Big Mac Attack (Made for Rugby: The Autobiography - Barrie McDermott)

Member Name: SWSt

Product:	Made for Rugby: The Autobiography - Barrie McDermott
Date:	29/09/08 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting and honest

Disadvantages: Not much evidence of Barrie's great sense of humour; only of interest to Rugby League fans

Most of you are probably scratching your heads right now and thinking Barrie McDermott? Who on earth is Barrie McDermott? On the other hand, if you're a Rugby League fan, you'll immediately recognise him as a player who had great success with Oldham, Wigan and Leeds, as well as winning a number of caps for Great Britain. Not bad for someone who only has one eye, as a result of a childhood accident.

It's fair to say that Barrie McDermott has a bit of a reputation as a "hard man" on the field; a player who has been sent off and banned more times than he cares to remember. What's interesting and refreshing about McDermott's autobiography is how honest it is. Many sports biographies gloss over the truth and try and put a positive spin on everything, always making the subject the victim of events and problems caused by other people. McDermott tries to tell the truth as much as possible. He freely admits that sometimes he deliberately started fights or that he was entirely to blame for many of the incidents throughout his career and doesn't try to make a martyr of himself. This honesty runs though the book and you always feel that you are getting the truth (at least as far as he sees it), rather than a "sanitised for publication" version.

Similarly, he openly admits that there are plenty of people in the game he doesn't get on with (including some of his own team mates.) Again, many sports biographies claim that everyone they have ever worked with is great. McDermott not only tells us the players he doesn't like, but also tells us why. He gives us the ins and outs of why particular coaches were sacked or certain behind the scenes incidents at Leeds that made the national press. Often, we've only head the "official" line on these events before, so it makes it very interesting reading to find out what really went on from someone who witnessed them first hand.

It's clear that this book is a real labour of love for McDermott. It's not a cash-in designed to make him some easy money before he retired, but a genuine attempt to tell his life story from his working class upbringing in Oldham through to the pinnacle of his career, representing Great Britain. This gives the narrative a natural human element which immediately grabs your attention. At the same time, it's clear that because McDermott is so passionate about the game, he wants to help other people too, so it's scattered with advice and tips to other would-be players - often recognising his own mistakes and urging others not to make the same ones!

The book has an interesting and, on the whole, logical structure to it. It is more or less a chronological run through of McDermott's career, starting with his childhood and moving forward. This gives the book a nice structured feel to it, which makes it easy to dip in and out of. At the same time, the book occasionally breaks out from this chronology to consider other matters, such as the importance of his family etc. This could have made the book seem clumsy and disjointed, but actually it has the opposite effect - it prevents it from becoming stale by suddenly introducing new, interesting elements, before returning to the more traditional timeline narrative.

Importantly, Made for Rugby is not just full of facts and statistics and dates. Although there are plenty of those, McDermott obviously feels the need to tell his side of the story and as such, it is packed with personal opinions, ideas and anecdotes. This makes it a far more interesting read than if it were just a straightforward run through of his career, because you really do get a sense of what makes the man tick, what motivated him on the field, and just why he got into so many scrapes on and off the field.

The book is pretty well written and there is an interesting style to it which makes you want to read on. It reads very much like a conversation, rather than a formal piece of writing, which aids its readability - a more formal structure might have stifled the accessibility of the book and led to it becoming a procession of facts and figures.

Although the book has an interesting, readable style, I was disappointed with how serious it is at times. Barrie McDermott is a naturally very funny bloke - witty and good at banter. If you ever see him interviewed, he was always ready with some humorous remark. So, when I picked up the book, I was really looking forward to an honest and funny read. Sadly, the humour in the book is sorely limited. Whether this is the influence of his co-author (a journalist) or whether Barrie himself feeling he ought to be a little more serious, I don't know, but it's definitely a lost opportunity. Readable though the book is, it would have benefited from Barrie's natural sense of humour.

Of course, as this is an autobiography of a sportsman, you also get quite a few anecdotes about drunken antics and pranks on team mates. The trouble with these is, however funny they might be at the time, they are very much things where you have to witness them yourself. Having someone recount them to you second hand just leaves them feeling flat and unfunny. Indeed, the feeling you are left with is that the pranks are very childish and that a bunch of grown men really should know better. Thankfully, these types of anecdotes are fewer in number than in most sporting books and for the most part, McDermott concentrates on his playing career.

Barrie McDermott was always one of those players I greatly admired- even when he was playing against my team. He always gave 100% to the cause and never took a backwards step. Having now read his autobiography, I have even more respect for him as a bloke and as player. As far as sporting biographies go, Made for Rugby is one of the better examples. OK, it's not going to win any new converts for Rugby League and anyone who hasn't heard of Barrie McDermott is unlikely to find it interesting. For fans of the sport, though, it's an honest, entertaining and interesting read.

Basic Information
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Made for Rugby
Barrie McDermott and Peter Smith
Pan Books; New Ed edition, 2005
ISBN: 978-0330419819

Available new from Amazon for £5.49 or second hand from £2.

© Copyright SWSt 2008

Summary: One of the better Rugby League autobiographies