanges between the cast of various TA punters, some of whom will likely be familiar – although some of them rewrite history in a way that would have made Stalin blush. Take, for example, the friendly, upbeat, happy-go-lucky seller of a Scotland fanzine... You could almost say that the book does almost too well in evoking the TA experience. There are a couple of sequences of hanging around airports listening to jakey patter which prompt ugly flashbacks to the final day of trips gone by. And I would cross the road to avoid that Gus McSween character under all circumstances. You'll see what I mean if you read the book. I enjoyed this. I laughed out loud a few times, and the plot kept me interested enough to follow it on to the end, with some neat and unexpected twists to tie things up. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the story engage an audience beyond the target audience who can remember most of the places and events only too well. Here's what I mean. My missus read the first 20 pages on the train the other week in desperation (she had already done the GNER magazine – times were that hard). The following day, to my utter astonishment, she asked me with genuine curiosity what happened to yon Kenny character in the end. That said, I would recommend that the author consider moderating lines like ''Her baws were like two f----- hard boiled eggs in a hanky” if he is intending to target Richard and Judy's next list. In places, the language could fairly be described as fruity, but to be fair most of the stories ring true, in most cases because they are true! It’s a man’s life in the Tartan Army. If I was minded to go OTT on the literary appreciation, I would mention the Joycian sense of place as the reader is taken from the Horseshoe Bar to Kadriorg Park via Pollok Golf Club and the Hotel Viru, with the keen eye for historical detail that makes the author of this roman a clef an apt inheritor of the Scottish storytelling tradition. And all lovingly crafted around images of the Tartan Army on the bevvy in the Baltics. However, that may be taking the proverbial, and as my pal McSween would say, "Ah've heard enough pish about art the day to do me a lifetime". Overall, a fast-paced, entertaining trot through the memorable start of the France 98 campaign and a good book to scratch the itch between trips. This is also ideal material for the plane home – good fun, and should keep the brain from shutting down round about the time your pal conks out and starts drooling down his shirt. So who is the promising first-time writer, I hear you ask. The author is Jim Craig – a man of some mystery. However, my contacts at the Times Literary Supplement have described him as a brooding, handsome, urbane, witty… bald, greetin'-faced QOS supporter of the same genetic stock as Winston Churchill. The truth is indeed stranger than fiction… |
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