THE WORLD CUP BABY HAS ARRIVED
Truly different, The World Cup Baby is like no other football book you will read. It manages to be upbeat and humorous but, at the same time, is an engrossing and poignant account of life as a football obsessive.
Written entirely from the perspective of a football fan, this book manages to capture superbly the emotion, toil and thrill of the peculiar and unique culture that surrounds football and helps make it the game of our planet.
Euan McCabe, however, is no ordinary football fan. Born and raised in rugby union-obsessed New Zealand, he discovered football by chance. His story has been a constant battle from the start: Middle-of-the-night football; the frustration of short-wave radio; enduring the Classified Results; fervently supporting a club on the other side of the planet; waiting 14 years before finally seeing his team play live; a lifetime essentially spent alone in search of the most tribal of modern human behaviour.
The author also examines, in his inimitable style, what it is that makes the game of football so great. The low scoring, the contrasting effects and power of a simple drawn match, the shape and symmetry of the game, the way it galvanises people, how it can be first dire and then sublime within minutes, how football must be endured before it can enjoyed.
McCabe’s early perspective of football was reshaped forever when mesmerised by his first sighting of Buenos Aires’ Monumental Stadium during the 1978 World Cup finals tournament.
It kick-started a lifetime obsession with this global phenomenon; the planet’s biggest party, its greatest collective celebration of humanity, an event that redefines television viewing figures, slows production and causes strikes, brings down telephone exchanges, power grids and ticketing computers, and invites millions of people out onto the streets of the world.
But this book is far from a sycophantic rave. The author chooses to celebrate the World Cup more because of its obvious flaws and its unique ability to accentuate the complexities of human nature and engross our planet, as opposed to its more obvious role as a football tournament or sporting event.
Always intense and often hilarious, Euan McCabe tells his unique story in a beautifully written, flowing but discursive fashion that makes this book both compelling and an absolute joy to read.
- “Often hilarious and every word is written with passion…..The World Cup Baby’s point of difference is that you need not be a football fan to enjoy it” – Fred Woodcock, The Dominion Post.
- “Unable to put it down…enthralling” – David Chote, Newstalk ZB football commentator.
- “The most original and entertaining New Zealand book I’ve read in years” – Shelley Carlyle, WholeProof.
- “Often self-deprecating, always observant, McCabe’s writing is intelligent with no shortage of wit, providing enough anecdotes and life experience to entice readers with little interest in the World Cup or football” – Jamie Johnston, The Guide Magazine.
- “It’s the real essence of football stuff…he nails it, not like I’ve seen or read before” – Sam Buckle, co-founder of The Yellow Fever.
A rare photograph of the author,
taken just before male-pattern
baldness began to set in.