Underdog is a book that tells the story of Huddersfield Town’s incredible promotion season, where they started tipped for relegation and finished with an incredible playoff final victory and a place in the Premier League.
Raj Bains carried out interviews with David Wagner, Dean Hoyle, the players and the backroom staff to get an interesting look at what was going on behind the scenes last season. The access he managed to get, and the insight from the interviews was the standout thing about this book and justified the cost in my eyes.
Fresh insight into a well trodden story
There’s been a bit of a media circus around Huddersfield Town and the people involved with the club since our promotion to the Premier League, so it’s impressive that Bains managed to get previously unheard information from his interview subjects.
I’ll try not to spoil it, but here are some of the things I got from the book that I didn’t previously know:
- David Wagner initially didn’t want to sign one of last season’s most influential players, but Dean Hoyle encouraged him to take a risk (you’ll have to read the book to find out which player)
- The process and negotiations of the hiring of David Wagner. It was interesting to find out the details of who approached who, what the thinking was, and how Town ended up with their best manager in decades
- The specifics around the approaches other clubs made for David Wagner last season. I’d obviously heard the reports but it sounds like Hoyle did a wonderful job to keep him at the club
- Dean Hoyle thought he would probably have sold the club if we’d not gone up last season because he didn’t think we’d be able to get so close to the top flight again under his stewardship
There are plenty of other smaller details in the book that were interesting to someone that’s interested in Town too. I particularly liked hearing from Brooky the kitman and David Threlfall-Sykes in marketing. Because they’ve been at the club for years they could offer an insight into the changes Wagner brought about that led to the team’s success.
Relive an amazing season
The other thing that the book does is to summarise the remarkable season Town had, with the various highs and lows along the way to that special day at Wembley. Despite Bains not being a Town fan, he manages to capture the emotion and excitement behind the key moments in the season.
I enjoyed looking back at all the matches that took place last season. Because the playoffs were so emotional and fraught it’s the first thing I think of, but the whole season was a great ride and this book was a chance to remember some of the other moments that contributed to Town’s promotion.
Some minor grumbles
Like with any book, it can’t all be positive. I found that the writing style was hard to follow at times. Many of the sentences are long and Bains has a peculiar aversion to the past tense which leads to saying things like “Town did score” rather than “Town scored”. This is probably a pedantic thing to pick up on, but it pulled my focus away from the story at times.
I also think that publishers could have done a better job of putting the physical book together. The text size is huge, which makes it look like a kids book or one of the special books libraries keep in for old ladies with failing vision. I guess this was done to bump up the page count, but I’d have preferred fifty fewer pages and a more reasonable sized font.
My final grumble is about the editor, who let a lot of little mistakes slip into the final copy. This happens in best-sellers that are sold in their millions too, but Underdog has quite a few misspellings or sentences that don’t quite make sense. I wouldn’t blame Raj for this, as a decent editor should pick up the majority of these errors.
Overall rating – 4 out of 5 stars
I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to any Town fan wanting to relive the excitement of last season’s promotion.
Raj Bains shows a skill for getting interesting interviews from his subjects. He draws out genuine insights from the people he talks to, giving the reader a fresh perspective on a story we’re all familiar with.
The quibbles I mentioned above didn’t spoil the book for me, though it’s worth knowing that it’s not perfect. It’s a short book, it tells a great story, and I’m glad that I bought it.
Please note that this isn’t a paid advertisement and is a genuine reflection of my opinions. I bought the book at full price with my own money. Not that there’s anything wrong with free stuff or promotions, but I’ll always be upfront if there’s anything like that going on.