Book Review: When Falcons Fly by Jon Fawcett
Not every book is written with the intention of it being a Booker Prize winner. Some are written for the pure joy of it, some for cathartic reasons, others for simply recording the day-to-day, the ordinary.
When Falcons Fly on the surface might seem to simply be a record of the football season for a youth team Hartley Whitney U17s.
However, this short packed paperback at less than 100 pages details so much more through the often amusing match reports. In truth, Jon Fawcett’s offering provides a glimpse into the realities of youth football and the wider grassroots level of the game played throughout the country season upon season.
Within its pages readers get an insight into the importance of volunteers who take on all sorts of roles in ensuring that games go ahead, including administration, running the lines, washing kit and not least, simply standing and watching in all weathers.
And talking of weather, the pages reveal the frustration of games being postponed at facilities and on pitches that vary greatly, against a backdrop of shrinking available and affordable venues.
But before you get the idea that football at this level is all very rough around the edges and chaotic on the pitch, it was good to read within the reports some detailing of the tactics the team employed during their games. A modern conceit or the realities of the availability of football on satellite and terrestrial TV as well as that on the internet?
Is there a happy ending for the Falcons? Well there are wins and losses along the way which are all valuable lessons from playing team sport. However, for all the joy this book contains, there is a sadness as another of the realities of the game at this level hits is revealed – participation numbers. With the season at an end, the majority of the squad no longer want to continue and so the team comes to an end.
An inevitability of society in the 21st century? Maybe but against all that – this shouldn’t detract from the book which is an honest and joyful account of the game that in those exceptional circumstances produces our Premier League stars of tomorrow.
Buy the book here
(Publisher: Independently published. June 2024. Paperback: 91 pages)