"A natural" by Ross Raisin

An audio book. An excellent, ambiguous title.

Tom, 19, was at a premier football club and played for England U-18, but they dropped him. His father supports him strongly. He's with "Town" now a team in the 4th league. He's a lodger in Mr Davy's house. Mrs Davy volunteers at a hospice. Her son Liam (a groundsman) seems interested in Tom who's famous enough to be noticed in the street. He looks at male bodies and is interested in men's emotions. Clark is their stroppy manager. Tom notices the tolerance to racial, sexism, etc. Steven is humiliated by strippers at the club party.

We learn about football life - community visits, chairman-manager conflicts, contracts, christmas parties, fan blogs, tactics, price-lists of fines, etc.

Chris Easter used to play for them, then went to a big team where he flopped, then came back on big money. He's not doing well. His wife Leah doesn't know why he's become solitary. She's doing a design course. They have a little son Tyler. The manager gets someone on loan to replace him. His form improves. Then Chris is injured. Tom sees his more thoughtful side.

A new manager arrives and the team improves. Because of the manager? Because Chris has a long-term injury? Because of the new player on loan? Tom's often not in the team. A new player, Beverly, gets on with Tom. They share rooms when playing away. Liam is nervous about continuing the relationship. Tom stalks him and drink-drives. Then Tom and Liam start meeting. They go for a week in Portugal. Other gays are there. Liam tells his old friend Leah about Tom. Tom's contract is renewed. He gets a house. He and Liam meet there. When his parents come down, he goes through the house removing all trace of Liam and gayness.

New, good, black players arrive. Beverly tells Tom about his girlfriend. When drunk, Tom tells Beverly he's gay. Beverly's understanding - he has a gay cousin. Leah goes away to a design exhibition and wonders about sex with others. Tom is loaned out to a team 2 leagues down and far away. He does well and soon returns to Town. He comes out to his sister. A story on the team's discussion site says that a groundsman had an affair with an ex-player. Fans say that a gay player will attract chants from opposition crowds, and will lose some of their market value. Tom checks to see if the story spreads. He distracts himself with football. The crowd cheer him on - they don't suspect! In the cup they're paired against giants Spurs. "rather be a faggot than a yid," people chant. Fellow player Spenser's genitals are painted black. Tom and Beverley help hold him down. A few days later Spenser leaves the club. Leah wants to separate and start her own company. During the big match, Tom has a chance to score. He feels like a confident schoolboy again.

There's no explicit sex. I'm suprised that Leah doesn't suffer from sexual frustration. I thought she might show more signs of anger or worry. Belatedly she asserts herself. I like soccer, so I was happy to read about the internal politics. Tom has difficult decisions to make and plumps for pragmaticism.

Other reviews

• Jude Cook (Raisin’s speciality is the lone, peripheral, terminally awkward male)
• paceamorelibri (in the second half of the novel, when we start to dive into the meat of the story ... I found that my frustration with Raisin’s narrative choices was beginning to abate. Yes, I still found the soccer talk endlessly tedious, but the criticisms that I’d had ... started to mostly* fly out the window, because it’s impossible to deny how well-crafted this book is ... Chris, and his wife Leah['s] story does dovetail with the central narrative and I do understand the decision to include their point of view, but I’m not convinced that we needed as much detail here as we got.)
• John Cook (I found the book a little difficult initially to get into as Raisin provides an incredible (but entirely believable) amount of detail about this young man’s daily life and routines and the club and family life that surrounds him. ... There are some weak points in the plotting that emerge late in this book but I do not include the conclusion in that assessment)