Bah. Just as the Odense fiasco represented more than just another defeat, so too did last night’s pathetic exit from the FA Cup. Nobody’s pretending it’s easy to go to Everton and get a result – if it was we’d manage to get points there once in a while – but there’s something horribly wrong about these disjointed farces. It’s great when the team’s firing on all cylinders – we look terrific – but there is no middle ground. We’re almost always either useless or terrific. Why?

Martin Jol’s transition is not going to happen any more quickly because we’re fed up with it, but at some point there has to be a recognisable plan in the team. What on earth were they doing last night? Clint Dempsey hardly touched the ball. Bryan Ruiz might as well not have been there. AJ responded to his target man role with predictable ineffectiveness (just how dim is this tactic? Long goal kicks aimed at AJ? Is he merely following orders?). These are our game changers – shouldn’t we have a way to make them effective? Or even get them on the ball?

Increasingly it seems harsh to blame the players. They operate within a framework outlined by the coaching staff, and remain thoroughly unable to find space in dangerous areas. We have players who can see and exploit space when it is there, we just never create it. How many good saves were required of Tim Howard last night? Our goal came from a penalty kick.

At the other end Everton poured forward and at one point secured 87 consecutive corner kicks. They battered us aerially and of course scored that way twice: Landon Donovan whipped in two crosses, the first headed in by Stracqualursi (easily beating the recalled Aaron Hughes), the second (in the second half) by the towering Fellaini, who had cleverly isolated himself on Stephen Kelly well beyond the far post. Both headers dropped into the net not particularly quickly, and for the first at least (I’m not picking on him, honest) Stockdale surely should have been more nimble in getting something on the ball.

But again, it’s the context of the defeat as much as the result that is so frustrating. The big clubs are knocking each other out of the competition and once more it seems likely that some unfancied club will have a good run. It should have been us last year – that home defeat against Bolton! – and could have been again this time around. Everton away was a horrible draw, but we still might have done more.

It isn’t about effort. With a small pitch filled by 22 highly trained atheletes the potential for stalemates in various areas is high. This is what we saw a good deal of, and at times our players did look a little short on pizzazz. Again, though, I don’t know that it has much to do with effort, more a general and dispiriting rudderlessness in which the players are somehow expected to rise above this bizarre fogginess that surrounds so much of what they are trying to do.

Put it this way: we’re playing WBA in the week. What do you expect from Fulham then? A 4-0 win? A 2-1 defeat? Frankly it is impossible to guess.

Trouble was I didn’t know what. Looking over the fiction shelves was merely a reminder of how many books I already have but have not yet read. I could imagine the devil on my shoulder cackling down: “what, you think you’re going to live forever or something? You’ll never read what you’ve already got, and now you want more? Sheesh.” And in the end that devil won out.

We read fiction to both reinforce and extend our world view, I think. We are of a certain mindset, more or less, and look for authors who speak to that mindset, then give us something we haven’t already considered. Or put another way, we take their work and put ourselves into it.

So when I read Jim Dodge’s fantastic “Not Fade Away” again I know that I’m dealing with a writer who shares a lot of my own values, telling a story that I am going to enjoy listening to in a way I wouldn’t if it were written by someone I don’t like or agree with.  Philip Roth taps into my, ahem, hidden male and sees the world through that particular lense: it’s not me in those stories, but he’s taking a part of me and putting it into another universe, and it’s interesting to see how this plays out (in real life – if you’re in any way reasonable – you can’t do some of the things Roth’s characters do, but it’s a good window into what it might be like to try). John Updike’s Rabbit books are an excruciating portrait of a narcissistic twerp, but luckily for me I read them at my most narcissisticly twerpish phase and realised that it perhaps wasn’t just me who had it in him to be like this, gave myself a break and ended up back on a path that leads me to where things are now. John Updike really did change my life. Edward Abbey’s characters have similar beliefs to me, but while I think it’s a shame about the environment, they destroy building sites and blow up dams to make their point more forcefully. Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe is so well written as to again make me feel I could be him. So I read Marlowe and thrill to his ups and downs. It’s true: I wish I were him.

Reading – if you choose the right books – does this. There is a eurotrance band called Oceanlab who have a song that contains the line “and it feels like me, on a good day” (a phrase since copied/borrowed by a company selling anti-flatulence tablets, I think), and that’s about it, taking the character traits you value in yourself and stretching them into another character and another situation and playing the whole thing out expertly.  It reassures and excites, and is why I continue to read and continue to buy books, even when the shelves are already double-stacked.

So 36, which finally feels like middle age. (I’m also reading Marcus Berkmann’s excellent “A shed of one’s own”, on this very subject).  We have a son, a nice son so far, and we’re pleased about that. I have an alrightish job, I cycle to work a couple of times a week (and therefore get the exercise that keeps me sane) and I’m still able to watch Fulham with reasonable frequency.

(Football is odd, in that it’s at once far less important (it doesn’t really matter what happens) and just as all-consuming as it has been. It’s very hard to put yourself in the shoes of a modern footballer like you might a character in your favourite books, so that side of things is tricky.  I do think this explains Roy Hodgson’s appeal – Roy had a lot going for him that I admired and wanted to take in, too – and perhaps Martin Jol’s wishy-washy place in our affections: who is this man?)

So I dunno. Part of becoming what you are (as Juliana Hatfield questioned way back in the 90s) is acceptance and a gradual reversion to what you’ve always been and wanted to be all along.  So you start off well when you’re young, do things that are fun and interesting, gradually get bent out of shape by the big mean world for 20 years or so, then go about trying to bend yourself back into the original you (Scott Fitzgerald talked about the same thing in the Great Gatsby, although there was a big difference: his characters didn’t want to get back to what they were; they were desperate to be something else).  I think that at 36 the unbending is going quite well, all things considered, and again, this is where the fiction comes in. As you go through this unbending you are guided by the voices of older, wiser people (here, authors), people who can see the human condition for what it is and who can steer you along the road you want to travel down.

Or as DJ Shadow put it on Lost and Found:

 
Get high get above yourself
Look down upon yourself
Until you’re inside o’ yourself
Look to the front or the back o’ yourself
 
To the back or front of yourself
It’s inside yourself
And then you see your own head
And know yourself is yourself
 
’cause when you find yourself
You’re gonna find that yourself
Is only yourself
And the self that can only be yourself
 
So when you’re in front of the back of yourself
You’re gonna find that your mind
Is in the center of yourself
And god is nothing but yourself
 
And when you reach for yourself
You’ll know that yourself
Is the only thing that can happen to yourself
So that nothing can put you down

Indeed.  In the end I didn’t buy a book. I held Ronald Reng’s Robert Enke biography in my hand for a long time but ultimately put it back. Another day.

My friend Matthew and I tried to get a grant for a similar scheme a few years ago, possibly using Sir Roy as a figurehead, but we were turned down (for reasons that were probably very unfair) and “Roy’s Reads” never did make it.  However, here we are, and here’s what we’re reading:

Theo Walcott (Arsenal)
Children’s book: TJ and the Hat-trick by Theo Walcott
Adults’ book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling

Comment: Pah! Theo plugs his own book and then possibly the least original suggestion for an adult book imagineable. Not a great start to our list.

Barry Bannan (Aston Villa)
Children’s book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: David Beckham: my side by David Beckham

Comment: Barry starts well with some Roald Dahl – fine idea – but lets himself down with the Beckham. He’d have been better off putting another Roald Dahl up there.

Ryan Nelsen (Blackburn Rovers)
Children’s book: Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck! by Kyle Mewburn
Adults’ book: The Marks of Cain by Tom Know

Comment: Fair play to Nelson – haven’t heard of either of these.  The blurb for the Marks of Cain goes:

The gripping new high-concept thriller from the author of The Genesis Secret, perfect for fans of Dan Brown and Sam Bourne.

In America a young man inherits a million dollars, from a grandfather he thought was poor. Meanwhile, across Europe old men and women are being killed, in the most barbaric and elaborate of ways. And a brilliant scientist has disappeared from his laboratory in London, taking his extraordinary experiments with him.

Tying these strange events together is an ancient Biblical curse, a medieval French tribe of pariahs, and a momentous and terrible revelation: something that will alter the world forever. One couple is intent on discovering this darkest of secrets, others will kill, and kill again, to stop them.

Shifting from the forgotten churches of the Pyrenees, to the mysterious castles of the SS, to the arid and frightening wastes of Namibia, Tom Knox weaves together astonishing truths from ancient scripture and contemporary science to create an unputdownable thriller.

Oh.

Stuart Holden (Bolton Wanderers)
Children’s book: The Twits by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Comment: Again, high marks for the Twits – another fine book – but the Alchemist is… well a bit… what am I trying to say… oh I don’t know.

Josh McEachran (Chelsea)
Children’s book: Mr Messy by Roger Hargreaves
Adults’ book: El Diego by Diego Maradona

Comment: Josh keeps it simple with a Mr Men book (clever, in that it’ll lead the reader onto others in the series), then suggests we read up on Diego Maradona. I don’t know about that but perhaps it’s a half-interesting choice.  I haven’t read it, and would imagine that Jimmy Burns’ book is better, but again, nobody asked my opinion. It’s Josh’s choice.

Tim Cahill (Everton)
Children’s book: BFG by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: The Smell of Football by Mick Rathbone

Comment: a pattern is emerging isn’t it?  BUT, Cahill has done what others haven’t and come up with something interesting sounding:

When Mick Rathbone signed for Birmingham City as a 16 year-old apprentice he was living every schoolboy’s dream. But when he discovered he was so nervous he was unable to speak, let alone pass the ball, in the presence of his boyhood hero and City star Trevor Francis he realised that a career in football might not be everything he had imagined. The Smell of Football is the brutally honest and utterly unputdownable story of how ‘Baz’ conquered his personal demons to build a life in the game – from the terrified teenager who purposely tried to get injured in training rather than get picked for the first team, to the experienced pro who became Head of Medicine at Premier League Everton FC in charge of the treatment of the likes of Wayne Rooney, Louis Saha and Tim Cahill. Brilliantly written and packed with hilarious tales featuring a football ‘who’s who’ cast of characters – from Sir Alf Ramsey and ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce to David Moyes, Duncan Ferguson and Rooney himself – The Smell of Football is an engrossing and moving memoir that covers every aspect of the professional game and gives an unprecedented insight into what life is really like at football’s coalface.

Sounds good.

Mark Schwarzer (Fulham)
Children’s book: Megs and the Vootball Kids by Neil Montagnana-Wallace and Mark Schwarzer
Adults’ book: Destined To Live by Ruth Greuner

Comment: Mark goes for one of his own (shameless!) then something about the holocaust. Goodness.

Charlie Adam (Liverpool)
Children’s book: Quack! Quack! by Roger Priddy
Adults’ book: May I have your attentions please? by James Corden

Comment: Oh for f*ck’s sake.

Owen Hargreaves (Manchester City)
Children’s book: The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
Adults’ book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Comment: Expected more from Hargreaves.  Fine children’s choice, bland adult choice. Next.

Chris Smalling (Manchester United)
Children’s book: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
Adults’ book: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Comment: Smalling expects more of his children: where Walcott made Harry Potter his adult choice, Chris believes this will work in the other category, too.  Dan Brown? Must try harder. If you’re going to select someone from your squad who’s a ‘reader’, why not get someone who reads?

Mike Williamson (Newcastle United)
Children’s book: Meg and Mog by Helen Nicoll
Adults’ book: Bob Wilson’s Ultimate Collection of Sporting Lingo by Bob Wilson

Comment: See above. Bob Wilson’s Ultimate Collection of Sporting Lingo?  What?

David Fox (Norwich City)
Children’s book: The Gruffalo’s Child by Julia Donaldson
Adults’ book: Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre

Comment: Ah, okay. This is interesting. Hats off to Fox for coming up with something interesting sounding, not about football and not completely obvious.  It’s between him and Cahill at this point, then.

Joey Barton (QPR)
Children’s book: The Witches by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: Dracula by Bram Stoker

Comment: A canny choice, something that people will be able to identify with but perhaps haven’t read before. Roald Dahl is obvious but safe: fine books, silly man.

Carlo Nash (Stoke City)
Children’s book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: Family Adventures in Style by Dr Jill Nash and Carlo Nash

Comment: Jesus wept…

John O’Shea (Sunderland)
Children’s book: Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: The Runaway Jury by John Grisham

Comment: alright, not my cup of tea but I imagine Grisham books are perfect for long away trips, etc. I can see this.

Leon Britton (Swansea City)
Children’s book: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Adults’ book: An Idiot Abroad by Karl Pilkington

Comment: er. Okay. Fine.

Niko Kranjcar (Tottenham Hotspur)
Children’s book: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
Adults’ book: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Comment: Good choices, nothing too ‘out there’ and while I had hoped Niko to come up with some interesting sounding book from his homeland, this is a fine (if obvious) recommendation.

Paul Scharner (West Bromwich Albion)
Children’s book: The Gruffalo’s Child/The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Adults’ book: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Comment: No wonder Roy has been after him for a while.  Dumas doesn’t seem enormously respected but I love his books (although I haven’t read this one).  Good choice, if a little intimidating (it is a massive, massive book).  In that sense, given the point of this exercise, he’s showing off a bit, isn’t he?

Chris Kirkland (Wigan Athletic)
Children’s book: Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
Adults’ book: Thinking Outside the Box by Brad Friedel

Comment: righto.

Stephen Ward (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
Children’s book: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Adults’ book: Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Comment: And that’s that.

Well done Tim Cahill, Niko Krancjar and David Fox.  Otherwise, what have we learned?  Me, I’m going to dig out Paul Scharner’s Dumas, but then will probably put it straight back on the shelf.  One day…

What do you think?