Bloody Confused

Bloody Confused!: A Clueless American Sportswriter Seeks Solace in English Soccer by Chuck Culpepper
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I should have been the prime target for this book, since I too am an American who fell in love to the EPL while abroad (though in the UAE in my case, not the UK). I recognized my history of learning about the intricacies of learning about the different concurrent cup competitions and histories of the league. So why don't I love this book?

Because Culpepper is the worst sort of fan: it isn't enough that he loves his sport, he has to tell you constantly why your sport is worse. I have grown to love soccer more than the football I grew up watching, but I don't think people who prefer football are stupid or wrong for preferring their favorite sport. Culpepper, from the evidence here, does think that Americans who watch American sports are stupid.

He is also the worst sort of expat American: the one who is constantly going on about how America is worse than where he is now, and won't shut up about it. America has problems, I don't deny it. But it also has lots of good point too. It is hardly the backwards cesspool he seems to think it is. And England, like all places populated by humans is hardly perfect.

There are two excuses for all this: one, that the author talks about at length, is that he was burned out from years of being a sportswriter and having to cover the worst parts of American sports with not being allowed professionally to enjoy the positive aspects of fandom.

The other is probably just the result of all this being so new to all this. It is a common failing of new expats and fans to fall too much in love and not see the problems with their new obsession. I wonder if Mr. Culpepper wrote a book about the next 10 years of his fandom (the book is about the 2006-7 season) if it would not be much more interesting and balanced, especially considering the difficulties that his chosen club, Portsmouth, has experienced since then (three more seasons in the EPL, then relgated again and again and again to the fourth level of the English pyramid, entering administration to avoid liquidation, not being able to pay its players, etc.) and the current resurgence (last year they won their league and were promoted to the third level and are currently on course to be promoted again).

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