A beautifully played game of football and fate

Chief Sports Writer

Saturday 5 May 2012

It is, perhaps, best to paint Ryan Giggs by numbers.

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Review: Hugh MacDonald

In his 39th year, he sprints towards his 1000th appearance for what is routinely called the biggest club in the world. He has won 33 major medals and, if Manchester United claim the Premiership this season, he will have secured more titles than Chelsea, Newcastle and Leeds United have claimed altogether in their histories.

Giggs, then, is the embodiment of a football hero, down to his sponsored boots and super injunctions. He is more than a bit of a lad, more than a passing fad and thus ideal as an object of devotion. He flits through Rodge Glass's novel, haunting the hero with his success and sheer Giggsyism. His spectral presence perversely adds substance to a novel of compulsion and obsession. If Giggs paces the sidelines, occasionally venturing on as a significant substitute, Glass has created a credible central character and lost centre forward in Mike Wilson. The second name is a nod to the original surname of Giggs, who changed his name after his mother divorced Danny Wilson. Glass's Wilson has a similarly fraught relationship with an absent father, plays in the same youth team as Giggs and debuts for the first team alongside the Welsh internationalist.It then begins to go wrong for Wilson, as it starts to go brilliantly for Giggs. An injury ends Wilson's career and starts a descent into alcoholism and gambling addiction. Manchester United is his refuge, if only as a spectator. Giggs is his saviour as idol and tormentor, a reminder of what could have been. As Wilson's life breaks down, Giggs's career takes wings, a compelling dynamic. But Glass offers more.He is convincing on the football-mad dad living his life through his son, the intricacies of life as a future professional and the detachment of the superstar. The story is authentic, pacey. But it speaks of darker things as Glass tunes in and out of the first-person account of an increasingly bereft Wilson, knocking on the door of insanity as Giggs marches on triumphantly. The novel maintains a calm authority amid the bedlam of a football match, a malfunctioning relationship or the disintegration of a personality. Is there anything more chilling than an alcoholic noting a year spent "mostly sober"? Glass skilfully constructs a tale of how a moment can change a life, how the road less travelled can end with a stumble into the gutter. There is nothing dramatically new in the theme, but its execution is strong and there is a powerful pull at the centre of the story. Wilson, used and abused, uses and abuses. He is made vulnerable by personal circumstances and individual failings. His life changed when Giggs misplaced a pass and Wilson was forced into a desperate challenge that ended his career.Wilson is desperately real. Giggs remains under the cloak of celebrity. Yet their lives started along a distinct path. Their talents and experiences were similar if not identical. But their final collision testifies to how violently their paths diverged through fate and a cruciate ligament. Wilson has suffered the fate of all sportsmen – they must die twice, once as a performer and then as a human being – and inhabits the half-life in between. Meanwhile Giggs plays on. His life seems golden, though his private turmoil of an affair with his brother's wife is unspoken. Its notoriety, despite the gagging orders, inhabits a novel that talks convincingly of football but whispers persuasively of much else.Rodge Glass, Tindal Street Press, £12.99Bring Me The Head Of Ryan Giggs

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A beautifully played game of football and fate

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