Johnny Cook: The Impossible Job

by Iain Macintosh

Harton Town are in trouble. With three games left before the end of the season, they’re six points adrift at the bottom of the table. They need a hero. They got a delivery driver. And not a particularly good one at that.Johnny Cook is out of shape, out of luck and very nearly out of hair. But it wasn’t always like this. Back in 1986, he was Harton’s hottest young striker for almost twenty minutes before a heavy challenge ended his career on the same night it began.Due to a ridiculous, and yet somehow plausible, series of events, Cook is given the chance to save his old club from the drop. His players hate him, his chairman hates him, and his girlfriend is struggling to recall exactly what it was she ever liked about him.It’s that old-fashioned rags-to-rags, boy-has-girl, girl-doesn’t-like-boy, boy-wants-to-keep-girl, girl-wants-a-boy-who-doesn’t-use-farts-as-punctuation story, juxtaposed against the top level of English football and set to the music of Supertramp. What people (well, football journalists) have said about Johnny The Impossible Job“There’s no other writer quite like Iain Macintosh. I think, on balance, that’s a good thing.” – Jonathan Wilson“He sent me a copy and, I have to say, it’s made the most wonderful doorstop.” – Mark Chapman"Iain Macintosh, having run out of milk, once asked whether it was morally acceptable to put his wife's expressed breast milk – intended for his baby daughter – in his coffee. This book is everything you'd expect from someone like that." – Gabriele Marcotti“It’s not too long, it’s got football in it and there are some rudimentary penis jokes. What’s not to like?” – Patrick Barclay

Genres: Football, Sports, Fiction

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Toby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Always backup your reviews, always write them in a different drafting space, otherwise Amazon will eat them.

Published by the people behind the most excellent Football (soccer) Quarterly, The Blizzard (theblizzard.co.uk), this is one of those rare adult oriented football-centric novels. Part fantasy, part fan fiction, part coming of age drama, part stupid attempt to make everyone and everything a caricature for "comedic" purposes.

Macintosh writes a page turning story of the extreme underdog in the kind of absurd situation that you need to understand is deliberately absurd before you open the book otherwise you've already lost half the battle of enjoying the novel. Johnny Cook is such an everyman that you can't help but identify with him, his attempts to change his entire life and save a football club from relegation in the space of two weeks so earnest that you can't help but want him to find success. That is the skill of Macintosh here but the rest of it is all a bit weak really.

His characters are all caricatures and they are all ramped up to eleven, his plot can hardly be accurately labelled as such and he goes for the obvious "joke" every time. There are seemingly two kinds of comic authors, the type who can write the humour in every situation if needed and the kind of forces the humour in to every situation whether needed or not. Macintosh is that kind of writer. Somebody else compared him to Ben Elton and it's quite the apt comparison because Elton's fiction is also flimsy, full of obvious jokes and tired caricatures.

There's definitely a market for the adult oriented football related sub-genre but I think it needs a little more substance and a lot less toilet humour.

[Mahlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are familiar with the Football Manager universe you know that the game has inspired a lot of fanfiction over the years. Iain McIntosh writes some of the best.

In An Impossible Job he imagines that one time wonder kid turned delivery van driver johnny cook is the only one who can save his former club Harton Town from imminent relegation. Can he do it? Read on and find out.

[Diego Guerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly don't remember the last time I had this much fun with a book! This is an easy reading, heartwarming story of an improbable man given the chance to try to save an apparently doomed club from relegation.

Johnny Cook was once a promising player whose career ended abruptly due to an horrific injury is his debut back in 1986. Fast forward 26 years and Cook is now a bored van driver, living an unsatisfying life where football had long ceased to be of importance - but all of this changes when, under truly hilarious circumstances, Cook becomes the most shocking managerial appointee of all time and gets a chance back into the game to manage his former club, Harton Town, for the last 3 games of the season.

This may sound almost too good to be true for Cook, if only Harton were not actually a bit of a poisoned chalice: on the brink of relegation with 3 games to go, barely no coaching staff left and owned by an eccentric and impatient Turkish man called Volkan.

The story takes place in an alternative reality where Harton Town is a club that has been playing in England's top division since the 1970's and where Jerome Foster, not Rio Ferdinand, is the experienced centre back who used to play for England and Manchester United and is now nearing the end of his career at a relegation threatened club. Indeed, Iain Macintosh reveals great talent in creating fake player names, something which he may have learned with Football Manager regens... And if you're into football and FM as much as I am (and Iain, clearly), then you may also find yourself laughing at the mention of "Chelsea's January signing Sulley Akaminko".

However, that alternative reality, hilarious as it is, also resemble real life in many ways - Manchester United still have won the 1999 European Cup with a late goal, Liverpool "haven't been good in years" and well, QPR are fighting against relegation. More importantly, this is a world where all the little clichés of the game we love are in some way or another part of it - the merciless press, the fickle fans, the confused football pundits, the big game speeches - all thrown into this slightly surreal scenario with good doses of witty sarcasm. It also reminds us that football managers, as much as we football fans often choose to ignore the fact, also have personal lives and personal struggles out of the game - and Cook's is also a key part of this book.

It is unlikely that we will ever see anything like it in the Premier League, but Iain Macintosh has written a story that any football fanatic should enjoy reading. It's not too long, it's easy to read, funny, smart and leaves you wondering why 'football fiction' is not an actual literary genre.

I demand a sequel!

[Ragnar Liaskar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy and funny entertainment for football and football manager fans. Macintosh on his best from the start, but it was a game of two halves, and he didn't convert in the 2nd. Would still recommend it for fans of english football that want a laugh.

[Ian Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy but fun read with a gripping story leaving you wanting to know more.

[José Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarante narración en la que un perfecto don nadie acaba al mando de un equipo de fútbol en la Premier League inglesa. Resulta entretenido siempre que te guste mínimamente el balompié.

[Steven Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is not a huge amount you can say about this book. It is not great literature, it doesn't have a great deal of substance to it, it won't get you questioning the meaning of life, the value of relationships, or even, really, the price of success or failure - despite the subject matter (though it does touch on this a little). It does none of these, and it is not terribly original either: the theme being "unlikely person thrust into football management." It is very much in the Roy of The Rovers mould of football writing. However, despite all that, I did find myself being entertained. There is not much to dislike about it - if you like football (if you don't like football you probably won't get on with this, and it is quite a blokey book). It is quite amusing in places and not taxing on the brain - quite good bedtime reading, or if you don't read books except on holiday, and you don't want to be too challenged, then you'll like this. And I honestly don't mean to damn with faint praise. It does what it sets out to do.

[Giuliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Legendary underdog story. Johnny Cook was a promising young footballer whose career was cut short on his debut by a terrible injury.
Twenty-odd years later, while Johnny is driving vans for a living a drinking too much, he finally gets a chance to redeem himself and throw himself headfirst into the world of football once again. A mammoth challenge lies ahead: his team is 6 points adrift with 3 games to go. Will Cookie had what it takes to avoid relegation and keep them in the Premier League?
Read on and find out!
5/5 stars.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rare example of good football-inspired fiction, with the right mixture of fantasy and plausibility and comic, if believable, characters. A good read for those interested on the beautiful game.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant! Roy of the Rovers for adults. With added humour.

In some ways reminiscent of early Ben Elton but without all the rambly bits.

[John Costello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny and enjoyable

[Christopher Bean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

What a great story. Probably one of the best books that I have ever read, it's like your on the football pitch

[Simon Roth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book, if a little light

[Rory Staines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always enjoyed MacIntosh's journalism and appearances on Football Weekly so it's no surprise that I loved this novel which combines an obvious love and knowledge of football with lots of (quite dirty) humour. if you like football or laughing this is the book for you.