Review of Believe In The Sign on www.subba-cultcha.com
Mark Hodkinson guides you through te deep dark world of 70s Britian and the mire of lower league football support. It's grim on the terraces!
Sometimes the secret of great oratory is contained in the tiniest details. In Hodkinson's case this is especially true and he has made a great career of observing and reporting on the minutiae of day to day existence, most noticeably amongst the football teams
Believe in the sign is the translation of Rochdale Football Club's motto, emblazoned in Latin across the club badge. Hodkinson follows the fate of Rochdale FC through the murky 1970s and on into the 80s. Against the backdrop of the death of the industrial age, supermarkets swoop into town, vying for each others attention with ever more gaudy spectacles and special offers, the cotton mills close down, and slowly the spectre of colour TV slinks into every home. Hodkinson revels in the details of each personality that crosses his path. From the local shopkeepers facing bankruptcy, to psychotic centre backs and prima-donna strikers, he picks apart every nuance of the characters with a rolling commentary style that would not be amiss emanating from the dank corner of some decaying commentary booth.
The actual football contained within these pages is pretty dire stuff. Rochdale existing permanently on the brink of exclusion from the football leagues, and yet year after year rallying for a final push, often engaged in with the ‘trench spirit’ employed just before going over the top, that somehow manages to let them do it all again the following year. Funnily enough when picking up this book Rochdale were stone last in League 2, yet the moment I started to read the heroic push began, triggered by a demolition of MK Dons they can’t seem to stop winning or drawing… perhaps in their own interests the management should send me Hodkinson’s follow up at the beginning of next season!
Hodkinson is the master of observation, explaining the ritual of the supporter with deft aplomb, from pre-match drinking, through to the etiquette of hooliganism, and onwards to post match drinking, whether in celebration, or far more often commiseration.
They say that the journey is so much more than the event and Hodkinson is the perfect guide to this journey back into the grime stained past. Variously bleak, stark, tear-jerking, yet always underpinned with a black comedy Believe In The Sign is essential reading for anyone who’s ever followed football, or simple anyone who grew up in the 70s.
by Jonathan Sebire, published on 11 Mar 2007.